Twenty artists from 10 Countries have been invited to celebrate diving as well as Olympic champion Matt Mitcham. On the occasion of the 2009 World Swimming Championship in Rome, art will meet sport at the “Matt Dive Gold” collective art show organized by Jonathan Turner at the “Lipanje Putin contemporary art” gallery in Rome from July 24 to September 30.
A large group of international artists from Australia, Canada, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Macedonia, Malta, Holland, Spain and the United States will interpret the figure of champion Matt Mitcham, who received the highest score in Olympic history (the fateful Matt 10 Gold), by reflecting on the portrait, the diving figure and the act of diving itself.
Among the artists who will participate in the collective art show are also Terawatt winner Luigi Ontani and Megawatt winner Antonio Riello, the winners of the Terna 01 Prize. Ontani will present the diving art by immortalizing the act of diving in a plastic attitude while Riello will show the public an aerodynamic re-examination of the bathing suits worn by athletes, “Ikea Tartan”.
According to its press release, the exhibition will feature a number of portraits specially made by Australian artists such as John McRae, Renato Grome, William Yang and Maree Azzopardi, a video project by Francesca Martì, paintings on canvas by Jasper Krabbé and Mehran Elminia, a bronze sculpture by Francesca Tulli, art works by New York artists Michele Chiossi (a marble Olympic laurel wreath and neon lighting), Matt Marello (a film on the diver who appears to be involved in a sort of crazy dance) and Antonio Pio Saracino (computer drawings of a house plan for Mitcham), classical photographs of archetypal diving into swimming pools by American artist Tom Bianchi, underwater images by Canadian artist Flora Sigismondi (a famous director of music videos), and the surreal color photographs by Fritz Kok, Mataro da Vergato and Robert Gligorov, the former diving champion of Macedonia. The event is sponsored by FIN (Italian Swimming Federation), the Royal Netherlands Embassy, the Australian Embassy and the Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
2009-07-23
