Video installation wip (work in progress) - copyright Mazzotta-as/courtesy of Omar Galliani and Leonardo Rotatori, still images - Omar Galliani, The Dream of Eurasia, 2013.
The Dream of Eurasia
987 Testimonial | The Italian Attitude
55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Collateral Events
Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano
Curators: Leonardo Rotatori, Omar Galliani
Artist: Omar Galliani
Promoted by: Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta
Production: Mazzotta Art Selection
We are pleased and honoured to announce that the project has been awarded the Medal of the President
of the Italian Republic, conferred by Giorgio Napolitano.
Philosophy of the Project
The spirit permeating the project is the desire to shed light on the attitude towards cultural exchange
that has historically characterised the Mediterranean civilisations. This entails a consideration of cultural
differences, and of values constructed from experiences that have developped from common roots. Over
thousands of years, a shared and thriving hybrid form of culture has been established, in which Italian
‘know-how’ is an attitude, a distinguishing element and genetic creativeness.
Artist Omar Galliani’s project The Dream of Eurasia. 987 Testimonials. The Italian Attitude, curated by
Leonardo Rotatori, demonstrates this ‘Italian attitude’, both by creating the monumental work The Dream
of Eurasia, and by revealing the method used to achieve it, thus affirming that the Italian ‘genetic memory’
is composed not only of creativity, but also of the practical process that extends from the utopian dream of
the birth of an idea right through to its completion.
In addition to excellence in the arts, Italy continues to demonstrate today a specific ‘genetic’ ability to
converse with the business world and to apply the so-called can-do approach, which is part and parcel of
Italian business practice, with firms that are now, more than ever, the bearers of our culture and representative
of Italy’s constant potential for renewal and progress. In this way, businesses and individuals are
not only able to maintain profitable relations with the East, but can also continue to build a mutual and
rewarding cultural exchange as they have done for thousands of years.
The Dream of Eurasia. 987 Testimonials. The Italian Attitude
The project incorporates an impressive programme (work in progress) that can be followed at www.venicebiennale-
eurasia2013.org. The site documents the fundamental aspects of the evolution of Omar Galliani’s
artwork The Dream of Eurasia, cataloguing all the stages involved in accomplishing the original idea,
which is inspired by daily work and reconstructed in the global world of communication.
Artist Omar Galliani’s contribution to the project The Dream of Eurasia. 987 Testimonials. The Italian
Attitude is once again curated by Leonardo Rotatori, who was also responsible for the previous project
The Other Side of Russia, which in 2011 received the gold medal from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
The Dream of Eurasia
987 Testimonials | The Italian Attitude
Technique, Style and Method
The artist Omar Galliani is the master of a technique and art form that draws on the great Italian Renaissance
tradition, which he uses to defend and represent Italian drawing, casting an ideal bridge from the
present to the past and from the past to the future.
Also involved, moreover, is the capacity to establish a dialogue between European and Asian cultures in a
mutual journey of discovery and understanding, with the artwork in the role of catalyst. In fact, Galliani’s
talent has been recognised in the form of distinguished awards, both in Italy and China, such as ‘Knight of
Arts and Culture’, conferred in 2009 by President Napolitano, and first prize at the 2003 Beijing Biennale,
as a representative of the excellence of Italian drawing.
The project has been named The Dream of Eurasia, because, through the balance between different cultures,
it aims to achieve the ‘birth’ of a new and conscious form of Eurasian DNA, which, based on the
image of a common root, will build a genetic chain grafting 500 variants which will assume the function
of monomers (from the Ancient Greek ‘a part’; a molecule capable of combining with other molecules) or
nucleotides, the elements that make up DNA.
The perfect oval of the face of Eurasia, the main figure in Galliani’s work, represents the millions of unique
faces (the common base of populations) that form the foundation on which the pillar of different cultures,
the outcome of individual experiences, is supported. The project will develop over a period of about two
years, beginning in Venice on 29 May 2013 and evolving along three precise trajectories, each dependent
on the other and connected by a relationship of cause and effect.
