Art@Site www.artatsite.com Carole Feuerman The Survival of Serena
Artist:

Carole Feuerman

Title:

The Survival of Serena

Year:
2008
Adress:
Forbidden City
Website:
Painful beauty
In her face a fine thin line walks from her eyebrows to her nose. It leads us along her nose to her mouth, her chin and via her cheeks to her eyes.
She rests her head gently on her right hand. But what is her left hand doing? Her fingers are spread on a simple inner tube.
What shows? This is a drowning person. This woman tries to save her life. This simple swimming band is her only hope.
What is more shocking: this woman is blank. Many refugees have a dark colored skin. Even more shocking is that she looks more than realistic. You tend to touch her skin to feel if she is real.
The title of the artwork gave me a clue to the drowning person. Before I saw this title, I only thought saw a beautiful dreaming woman. What would happen it Serena would wear a swimsuit with a burst in it?
Or would this be to much confronting? The artist chose to be modest in her interviews and let do the title and this beautiful artwork do the work. It is welcomed with open arms and is part of many collections. I am happy with it!
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com

Vertaling
Pijnlijke schoonheid
In haar gezicht loopt een fijne dunne lijn vanuit haar wenkbrauwen naar haar neus. Het leidt ons via haar neus naar haar mond, haar kin en via naar wangen naar haar ogen. Haar ogen zijn gesloten dus je kunt zonder gene eindeloos naar haar kijken.
Ze rust met haar hoofd zachtjes op haar rechterhand. Maar wat zegt haar linkerhand? Haar vingers zijn gespreid op een simpele binnenband.
Wat blijkt? Dit is een drenkeling. Deze vrouw probeert haar leven te redden. Deze eenvoudige zwemband is haar enige hoop.
Wat schokkender is: deze vrouw is blank. Veel drenkelingen hebben een donkere huidskleur. Des te schokkender is dat ze levensecht gemaakt is. Je hebt de neiging om aan haar huid te voelen of ze echt is.
De titel van het kunstwerk was voor mij een aanwijzing naar de drenkeling. Voordat ik deze titel zag, dacht ik dat ik alleen een mooie dromende vrouw zag. Hoe zou het zijn als Serena een zwempak zou dragen met een scheur erin?
Of zou dit teveel confronteren? De kunstenaar heeft ervoor gekozen om zich bescheiden op te stellen en de titel tezamen met dit beeldschone kunstwerk in de gehele wereld tentoon te stellen. Het wordt met open armen ontvangen en het siert ook veel collecties. Daar ben ik blij mee!
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com

www.latimes.com:
A woman touches a lifelike sculpture entitled "Survival of Serena", by American artist Carole A. Feuerman during the opening day of the Beijing International Art Biennale at the National Art Museum of China.

www.mocoloco.com:
Carole Feuerman’s realist sculptures have found homes inside galleries and out. Specializing in large scale painted bronze sculptures of female swimmers, Feuerman currently has a huge piece entitled Olympic Swimmer on display at the Olympic Fine Arts Exhibition at the Beijing Games. It will travel with the exhibition before being permanently installed in the Forbidden City. A version of The Survival of Serena is on display at the National Museum of China in Beijing.

www.youtube.com:
Carole Feuerman Live on NBC New York Nightly News: Carole Feuerman: 'This is called ‘Survival of Serena’. It respresents serenity but is also represents survival and women surviving. I did it for the Venice Biennalle.'

www.carolefeuerman.com:
Serena rests peacefully on her inner tube, realistic drops of water trickling down her skin as she basks in the sun. Merely standing in her presence evokes a hushed reverence, as though the audience were afraid to wake her.
This public installation, while a large success, only lasted four months; however, this certainly won't be the last swimmer to hit the streets of a major metropolitan area. Be on the lookout for more public exhibitions of Carole's work in the near future.

www.timeout.com:
This sculpture of a swimmer apparently drowsing on an inner-tube debuted at the 2007 Venice Biennial, and its title is inspired in part by that city's nickname: La Serenissima, or "the most serene." The work does indeed offer a moment of quietude in the middle of frantic Gotham.

www.codaworx.com:
‘Survival of Serena' is a monumental hyper-realistic sculpture that has truly traveled the globe. It is pictured above in a private collection in New York, the Piazzetta of Capri, Petrosino Square, and the National Museum of China in Beijing.

www.artefuse.com:
This tranquil swimmer resting in a dripping inner tube offers the public the opportunity to pause, even just for a moment, engaged and inspired by what stands before them. Survival of Serena seems like a moment frozen in time and exceeds the bounds of mere mimicry to become a larger than life symbol that invites us to consider our physicality and our own stories and commonalities.
Originally debuted in painted resin at the 2007 Venice Biennale, Survival of Serena was named in honor of Venice’s former name La Serenissima, which literally means ‘the most/very serene’, a theme which transverses much of Feuerman’s body of work. The sculpture went on to win first prize in the Beijing Biennale the following year. The artist has chosen Petrosino Square to unveil her new bronze Survival of Serena for the first time given its proximity to many cultural institutions and diverse neighborhoods.

www.wikipedia.org:
Carole A. Feuerman is an American sculptor and artist working in Hyperrealism, a movement that began in the 1970s in relation to photorealist painting. Born in 1945, Feuerman was a full generation younger than Duane Hanson and John de Andrea, the pioneers of Hyperrealism in figurative sculpture. Dubbed "the reigning doyenne of super-realism" by art historian John T. Spike, Feuerman is known for her lifelike portrayals of swimmers.
Feuerman utilizes a variety of media including resin, marble, and bronze.
She has been included in exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery; the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Venice Biennale; and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.
Feuerman received the Charles D. Murphy Sculpture Award in 1981. In 1982, she received the Amelia Peabody Award for Sculpture.
In 2016, Carole Feuerman received the Best in Show Award for her work Mona Lisa. The sculpture was also acquired for the permanent collection of the Huan Tai Hu Museum.
Feuerman has also been awarded the Medici Award from the City of Florence at the Florence Biennale in 2005 and First Prize in the 2008 Olympic Fine Arts Exhibition in Beijing. as well as the Best in Show Prize from the Third International Beijing Art Biennale in 1994.