CODROIPO, ITALY.-On the 19th of April GOD & GOODS. Spirituality and mass confusion, a new large scale group exhibition, will inaugurate the summer season at the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art. Curated by Francesco Bonami and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto, the show aims to present the idea of the sacred and the spiritual through the interpretation of 30 artists. The works of Adel Abdessemed, Victor Alimpiev and Marian Zhunin, Darren Almond, Thomas Bayrle, Cai Guo Qiang, Mircea Cantor, Maurizio Cattelan, George Condo, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Colin Darke, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Fischi/Weiss, Katharina Fritsch, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Subodh Gupta, Huang Yong Ping, Christian Jankowski, Koo Jeong-A, Sarah Lucas, Dan Perjovschi, Susan Philipsz, Richard Prince, Anri Sala, Nedko Solakov, Thomas Struth, Piotr Uklanski, Yan Pei Ming and Arthur Zmijewski underline existential questions, play with the senses and perception of reality and challenge in some cases the mechanisms of beliefs. Art looks at religion from an outside perspective: it can expose the evocative power of an image as well as relate the mythology of consumer goods to holy iconography.

In the past art and religion have been indissolubly linked, considering that only a few centuries ago the artists really freed themselves from the wishes and the necessities of the commissioners. But what is the relationship between art and religion today? Maybe it would be correct to say that they are complementary: one asks questions, the other gives answers. What brings them closer it is not their consequentiality but, on the contrary, their common source of doubt: today subject of art and always at the origin of religion. This exhibition wishes to observe the way in which, through doubt, the artists challenge the stereotypes and the limitations of the concept of God to substitute it with many different and infinite question marks. God and Goods aims to open a dialogue with the topic of religion being it an immense, controversial and unresolved debate but also a concept open to new and various forms of interpretation. This show originates from the principle that God can be Goods, can be What determines things, can be a System, a Force, a Research, a Consequence, an Idea in constant and unstoppable oscillation.

The works of the artists in the exhibition, dated from the late Eighties until nowadays and including also some site specific projects realized for the show, deal with the concept of religion from a series of indirect point of views: they can confront its dictates with irreverence, analyse its systems and dynamics or propose, ironically or not, alternative models.

Among the works presented inside Villa Manin, in Christ you know it ain’t easy Sarah Lucas weaves hundreds of cigarettes to create the figure of a Christ on the crucifix, an irreverent approach to classic religious iconography which questions the meaning of vice and addiction in today’s consumerist society. Also Thomas Bayrle revisits with profane pathos the same Christian symbol, through a collage of small sequences depicting cars running along a motorway in search of an unreachable destination, while Untitled (questions) by Fischli & Weiss raises existential and metaphysical questions as well as vain everyday doubts, reflecting the dimension of uncertainty and fragility of the human condition.

The spiritual tension assumes instead social and political connotations in the video Them by Arthur Zmijewski, where the freedom of expression clashes with the difficult cohabitation of different religious and moral ideals. If Colin Darke proposes a model of alternative belief that connects the artist and its creation as well as political ideology and alienation, Richard Prince is inspired by the legendary tradition of the American cowboy from a famous cigarette advertisement. By taking this iconography out of its commercial context, the artist moulds a new mythology which provides another model of freedom and aspiration. In a different way, Darren Almond creates sublime and transcendent images of nature that call attention to man’s quest to find meaning in the complexity of the universe. A more private and melancholic narrative is that conveyed by the beggar sleeping inside Milan Cathedral in Anri Sala’s video. Here the church, before acquiring any spiritual function, appears as a physical and concrete refuge. The same place of worship is the subject of Thomas Struth’s photography, that analyzes the structure and the mechanisms of belief through an objective vision.

Four interventions are planned in the Park surrounding the Villa by Maurizio Cattelan, presenting for the first time in Italy Frau C., Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Subodh Gupta and Susan Philipsz.

The exhibition GOD & GOODS does not focuses merely on religion but presents a group of artworks that, far from proposing any conclusion, place the individual before all types of question. Like religion, art is fuelled by an urgency and a necessity and this show wishes to read necessity through its elusive sources and indefinable consequences. The exhibition, open to the public until the 28th of September 2008, will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue in Italian and English, with critical texts by the curators and biographical apparatus.