Join PICA Senior Curator, Eugenio Viola, as he discusses his Australian curatorial debut I don’t want to be there when it happens on Human Rights Day. This day is observed every year on 10 December – the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Emerging from the prevailing tensions and complex socio-political relationship between India and Pakistan, I don’t want to be there when it happens presents a group of artists who convey the psychology of trauma in an era of perpetual conflict.
I don’t want to be there when it happens does not aim to present a simplistic solution, but rather reaffirms the rejection of violence as well as the need for more effective and profound structures that facilitate dialogue through a conscious act of engagement.
Biography
Eugenio Viola, PhD is an Italian Curator and Art Critic and Senior Curator at PICA. Since 2009 he has held curatorial positions at Madre, the Contemporary Art Museum of Naples. From 2013, as Curator at Large, he has been responsible for the research and development of the museum’s collection and co-curated the first Italian large-scale exhibitions of Boris Mikhailov and Francis Alys; a complex Daniel Buren project, conceived in two parts and across two years; and the largest exhibitions ever devoted to the Italian artists Vettor Pisani and Giulia Piscitelli.
From 2009 to 2012, he was the Curator of the museum’s Project Room. During this time he was responsible for presenting “Transit” Project (2009 – 2011), a series of exhibitions and residencies in partnership with institutions from the Middle East as well as an annual performance festival named Corpus. Art in Action (2009-2012).
Eugenio has also worked as a guest curator for several Italian and International institutions, curating amongst others solo exhibitions devoted to: Regina José Galindo (Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany, 2016); Karol Radziszewski (CoCA – Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu, Torun, Poland, 2014); Mark Raidpere (EKKM – The Contemporary Art Museum of Tallinn, Estonia, 2013); Marina Abramović (PAC – Contemporary Art Pavilion, Milan, Italy, 2012); Francesco Jodice (MSU – The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia, 2011); and ORLAN (MAMC – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint Etienne, France, 2007). In 2015 he curated the Estonian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.
He is a scholar in theories and practices related to performance and Body Art and has published and lectured extensively on these subjects. Apollo art magazine has described Eugenio as “one of the most talented and inspirational young people who are driving forward the art world today”.
