This year Venice Biennale will mark the launch of Khora Contemporary, a Virtual Reality (VR) production company created specifically for artists.
Major commissions by German artist, Christian Lemmerz, and from LA-based Paul McCarthy, will mark Khora Contemporary’s launch, part of this summer’s Faurschou Foundation presentation in Venice, during the 2017 Venice Biennale. Both artists can be seen to have pushed their ideas, and ultimately their practice, through their ground-breaking approach to the use of this fast-evolving medium.
Christian Lemmerz’s La Apparizione, produced earlier this year, aims to disrupt stereotypes of religious imagery, engaging the viewer in a discomforting, close-up experience with a burning corpse of Jesus Christ, which ‘rains’ embers. A ‘Bodybuilder’ Jesus first appeared in Lemmerz’s oeuvre in 2013 in sculpture form. Here, he comes alive in death, his rippling muscles writhing in agony, dripping golden blood into the physical space of the viewer. The aim of this VR work is to enhance the relationship the viewer forms with the imagery; its beauty, excess, death and pain.