“Baby 3.0” is the name of Lorenzo Quinn’s new creation, a symbol of rebirth, a tribute to the mystery of life shared by every human being and gives hope for the future.
The artwork will be exhibited in Venice from July 15th to October 31st 2022, curated by Amira Gad, in the garden of Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Granda in San Marco, beautiful and monumental building on the Grand Canal, designed by Jacopo Sansovino, historic site which houses the Metropolitan City of Venice, that has patronized the exhibition, and the Prefecture. A surprising and iconic sculpture that will stand out on the Grand Canal weaving magical reflections with its waters.
“Venice, its rebirth, after the high water of November 2019 and the pandemic, has already started some time ago; Lorenzo Quinn’s new artwork is nothing more than a concrete act that translates the spirit of a community into an artistic creation - is the comment of Luigi Brugnaro, mayor of Venice and the Metropolitan City - It is a pleasure to be able to host the latest work by Quinn, who once again demonstrates immeasurable love for this city“.
Lorenzo Quinn (Italy, Rome, 1966) - figurative artist, internationally renowned, educated at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York - starts now a new phase of his artistic career without abandoning the themes and issues most dear to him, among which the preservation and destiny of the lagoon city, which he has always been deeply related to, and the deepest values of our human nature.
The elements that characterize his sculptures are the power of communication and the directness of their message, especially his monumental works of public art that Quinn has exhibited in many prestigious international contexts, often with charitable and philanthropic purposes. Some of them are Park Lane, Barkely Square and the Cadogan Gardens in London, the courtyard of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, at Casina Valadier in Rome, at the Boboli Garden part of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, at Palazzo Sagredo on the Grand Canal in Venice; moreover, in front of the Church of San Martino in Birmingham, the Cathedral of Palermo, the skyscraper of the Paramount Group in Avenue of the Americas in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Palma de Mallorca; on the seafront of Doha in Qatar, on the roof of the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art with a view of the Huangpu River and, latest installation, at the foot of the Pyramids of Giza.
“Baby 3.0”, in steel mesh and cast aluminum with its 7 meters high and almost 9 meters wide, with the poetry and the evocative force of its forms, will be revealed to the public next July 14th. The sculpture will be also for Venice - that has just concluded the celebrations for its 1600 years - a hope for a new Re-birth.
“Now more than ever - explains Lorenzo Quinn - after the pandemic, faced with the drama of wars and widespread poverty and serious environmental problems, there is a need to reaffirm the value of life, to work for change and for the creation of a new Humanity. This work is a declaration of hope for the future, also for Venice. A baby still in the womb but ready for life”.
Amira Gad, curator and writer based in Rotterdam (Netherlands), has organized exhibitions all over the world and published numerous writings on contemporary art. Previously she worked as a curator also at the Serpentine Gallery in London and at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam; in 2021 she was in the jury of the Prix de Rome Visual Arts and of the Ammodo Tiger Short Awards of the International Film Festival of Rotterdam.
“Baby 3.0 - writes Amira Gad - takes us to our origins to remind us that we all come from the same place: in the womb we are all the same. The woman’s womb is incredible. It is the only bone structure in the human body that has the capacity to extend and adapt in order to bring life. Paradoxically for Lorenzo Quinn’s artistic activity, this 7-meter sculpture is both monumental in size but intimate in the feeling that generates. It invites us to enter a cocoon ... and confronts us with the immensity of the questions that are at its center and which are the essence of everything we do, of culture, science, philosophy, innovation: why were we born? Why are we here? What is our purpose in life? With the title, the artist suggests a better and evolved humanity, a 3.0 version of ourselves to aim for”.
References and suggestions, as typical of Quinn’s works are many: how can we not think of a connection between the woman’s womb who cradles Baby 3.0 in the work of the Italian artist and the San Marco basin of the lagoon city (in italian, both “womb” and “basin” have the same name), which has its “umbilical cord” in the Grand Canal, a sign of the vital relationship between Venice and water, just as water is the source of life?
Contemporary Italian artist, Lorenzo Quinn is a leading figurative sculptor, born in Rome in 1966 to the Oscar Award winning Mexican American actor Anthony Quinn and his second wife, costume designer Jolanda Addolori. While studying at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York, Quinn realized that, of all the arts, his future would be sculpture.
His monumental public art, as well as the smaller, transmit his passion for eternal values and authentic emotions. In particular, many of his most famous works represent expressive reconstructions of human hands: “I wanted to sculpt what is considered the hardest and most technically challenging part of the human body”, he asserts. “The hand holds so much power – the power to love, to hate, to create, to destroy.”
In 1988 Quinn married Giovanna Cicutto, and on the birth of the first of their three sons they decided to leave New York and settle in Spain “for its Latin character, its fervour and values of people and family”, he explains. Quinn’s creative ideas spark quickly into life: “The inspiration comes within a millisecond”, he says, as he is driven to sculpt by observing life’s everyday energy. The work begins as a poetic text, an integral part of the artwork, which is finally visualized with the sculpture.
Over the past two decades, Lorenzo Quinn’s works have been exhibited all over the world. Two of his great works have already met with great success in Venice: “Support” (2017), which represented the hands of a child supporting Ca’ Sagredo in a complaint against the pollution of the city, installed on the Grand Canal and “Give” (2020) in the Uffizi’s Boboli Gardens in Florence.
A monumental installation with a strong impact is certainly “Together” (2021), presented first in Cannes and then in the exhibition “Forever is Now” in Egypt, on the occasion of the first contemporary art event held by the UNESCO site of the Pyramids of Giza. “Force of nature” (2017) in Shanghai, a five-meter work installed on the top of the Museum of Modern Art, which aims to remind us of the great power of nature and what Quinn describes as our “false sense of security” towards it.
