OPEN, the International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, will celebrate its seventeenth edition from 28th August to 28th September 2014 at the same time as the Venice Film Festival. More than thirty international artists will take part with site-specific projects in the public areas of Venice Lido and the Island of San Servolo.
Conceived and curated by Paolo De Grandis, co-curated by Carlotta Scarpa, the exhibition is organised by PDG Arte Communications in collaboration with the Municipality of Lido Pellestrina and is held under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of the Cultural Heritage, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Veneto Region and the Province of Venice.
At OPEN the combination of sculpture and the environment is an inexhaustible and fascinating theme, thanks to the strong conceptual matrix that is renewed with the aim of presenting the many aspects of artistic expression. The necessary counterpart is the urban spaces and green areas of a territory viewed in the complexity of its anthropological and cultural values.
Over the years OPEN has created a strong genius loci thanks to the presence of countless international artists, who have brought different cultures and traditions to the island, redefining its cultural substratum. And so every year a broad horizon of linguistic experimentation is created, whose options in the case of sculpture have become more and more sensitive to the choice of materials, whether they be those of traditional sculpture or something more akin to industrial production, right up to installations that can undergo the most surprising processes of re-semantisation.
At OPEN, sculpture, installation and environment compete on a parallel plane susceptible to the artist's personal vision, in a conceptual and poetic path able to contend with certain ritual and symbolic aspects of public spaces.
OPEN's research is therefore free from any preconceived or somehow acquired methods of communication and language, but it develops in progress, taking on all the risk of the result.
OPEN seeks to define certain ambits, certain contexts that enrich this art factory, declined not only in the canonical form, but also in those border areas where creativeness has to contend with communication, its mechanisms and its aims.
Among the many possible interpretations there is the continuous alternation of sensitivity in imagining contemporary art and the fil rouge of collaboration between artists, curators and promoting bodies that share exciting artistic synergies. Collaboration among curators is renewed with Chang Tsong-zung for China, Ebadur Rahman for Bangladesh and Yang Wen-i for Taiwan. In particular, young artists from the National Taiwan University of Arts will be presented, along with an educational project that will be held with a workshop for children between 4 and 10 years of age. There will be an opportunity of exchange between Taiwanese and Venetian children to learn and experiment the techniques of calligraphy.
A documentary organised and produced by Marco Agostinelli will talk about the great challenge of OPEN and the man behind it, Paolo De Grandis. During the inauguration the artist Iris Brosch will do a performance with a video shot in the Isola di Poveglia.
During the exhibition the fifth edition of the Laguna Art Special Prize will be assigned to a young artist selected by the Laguna Art Prize jury. This award will offer the winner the possibility to be included among the finalists of the Laguna Art Prize 2015 and to show his or her work on the circuit organised by the same association.
OPEN renews the osmosis between different cultural words, it creates itself in the open air through spontaneous and interactive movements.

ARTISTS
Bangladesh - Avi Shankar Ain
Germany - Irene Anton, Iris Brosch, Federico Schiaffino
Great Britain - Mark Aspinall, Tim Ellis
Italy - Marco Agostinelli, CaCO3, Roberto Cambi, Luciano Chinese, Eracle Dartizio, Duilio Forte, Flavio Marzadro, Miresi, Fabio Ranzolin, Maria Teresa Sabatiello, Wolfgang Zingerle
Norway - Andrew Barton
The Netherlands - Erik Wijntjes
Peru - Ana Maria Reque
Russia - Sasha Frolova
Spain - Manuel Martí Moreno, D S León
National Taiwan University of Arts - CHEN Ting-Chang, CHIU Fang-Yi, KOU Che-Yin, LAI Mei-Ju, LIN Yu-Chen, LU Ching-Chen, Tanes Naipanich