21.03.2025 \\ 24.05.2025
Fondazione Morra Greco is proud to present Lavoro per Natura Vivente, non solo Capitali dedicated to american artist Peter Fend, curated by Massimiliano Scuderi.
The project is the culmination of two residencies the artist completed at Fondazione Morra Greco throughout 2024: for the occasion, Fend has had the chance to create never-before-seen works while interacting vigorously with the lively cultural context of both the city of Naples and the Campania region.
The exhibition is co-financed with funds from Piano Strategico Cultura e Turismo 2024/2025 – Progetto Global Forum Mostre d’arte contemporanea EDI 2024 of the Campania Region.
The curator’s word
Peter Fend’s research begins in the late 1970s, focusing mainly on planetary survival. Embarking on different work trajectories, he found major correspondences with Leon Battista Alberti’s four books of architecture for a better improvement of the technology of a city (or any inhabited area),the quality of its air, water, circulatory space and defense.
The notion underlying his comprehensive work stems from the idea that the world is a living construction site, where the tools of contemporary art can prove fruitful in the development of natural resources. Fend seeks to adopt concrete solutions that can respond to the environmental problems that plague the Planet, well beyond the art system.
In the 1980s Fend founded, along with artists and activists from a wide range of backgrounds, the organization Ocean Earth. The organization was conceived as a means to fully implement the goals of the environmental art movement, directly built on the ideas of artists such as Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark. Specifically, Ocean Earth is concerned with researching alternative energy sources through the use of satellite imagery, beneficial to the analysis of global hotspots – both ecological and geopolitical.
Throughout his career, Fend has also dealt with watersheds around the world in order to save them from pollution. His work, in many such cases, consists in surveying and monitoring the condition of basins using maps and satellite images, while also collecting materials and substances through special instrumentation designed by fend himself to grow giant algae. The projects and all the resulting operations – aimed at the production of fuels with low environmental impact such as methane and hydrogen,, as well as other alternative energy sources – also result in economic and socio-political spillover effects on the local communities, as they induce the development of new, autonomous communities and production centers, capable of generating sources of self-sufficient income and employment.
Fend is particularly fond of Italy, where he has carried out multiple works on exploiting the potential of the sea and hydrological basins. According to the artist, Italy and all the countries bordering the Mediterranean and the Oceans can benefit greatly from water.
Peter Fend’s research has always touched on issues that are paramount to pay close attention to, today more than ever. From an organic perspective, Peter Fend points us to a “return to the sea, to the river” as the rebirth of civilization.
Massimiliano Scuderi
Artist’s bio
Peter Fend, born in 1950 in Columbus, Ohio, is an American artist and architect known for his interdisciplinary approach that blends art, ecology, and geopolitics. In his work, Fend strongly advocates for the engagement of art in the public sphere, using his research to propose solutions to a range of environmental and geopolitical issues and re-imagine a balance between social and natural world. In 1980, in collaboration with several artists, Fend founded Ocean Earth Construction and Development Corporation, both art collective and company committed to exploring strategies of land management and use of satellite imagery for ecological and political purposes.
His work has been exhibited at relevant landmarks, such as: Venice Biennale (1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2005), Documenta in Kassel (1987, 1992), Sharjah Biennial (UAE, 2007), São Paulo Biennial (2001), Liverpool Biennial (2004) and in numerous exhibitions for international institutions, including Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2020), Bard Hessel Museum, New York (2018), MUMOK, Vienna (2015), Galerie für Landschaftskunst, Hamburg (2007), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2004).
Curator’s bio
Critic, curator and architect, Massimiliano Scuderi is currently artistic director of Fondazione Zimei and Spazio A SUD. He has collaborated on international projects with Fondazione Per L’Arte in Rome, Fondazione Capri and multiple cultural institutions, both Italian and foreign (Bolit – Girona, Le Lait – Albì, Es Baluard – Palma De di Maiorca, MNAC – Bucharest, MIC etc.). From the nineties up until the first decade of the two thousands he worked on the exhibition Fuori Uso. A former Lecturer in History of Contemporary Art at various Italian universities, he has carried out research projects both in Spain and France at Le Consortium in Dijon with Xavier Douroux. His recent curatorial projects include Pickpocket – an exhibition conceived in collaboration with artist Renata Lucas – and Supernova, with Elisabetta Trincherini.
He curated exhibitions and projects of artists and architects such as Vito Acconci, Peter Fend, Gordon Matta Clark, Claire Fontaine, Ettore Spalletti, Berenice Olmedo, Liza Bear, Philippe Rahm, Gaëlle Choisne, Renata Lucas, Hans Schabus, Atelier Bow-wow, Luca Vitone, Maurizio Mochetti, Getulio Alviani, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Celine Condorelli, Alfredo Pirri, Zafos Xagoraris, Mark Dion, Franck Scurti, Julius Koller, Andreas Ragnar Kassapis, Adriano Costa, Flavio Favelli, Gianni Pettena, Pedro Barateiro, Bob and Roberta Smith, Francesco João, Alek O., among others.
Author of books, essays and articles, he has collaborated with italian and foreign magazines, such as Flash-Art, Arte e Critica, Exibart, Artribune, Abitare, Area, Contemporary and Alias de Il Manifesto, among others. For Postmedia he published Silencers and Amplifiers, on Zafos Xagoraris and Constructed Atmospheres on Philippe Rahm. For the same publisher is forthcoming The Crisis Talks, in conversation with Renata Lucas.
We would like to thank Fonderia Nolana for the support in producing artworks for the exhibition, Società Canottieri Limite di Limite sull’Arno, Lorenzo Finotto and Giovanni Lamieri.