Central Pavillion, Venice
2022
Andra Ursuţa’s seductive and unsettling sculptures – often made from casts of her own body – are radical hybrid beings. Recalling both American science fiction action horror films including Predator and the Alien franchise, and visionary artworks of women from previous generations including the Polish and Estonian sculptors Alina Szapocznikow and Anu Põder, Ursuţa’s work emphasises the vulnerability of the human form and the complexity of desire. In recent years, Ursuţa has begun fusing direct casts of her body with everyday objects, salvaged trash, and props, combining traditional lost wax casting with 3D scanning and printing. Encapsulated in colourful crystal contours, the swirled patterns and textured surfaces shaped by her process reveal a collision of organic and inorganic forms. The lounging woman in Predators ’R Us (2020) is both missing limbs and growing unusual appendages, such as a pair of tentacled slippers inspired by the alien from Predator. The alien physique depicted in Impersonal Growth (2021) was likewise inspired by the Alien films’ monstrous “Xenomorphs.” In Ursuţa’s newest sculptures, including the rippling purple-white-green Phantom Mass or the acid green Terminal Figure (both 2021), the body is increasingly constrained in its pose. Components like spiky corsets, buckles, and bones progressively evolve into the technical components of an ever-changing cyborg body.
-Madeline Weisburg
Ruth Asawa, Noah Davis, Barbara Kruger, Andra Ursuţa, and Portia Zvavahera are among the artists invited to the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Titled The Milk of Dreams, the exhibition was on view from April 23–November 27, 2022, and takes its name from a book by Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington.