WEISSPOLLACK
GALLERIES
521 West 25th street
ground floor # 9
New York NY 10001
presents
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
LIUBA
Chelsea sabotage
curated by
Irina Zucca Alessandrelli
![](liuba%20mostra_file/image001.gif)
March 9, 2006 – April 8, 2006
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 16, 2006, 6:00- 9:00 P.M.
On March 16, 2006 WEISSPOLLACK Galleries is pleased to present
the first solo show by performance and video artist Liuba in New
York.
Liuba is a young Italian artist who slips into the art world
mechanisms to tease it and its protagonists through ironic
performances. In this solo show she presents videos of the
actions she did during the Venice Biennial (2003), the Italian
Bologna Art Fair (2004) and the SOFA Fair in New York (2005).
In the series called
Virus
the artist is a sort of living sculpture. Dressed in a black
outfit with red dots , the notorious sold stickers, the artist
went to art fairs placing them under several works
under the noses of upset gallerists and stunned visitors. The
sold dot is a universal sign that makes the difference. You
judge a work in another way if it has been sold. Red dot means,
money, eventually power and sometimes fame. The same performance
in Bologna (Italy) and in New York has extremely different
results. Liuba's main interest in doing this provocative
performance is the social aspect of the reactions, a sort of
anthropological point of view. The audience's reaction, in fact,
gives an immediate shot of a country, a people and its issues.
At the SOFA, Liuba generated such angry reactions, that she was
forced by the Show Management to leave the fair. The ironic
aspect of this strong reaction is that security guards spent at
least 20 minutes explaining to her what the red dots mean in the
U.S., then they pushed her out,
confiscating her cameraman's ID and passport, "because people
pay for having a booth
and people pay for visiting the fair," as they kept repeating in
the video. They could not even imagine that she was sticking red
dots on purpose – to the security staff she was a silly woman
acting pointlessly. In Italy the gallerists at the fair were
really annoyed by her, but it was clear to everybody that she
was joking with the art system and it made her actions generally
enjoyable. Liuba's works are based on the direct comparison
between the artist and the audience, the live performance and
the recorded video, the rules and the illegal. (Irina Zucca
Alessandrelli)
For further information and/or
images of Liuba work, please contact David Pollack at
212.989.3708 or email David at
weisspollack@att.net.
www.liuba.net