Galleria A plus A announces the opening of the Slow Manifesto exhibition, curated by the participants of the 32nd edition of the course in Curatorial Practices and Contemporary Arts of the School for Curatorial Studies Venice.
The exhibition, open from Wednesday 28 May to Monday 30 June 2025, explores the theme of desire, between manipulation and authenticity, through the works of international artists.
The group exhibition, which takes place in conjunction with the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, brings together, in the spaces of Galleria A plus A, the works of Riccardo Benassi, Thomas Braida, Nina Ćeranić, Numero Cromatico, Petra Cortright, Sylvie Fleury, Esther Gamsu, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Rafaël Rozendaal.
The project arises from the research of the students of the School for Curatorial Studies Venice on the dynamics of conditioning of desire.
In the contemporary era, the manipulation of desire is driven by constant social pressures, which transform it into a control mechanism to fuel consumption. This leads to a crisis of subjectivity: the individual is trapped in a circuit that forces him to reproduce sterile market logics, thus arriving at desiring on command, overwhelmed by external inputs. Desire ceases to be authentic and becomes suggested, packaged, administered. The system, however, is not infallible and the exhibition investigates the ability to question the very meaning of desire and how to free it from external superstructures.
Through video art, painting, and installations, some artists work on waiting and possibility, rather than on immediate satisfaction or the final object of desire. Others instead unmask the language of advertising, politics, and technology, fragmenting the codes and presenting their contradictions.
In a world saturated with stimuli, the exhibition invites the visitor to slow down and reflect as a revolutionary act, escaping the yoke of external conditioning and recovering the right to cultivate an authentic desire.
The exhibition itinerary unfolds on two levels, according to a thematic progression. On the lower floor of the gallery, attention is placed on the experience of a mind stimulated by an environment that recreates the sensation of being in a waiting room overloaded with advertising, in which images, slogans and sounds amplify the tension between authentic and induced desire. Going up to the upper floor, the works on display suggest a more minimal and meditative atmosphere, an invitation to become aware of a different and less chaotic reality, reachable only by physically and mentally distancing oneself from the source of disturbance.
The School for Curatorial Studies Venice was founded by Aurora Fonda and Sandro Pignotti in 2004 in Venice, with the aim of creating an open laboratory for the visual arts and all professions related to contemporary art. The course addresses both the theoretical and practical aspects ‒ with an experimental approach, culminating in a final exhibition organized by the participating students. The course is an ambitious and stimulating project, capable of opening a vision of the complex world of contemporary art and of offering a constructive contribution through the works created by the School and its students.
Slow Manifesto
curated by School for Curatorial Studies Venice from May 28 to June 30, 2025
A plus A Gallery
Calle Malipiero | San Marco 3073 | 30124 Venice