The back office activities, known as The Italian Attitude will be shown and shared in a live performance to
stimulate the active participation of each individual, engaged both in involving private Italian firms and
institutions, and at the same time including more than 50 Asian embassies, among them:
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Brunei, Cambodia,
China, Cyprus, North Korea, South Korea, Egypt, the Philippines, Georgia, Japan, Jordan, India, Indonesia,
Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar,
Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, Syria, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Taiwan, Thailand,
East Timor, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen.
Through the real-time publication of documents, videos and photos on the platform venicebiennale-eurasia2013.
org we will show the area of thought, the willingness and the determination to reach the set goal.
Accessibility, Installation and Reportage
Video and photographic material will document the sharing phase with the natural users of the message.
The objective of this operational phase will be the involvement of 987 Asian and Italian Testimonials who
will meet in Venice, and through social activities of the Mazzotta team.
The 987 Testimonials will be actively involved in the programme, in particular as collaborators and consultants,
in an open-source format.
This work process will become educational material for the construction of a social and cultural network
responsible for the diffusion of Omar Galliani’s work of art, which will represent a new ‘Eurasian cultural
genome’.
The popular and participatory character of the installation will be presented in its entirety only in a virtual,
dynamic and interactive format. The 250 diptychs (symbolically, the polymers or polynucleotides that
make up the DNA chain) are works made on wood panels, in which the artist will attempt to redesign the
new cultural genome of the Eurasian individual.
The installation will come to life through the Biennale input, and will be shown as a virtual work in progress,
using the 500 panels that comprise the artwork The Dream of Eurasia as ‘monomers’ or ‘nucleotides’,
along with the images of all the people who have taken part in the project.
The representation of individual differences will be the subject and focus of the work in course, generating
a visual support consisting of individual uniqueness defined by infinite characteristics, in which the
emergence of a common cultural base will be visible.
This experience will be documented in a catalogue published by Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta before December
2013. The catalogue will contain the project’s history in the form of texts, images of the artist at
work, shots of the witnesses in front of the works, and images of the setting-up of the final installation: the
reportage of a journey between Europe and Asia by way of their inhabitants.
Special Thanks to Gabriele Mazzotta
Title: The Dream of Eurasia. 987 Testimonials | The Italian Attitude
Collateral Event of the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
www.venicebiennale-eurasia2013.org
Artist: Omar Galliani
Curated by: Leonardo Rotatori, Omar Galliani
Venue:
Guest House - Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, Fondamenta Duodo o Barbarigo, San Marco, 2504
Stop: Linea 1 - Giglio, direction Lido
Press Preview: 31 May 2013
Dates: 1 June - 30 September 2013
Opening hours: 14.00 - 18.00 (closed on tuesday), free entrance
Catalogue: The Dream of Eurasia. 987 Testimonials | The Italian Attitude,
Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, Milano, will be published in December 2013
Information:
T +39 392 3989949
info@eurasiadream.org
Press Office:
press@mazzotta-as.com
press@eurasiadream.org
To download images of the project please visit:
venicebiennale-eurasia2013.org/presskit/
Terms of use:
Images must be credited with:
- video installation wip (work in progress)
- copyright Mazzotta-as/courtesy of Omar Galliani and Leonardo Rotatori
- still images
- Omar Galliani, The Dream of Eurasia, 2013
Special Event:
Fri, May 31 | 4pm, Press Preview
Artists:
Omar Galliani
Open:Saturday, 01 June 2013
Close:Monday, 30 September 2013
Address:Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, San Marco 2504
Phone:+39 392 39 89 949
Mail:
info@eurasiadream.org
Web:Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta
Opening hour:2 - 6pm
Closing day:Tus
Transport:Line 1, Giglio
Photo credits: Omar Galliani, The Dream of Eurasia, 2013 Eu/2013/n.5 Video installation (work in progress). Still image Copyright Mazzotta-as/courtesy of Omar Galliani and Leonardo Rotatori
