The Italian pavillion was by far the best in the Biennale. A tribute to Italian Futurism it presented a stimulating and consuming experience that i did not want to leave. I could have spent hours in this pavillion.
Starting things off (in my viewing order, at least) was a video by the artist duo Masbedo, where man fights the elements with his parachute, alluding to tensions of personal aspirations, reflecting on human existence - all to the background music by Marlene Kuntz and Gianni Maroccolo.
Next up were paintings by Daniele Galliano, with natural light and vibrant colors. Human figures establish a dialogue with the landscape, where man is not the centerpiece, but an element that coexist with the broader environment.
In the Arsenale, the Making Worlds exhibit continues. Swedish artist Jan Hafstrom has an installation, The Eternal Return, inspired by his own collections of newspaper clippings from America in the '60s.
In an experiential installation, Falke Pisano takes the viewer through a series of rooms, each painted with a different primary color of the rainbow. Viewers are immersed in a flood of color as they walk through the rooms. A computer screen that changes color in each room adds contrast and heightens the visual sensation.
A German Pop Art piece by Thomas Bayrle follows. A graphical pattern made out of a series of Chrysler logos makes out the silhouette of a Chrsyler car. It is pure optical stimulation.
Little blimps by Hector Zamora add whimsy to the space. His blimps of all sizes are all over the city of Venice during the biennale, adding a historical reference and an element of fantasy at the same time.
Toward the end of the warehouse space in the Arsenale, a work by Spencer Finch tries to recreate his observations of light and color.
The Russian Pavillion was one of the most engaging, and certainly the boldest in the Biennale. There was no room for quiet contemplation here. An installation by Alexei Kalima, Victory Over the Future, was in a room painted with figures of an audience on all four walls, accompanied by a cheering sound that got louder by every second. And all of a sudden, Boom!
Play the video below with sound on high.
The installation made viewers feel like they were on a stage in front of a huge live audience, in a concert or a soccer game. It gave the viewer a sense of unease and excitement at the same time. When the lights came on and the audience disappeared out of vision,your 15 seconds of fame was up. The fantasy all disappeared in a second and made the viewer crave for more and want to stay for another cycle of this looping video.
The Venice Biennale has international pavillions that showcase art from different countries by their own artists. The Danish and Nordic Pavillion was exceptional in that it featured international artists in two fictional domestic environments, curated and staged by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The first featured a fictional house that went on sale after a family supposedly broke up. Things were not what they seemed to be.
In the fuzzy picture above a sculpture of a house maid is cast in gold which contrasts with your traditional image of a maid. A chair seems to dissolve into the ground as a sign of decay, a theme that ran thru the entire house.
A set of stairs did not seem to be functional or leading up to anywhere as it was supposed to. A richly-set dining table (not pictured) was fractured in the middle, including the plates on it, overlooked by a collage of signs made by street bums from across the world, begging for money, in contrast to the once idyllic scene of modern family life. Read NYTimes T Magazine feature on this pavillion.
The second exhibit space in the Danish & Nordic pavillion was a well-appointed modernist house furnished with iconic scandinavian furniture and provocative art.
Visitors approached the residence from the pool where a dead body greeted them floating in the pool, either as a result of murder or suicide, leaving the visitors in suspense of a mystery unfolding.
There was a narrative developing as visitors entered the residence and started viewing the Polynesian sculpture having a dialgoue with its modern counterpart next to it, a black and white photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans, with naked men lazing down on a lawn.
While proceeding further into the residence, visitors encountered two paintings by Hernan Bas, a Miami artist known for his gay themes (Please see my April 2009 posting for more on Hernan Bas).
Next installation revealed a set of Tom of Finland drawings with depictions of men having raunchy sex, further moving the viewer into a gay subtext.
Next was a pair of sculptures of Michalengelo's David by controversial New York artist Terence Koh, adding a contemporary interpretation of a classical work (and a prominent gay icon).
Behind the minimalist living room organized around a fireplace was a set of Vibeke Slyngstad paintings that hinted at the fictional resident's sophisticated collecting taste.
As one approached the corner end of the house, a desk built by Simon Fujiwara revealed the mystery to the entire residence/installation. A manuscript on a typewriter; a collection of photographs; and clippings revealed a suspense novel in the making, in which the protagonist, a rich gay collector, ends up drowning in his own pool. The suspense was over. All the pieces of art now came together to complete a narrative and solve a puzzle for visitors who did not know what they were getting into in the first place. It was a very clever installation.
The Danish and Nordic Pavillion set itself apart from the other international pavillions by telling a story though international artists' work rather than representing national artists for self promotion.
On a parting note, i could not resist the construction of the ceiling in the pavillion.
The 53rd insallment of the Venice Biennale, the international art exposition, runs until November 22 this year. It has a curated exhibit that feature art from international artists in il Giardini and Arsenale, and throughout the city of Venice. The exhibit is called Making Worlds, curated this year by Daniel Birnbaum, of art as a representation of a vision of the world, and as a way of “making a world”, in his words.
American conceptual artist John Baldessari's words "I will not make another boring art" greets visitors in the Grand Canal.
In the Giardini, Making Worlds opens with Argentine artisit Tomas Saraceno's installation. It is a renditon of an astronomical constellation based on the architectural structure of a black widow's web. It can suspend heavy weghts through the use of complex geometry.The result is visually stunning. Visitors walk through the structure, making it an interactive work.
Next up is Swedish Artist Nathalie Djurberg's vision of apocalypse. Djurberg is known for her claymation videos, animation with clay figures. In this room she built a surealistic Garden of Eden in which nature has turned into something out of hell.
As you walk through the "garden" with huge carnivoreous plants and watch her films projected on 2 screens, you are confronted with innate fear of what's not understood.
The films depict disturbing subject matter and are politically charged, exposing the underbelly of institutions and traditions that we hold sacred. It is a very emotionally charged piece. I tried to capture the installation, but the room is dark, and i could not film the whole film sequence.
The next work by Hans-Peter Feldman, Schattenspiel (Shadowwork), with the artist's collection of toys and ordinary objects rotating on platforms lit from behind, cast their shadows on the wall like magic lanterns and looked like shadow puppetry.
The Brooklyn Museum currently has a show of works by Hernan Bass from the Rubell Family Collection. I got to see this same body of work while visiting the Rubell Collection during Art Basel Miami in 2007. It was a truly "artpup" style of discovery.Going in to the show, I did not know who he was, and what to expect, but came out pleasantly surprised and inspired.
The Miami show was aptly named "Dandies, Pansies and Prudes", that included paintings, sculpture, installation and video, with gay themes that connected historical and literary influences to his personal experience in a contemporary context.
Some of the work had allegorical references to the sea, including tortoise shells and mermaids, most likely to be influenced by his native Miami.
I really enjoyed his work because it was very personal. I got a good glimpse into his world without knowing him. He shared his innermost feelings, his fantasies, desires, fears and his longings in a melancholic style that made it easy to relate to.
Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati is the current stop for the NY-based artist Tara Donovan's retrospective that got started at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. I had seen a couple of the installations shown in this exhibit back in 2007 at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in London. Here are a few images from that show.
In this installation Donovan created a structure that resembled a moonscape. It looked like an outcropping of organic material that spread across the gallery floor. The material in reality was hardly organic. It was mylar.
Donovan frequently uses every day materials to create immersive environments that inspire awe in the viewer. We kept surveying these "structures" that glimmered with their reflective surfaces.
The second installation in this small exhibit was a wall-based sculpture that resembled a map.
Upon close view the materials revealed themselves as loops of metallic tape. It was unexpected to discover the material, since it defied the overall effect of the installation.
