Peter Fend

Lavoro per Natura Vivente, non solo Capitali

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 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.