The show, entitled “Emergency/Emergenze,” signified a shift in the history of exhibition making. Instead of proposing a vision developed by a sole curator – or curatorial team –
Aperto ’93 proposed a rhizomic or cellular model. In this model different points of view related to the then emerging scene, deeply influenced by the process of globalization, underlined the necessity of coexistence and cohabitation and furthermore a fragmentation of the way to think and criticize visual art. Kontova the editor, together with Politi, of
Flash Art Italia and
Flash Art International (www.flashartonline.com), took over the legacy of “Aperto” the section of the
Venice Biennale devoted to emerging artists created in 1980 and inaugurated with a show curated by Achille Bonito Oliva and
Harald Szeemann and then abolished in 1997 by
Jean Clair. The curators altered the emphasis from a mere section into a "show within a show," featuring works by 120 artists including:
Laura Aguilar,
Matthew Barney,
Henry Bond,
Christine Borland,
Maurizio Cattelan,
Collection Yoon Ja & Paul Devautour,
John Currin,
Sylvie Fleury,
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster,
Felix Gonzalez-Torres,
Lothar Hempel,
Damien Hirst,
Carsten Höller,
Sean Landers,
Paul McCarthy,
Gabriel Orozco,
Philippe Parreno,
Simon Patterson,
Charles Ray,
Pipilotti Rist,
Andres Serrano,
Kiki Smith,
Rudolf Stingel,
Rirkrit Tiravanija,
Andrea Zittel,
Wu Shanzhuan, Wang Youshen, Emmanuel Kane Kuei and Botala Tala. Anticipating "the curators’ era,"
Aperto ’93 consisted of 13 sections, each of them managed by then-emerging curators, many of whom are now internationally acclaimed, such as
Francesco Bonami (first Italian to curate the
Whitney Biennial),
Nicolas Bourriaud (theoretician of
Relational Art), Kong Changan, Antonio D'Avossa,
Jeffrey Deitch (director of the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), Thomas Locher, Robert Nickas,
Matthew Slotover (founder of Frieze magazine and art fair),
Berta Sichel and Benjamin Weil.
Critical reception The show became a cult event of the ’90s, managing to frame what was happening at that time.
Artforum published a review entitled "Aperto 93: The Better Biennale". The model of Aperto ’93 is often quoted by curators, and it was a source of inspiration for the 2003
Venice Biennale directed by Francesco Bonami, the first
Moscow Biennale, the second Johannesburg Biennale directed by
Okwui Enwezor, and the first and second
Gwangju Biennale. == Artists in Aperto '93 ==