Work by Alumnus Matthew C. Wilson '13 in Biennale Gherdëina

The 7th edition of the Biennale Gherdëina, this year curated by Adam Budak, features work from alumnus and visual artist Matthew C. Wilson ’13.

Featuring the work of thirty-three artists, the Zënza Sëida Cultural Association and the Biennale Gherdëina first opened the show in early August across the public space of Ortisei, Val Gardena, in the Dolomites. The exhibition is, following the organization’s founding principles of public art, held entirely in public spaces, a quality which Biennale organizers recognize as all too prescient today.

According to the Biennale’s page, “The circumstances of the forthcoming edition are particularly challenging. The pandemic crisis made us aware of the vulnerability of humans and nature. Resilience becomes a paramount urgency; the notions of shared responsibility and a humility as an ethical moderator of interpersonal relations gain a particular importance in an attempt to redefine the agencies of responsiveness and care.”

Curator Burak titled this show – a breath? a name? – the ways of worldmaking, borrowed from Paul Celan’s poem. Within the Biennale there are several other unique projects: Antje Majewski’s “Sculpture Forest Sanctuary” and Josef Dabernig’s “Cinema of Worldmaking.”

Wilson’s work can be found in the“Cinema of Worldmaking” project. Screenings of the work are hosted in the part of the disused Hotel Ladinia.

The seventh Biennale closes on October 20, 2020, and is located in various locations around Ortisei, Val Gardena, Italy.

Wilson is an American artist, filmmaker, and researcher based between the Netherlands and Finland. In his videos, sculptures, and installations viewers meet a range of agents—mercurial materials, sites, non-humans, personae, and inter-subjective entities—that are entangled with natural processes and shape-shifting historical forces. Wilson has been a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program and numerous residencies including the Jan van Eyck Academie, Skowhegan, CSAV - Artists’ Research Laboratory at Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Tabakalera Artistic Research Residency, Terra Foundation Summer Residency.

Wilson is currently a Visiting Researcher/Artist in Residence at Aalto University in Helsinki (see this interview about his research/project). Starting in the fall of 2020 he will teach in the temporary masters program “F for Fact” at Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL.