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Romanian Pavilion / 53rd La Biennale di Venezia

Enrico — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:02:30 +0000

Romania presents three artists at the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2009: Stefan Constantinescu, Andrea Faciu and Ciprian Muresan. Their works are shown within the framework of a site-specific installation conceived by the studioBASAR architectural group as a theatre set. The exhibition is entitled “The Seductiveness of the Interval“. Excerpt from the press release after the jump.

53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2009. Press Preview, June 4, 2009.

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From the ress release: “Artists possessing the experience of exile, of the shift in political regimes, social transitions, Stefan Constantinescu, Andrea Faciu and Ciprian Muresan relate in their work to the theatricalisation of social practices, the encrypted “dramaturgy” of the public realm, and the complex order of individual destiny.

Stefan Constantinescu was born in 1968 in Bucharest and now lives in Stockholm, Sweden, and Bucharest, Romania. His works “Troleibuzul 92″ and “Passagen” are focused on events, situations and everyday occurrences – which confront personal destiny with historical dystopias, expressed either in the form of anthropological documentary or fictional film with neo- realist features. Putting onto the stage what is personal, intimate, subjective, Stefan Constantinescu confers upon his films the status of investigations into themes such as solitude, alienation and social violence.

Andrea Faciu was born in 1977 in Bucharest and lives in Munich, Germany. In “EXUBERANTIA suspended,” the artist is the director of a screenplay in which the viewer escapes into a detemporalised space of reverie. Reflecting on the reciprocity between stage and spectator, between the instrumental and the aesthetic, between the object of dreaming and the dreamer, Andrea Faciu proposes the traversal of an experience in which the instantaneity of the relationship between subject and world is dominant.

Ciprian Muresan was born in 1977 in Dej and lives in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His works “Auto-da-Fe” and “Dog Luv” operate with different modalities of transposing literary texts into images. The artist does not pursue fidelity to the text or narrative re-construction, but rather the staging of sophisticated visual sequences, in order to punctuate versions of the real, obsessively inter-related with the imaginary. The subtle tension released by the subjective re-transcription of texts offers the spectator a projection of fragments of a world in transformation, in which aspects of security, control and individual choice are brought to the fore.

Dwelling upon the still open severance between the artist’s vision and the viewer’s expectations, between what the artist places on stage as a “scenario” and what the viewer progressively discovers in time, The Seductiveness of the Interval proposes a reflection upon the conditions whereby the exhibition space is transformed into a space of self-reflection by means of the gaze.”

Péter Forgács: Col Tempo / Hungarian Pavilion / 53rd Biennale di Venezia 2009

Enrico — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:52:31 +0000

The Hungarian Pavilion in the Giardini presents the work “Col Tempo – The W. Project” by Péter Forgács. The Hungarian media artist and recipient of the 2007 Erasmus Prize conceived a work that revolves around one single motif: the human face.

Péter Forgács is working with archival footage from the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria (video editor: Péter Sass). But Col Tempo is no history show: it is less about faces on old pictures than “about various contexts of our contemporary look projected onto the Other.” (excerpt from the press release).

Péter Forgács (born 1950) has made more than thirty films, several of which won awards at international film festivals. Forgács first gained international recognition with The Bartos Family film in 1988 at the World Wide Video Festival -The Hague. He is best known for his “Private Hungary” series of award winning films based on home movies from the 1920s and 1980s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptured by an extraordinary historical trauma that occurs off screen. His last film “Hunky Blues – the American Dream” has been premiered in May 2009 at the MoMA, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Péter Forgács: Col Tempo, Hungarian Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. June 4, 2009.

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Lucas Samaras: Paraxena / Greek Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:32:21 +0000

At the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009 Greece is represented by Lucas Samaras. Lucas Samaras presents the multi-installation “Paraxena” in the Greek Pavilion in the Giardini. The show brings together three recent series of photographic and video works produced between 2005 and 2009, juxtaposed with a discrete group of sculptural works from the mid 1960s.

Lucas Samaras: Paraxena. Greek Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. June 4, 2009.

Here’s an excerpt from the press release: “Upon entering the pavilion the viewer will be confronted by an image of themselves, reflected in the mirrored sculpture ‘Doorway’ (1966-2007): a scenario that initiates a narrative that runs throughout ‘PARAXENA’, where the act of being observed and the activity of observing are central concerns.  Samaras will debut new photographic works from the ‘Nexus’ series alongside images from the recent ‘Chairs’ series (2008) and the ‘iMovie’ video works (2005.) The ‘Chairs’ and ‘Nexus’ series originate in digital images taken during the artist’s walks through New York City. Seen together the images suggest a kind-of hallucinatory urbanism. The ‘iMovie’ films take this sense of ’strangeness’ into the artist’s domestic space, recording Samaras’ everyday habits and routines. These recent works will be shown alongside the video installation ‘Ecdysiast and Viewers’ (2006), in which Samaras filmed the reactions of twenty four friends and colleagues (including artists Chuck Close and Jasper Johns) whilst they watched a video self-portrait in which Samaras lays himself bare for the camera. The frank self-portrayal in ‘Ecdysiast’ is echoed in a group of sculptures from the ‘Jewels’ series of the mid 1960s: fragile jewel-encrusted aluminum foil sculptures which represent three extremities of the artist’s body: the head, the groin, and the feet, creating a form of ‘incomplete’ self-portraiture”.”

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Haegue Yang: Condensation / Korean Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:31:03 +0000

Haegue Yang is representing Korea at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009. Haegue Yang works primarily in sculpture, video, and installation. She received her B.F.A. from Seoul National University, Fine Arts College in 1994, and her Meisterschüler from Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1999. Her works have been exhibited internationally including the 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, Kunsthalle Hamburg, and most recently, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao. Haegue Yang lives and works in Berlin, and Seoul.

The main room features a labyrinthine system of multi-colored blinds that flutter in the breeze generated by six ventilators. Scent emmitters add to the sensory experience when walking through the space.

Haegue Yang: Condensation / Korean Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale 2009. Venice / Italy, June 6, 2009.

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Fiona Tan: Disorient / Dutch Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009

Enrico — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:26:12 +0000

Amsterdam-based film and video artist Fiona Tan represents the Netherlands at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Fiona Tan was born in Indonesia and grew up in Australia. In 1988 she moved to the Netherlands to pursue studies at the Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie. Her work has been exhibited widely in numerous international exhibitions and institutions including Documenta 11 (Kassel), Yokohama Triennale (Japan), and the New Museum (New York). Fiona Tan lives and works in Amsterdam, where she teaches at De Ateliers.

In Venice, she presents three video installations: Disorient (2009), a new video installation that draws on the city’s medieval influence before the discovery of new routes to Asia diminished its power; Provenance (2008), a research on 17th-century, “Golden Age” portrait paintings; and Rise and Fall (2009), a video installation that focuses on images of water — turbulent, churning as well as slow-moving and placid — as a metaphor for how memory is formed. Excerpts of the videos are available on the Dutch Pavilion website.

Fiona Tan: Disorient. Dutch Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009. Press release after the jump.

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Press release:
Amsterdam-based film and video artist Fiona Tan represents the Netherlands at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with a new audio-visual installation entitled Disorient.

Fiona Tan (b. 1966) is interested in the cultural role of the camera, whether film or still, and how its images trigger our imagination. Images of people almost always play a central role in her photographs, films and audio-video installations, and she places great emphasis on how images “affect and inform the internal picture we have of ourselves, of others and of the world around us.”

The role of language and the written word is equally fundamental to her work, and Tan personally scripts the texts and essays that accompany her films. Many of her works are defined by a back and forth shifting between visual and literal possibilities of meaning. For Tan, the audiovisual story is simultaneously one and many.

At the Dutch Pavilion, the artist will present Disorient (2009), a new video installation that draws on the city’s medieval influence before the discovery of new routes to Asia diminished its power. Tan’s fascination with time, history, and memory led her to explore the biography of Marco Polo, who left home at the age of seventeen and traveled extensively for the next twenty-five years. Whereas in Tan’s earlier pieces, the search for identity is a psychological journey, in Venice the approach is focusing on how people relate to the city’s cultural history. “I am interested in the juxtaposition of word and image, in conflicting relationships between the two and…in the slippages of truth or truths in the many versions of historical accounts.”

Two other recent works will also be on view in Venice, works which were chosen to complement and enhance the overall installation by the way they are situated in the architecture. For Provenance (2008), Tan researched 17th-century, “Golden Age” portrait paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and responded by making six contemporary video portraits of modern Amsterdammers. In Rise and Fall (2009), images of water—turbulent, churning as well as slow-moving and placid—are focused on as a metaphor for how memory is formed.

Fiona Tan was born in Indonesia and grew up in Australia. In 1988 she moved to the Netherlands to pursue studies at the Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie. Her work has been exhibited widely in numerous international exhibitions and institutions including Documenta 11 (Kassel), Yokohama Triennale (Japan), Lunds Konsthall (Sweden), Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), Tate Modern (London) and the New Museum (New York). The artist lives and works in Amsterdam, where she teaches at De Ateliers.

New York-based Saskia Bos, Curator of the Dutch Pavilion in Venice, is an art historian and a renowned curator. Since October 2005, Bos has held the position of Dean of the School of Art at The Cooper Union.

The official catalogue of the Dutch presentation will be issued by Kehrer publishers. It includes contributions by Saskia Bos, Fiona Tan, Dominic van den Boogerd, Director of De Ateliers in Amsterdam since 1995, art historian and author Doris von Drathen and Thomas Elsaesser, professor emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, Departement of Media and Culture, and since 2005 a visiting professor at Yale University.

Press Conference
June 4, 4 p.m.

Daily Press Meetings
June 5-6: 11-12 a.m.

Exhibition Dates
June 7-November 22, 2009, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Giardini: Closed on Mondays (except June 8 and November 16)

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Elke Krystufek, Dorit Margreiter, Franziska & Lois Weinberger / Austrian Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale

Enrico — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:18:01 +0000

Commissioned by Valie Export and Silvia Eiblmayr, the Austrian Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009 presents works by Elke Krystufek, Dorit Margreiter, and Franziska & Lois Weinberger.

Elke Krystufek’s work “Tabou Taboo” deals with different topics: Polynesia being regarded as a mythical place of liberated life and eroticism in European art, and the question of a “female curiosity”. Elke Krystufek approaches this theme by using a camera and working with a male nude mode. She then transforms these photographs in drawings and paintings, some of them applied directly onto the wall. The title “Tabou Taboo” is a reference to the film Tabu (1931) filmed on location in Polynesia by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, as well as to Sigmund Freud’s book Totem und Tabu (1912 – 13), and the Polynesian origins of the word taboo. Elke Krystufek replaces the word Austria on the exterior facade of the pavilion with the (German) word Tabu.

Dorit Margreiter’s installation “Pavilion” (2009) is a film about the place it is shot: the pavilion itself, built by Josef Hoffmann and opened in 1934 in the Giardini of Venice. It is a grainy black-and-white film with a surreal character.

Inside the pavilion Franziska & Lois Weinberger present an installation of objects, drawings, photographs and texts from the 1970s to the present day. Outside the pavilion they have set up an accessible architecture erected between the pavilion and the canal entitled “Laubreise”. “The decay of the heap is created by time / that makes it possible / to notice a small part of the larger change, and to transform the space for art into a space for the existential” (Franziska & Lois Weinberger).

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Shaun Gladwell: MADDESTMAXIMVS / Australian Pavilion / La Biennale di Venezia 2009

Enrico — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:42:22 +0000

Shaun Gladwell represents Australia at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009. The show entitled MADDESTMAXIMVS brings together the artist’s trademark slowed-footage video installations of figures undertaking acts of physical virtuosity, with sculptural works and interventions into the fabric of the pavilion itself, such as a motorcycle that stucks in the outer wall of the building.

MADDESTMAXIMVS has been developed over a two-year period and marks a shoft from Shaun Gladwell’s earlier focus upon urban environments and engageds instead in a performative, personal exploration of the boundaries and possibilities of a human relationship to the Australian hinterland.

Born in 1972, Shaun Gladwell graduated from the Sydney College of the Arts with a Bachelor in Fine Arts, and the College of Fine Arts, Sydney with a Masters of Fine Art. In 2006 Gladwell was awarded a two-year Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts Visual Arts Board to research and produce five major works for several international biennales and commissions, including the Busan and Sao Paulo Biennales, an exhibition at Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan and a multi-channel video project in Sydney.

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Begun in earnest in 2007, MADDESTMAXIMVS takes its local cues from sources as varied as Sidney Nolan’s ‘drought’ paintings and director George Miller’s Mad Max film trilogy, and is an ongoing project under which Gladwell conceives, produces and exhibits a variety of works in different configurations (these works include photographs, sculptural installations, lithographs and drawings, as well as video pieces). Gladwell’s Australian Pavilion installation features a range of works. Interceptor Surf Sequence (2009) is a newly produced two-channel video. Projected on either side of a suspended screen, the work effectively links both levels of the Pavilion. Apology to Roadkill (1–6) (2007–2009) pictures a black-helmeted motorcycle rider stopping to tenderly examine and cradle the carcasses of grey kangaroos. These major video works are joined by significant sculptural interventions into the pavilion itself: the motorbike from Apology to Roadkill (1–6) embedded into the outside wall of the Pavilion to create a protrusion in the inner skin of the space; and an especially constructed, functioning 1:1 ‘sculptural’ replica of the famous V8 ‘Interceptor’ car driven by Mel Gibson’s ‘Max’ character in Mad Max 1 and 2.

The Venice Pavilion project is completed by a new multi-channel video work – Centred Pataphysical Suite (2009) – comprising a tower of monitors, each featuring the image of a different performer spinning on the spot utilising their particular discipline (skateboarding, break-dancing, classical dancing, BMX riding); a sculptural work incorporating ‘live’ real-time footage on a monitor of the inside surface of a rotating human skull (Endoscopic Vanitas, 2009); and the latest of Gladwell’s ongoing series of Planet and Stars Sequence projects, involving both footage (Planet and Stars Sequence: Barrier Highway, 2009) and residue (Absolute Event Horizon, 2009) of an aerosol-painting work undertaken by the artist kneeling on the shoulder of an outback highway.

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Victory Over the Future / Russian Pavilion / 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:57:50 +0000

The Russian Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia presents works by seven artists: Georgy (Gosha) Ostretsov, Pavel Pepperstein, Anatoly Zhuravlyov, Alexei Kallima, Irina Korina, Sergei Shekhovtsov, and Andrei Molodkin. In this video we have a closer look at the installations by Ostretsov, Pepperstein, Zhuravlyov, Kallima, and Korina.

The exhibition at the Russian Pavilion is entitled “Victory Over The Future” and is curated by Olga Sviblova.

Victory Over the Future / Russian Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009. June 4, 2009.

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Excerpts from the press release:

“Victory, as a phenomenon, has an endless number of philosophical, culturological, social, ethical and artistic interpretations. Victory is also an existential and emotional state, one of the primary determinants of the behaviour of each individual and society as a whole.

Created in 1913, Mikhail Matyushin, Alexei Kruchonykh’s and Kazimir Malevich’s acclaimed Futurist opera ‘Victory over the Sun’ was an omen of impending catastrophes in the early 20th century. At the onset of the 21st century the world is once again in crisis, paralysed more by fear of the future than by economic recession.

Russian Pavilion participants Pavel Pepperstein, Alexei Kallima, Georgy Ostretsov, Andrei Molodkin, Anatoly Zhuravlyov, Irina Korina and Sergei Shekhovtsov refer to personal artistic experience and Russian avant-garde traditions deeply rooted in contemporary Russian art, creating their own artistic cosmos through their problematisation and metaphorisation of the theme ‘victory over the future’.

Georgy (Gosha) Ostretsov has devised an installation entitled “Art Life of The Torments of Creation” with a series of abandoned rooms, in the last of which a mechanical mannequin sits at his desk. This is the artist working on sketches for future projects. As the production of an oeuvre that outlives the creator, artistic activity by its very nature represents a victory over the future.

Pavel Pepperstein is an outstanding representative of the Moscow conceptual school. He is best known for absurdist drawings, his “Landscapes of the Future”. At the Venice Biennale he presents a series of works in which uncompromising Suprematist elements sprout through the nebulous contours of future megalopolises. At the exhibition the artist’s own rap chant will be interspersed with Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’, composed in 1913.

Anatoly Zhuravlyov’s work “Black Holes” relates to the issue of historical memory. Hundreds of 1cm-diameter miniature photographs of 20th century figures that changed the course of history in some way – from Gandhi to Einstein and from Churchill to Picasso – are arranged on chaotic, abstract black blots that cover the entire space from floor to ceiling like black holes and on crystal balls hanging from the ceiling.

Alexei Kallima creates vast frescoes portraying stands crowded with supporters at a football match. They are overwhelmed with the joy of victory, or the despair of defeat. The frescoes are covered with fluorescent paint only visible in ultra-violet light. When the visitor is a certain distance away from the fresco, a sensor de-activates the ultra-violet lamps. The visitor finds himself in a white wasteland, perceiving the emptiness as an inevitable consequence of triumphant euphoria. “Rain Theorem”, the title given to this project, refers to the theory of chaos and the virtual impossibility of predicting anything, whether it is the outcome of a sports event or the course of history.

Irina Korina creates enormous fountains made of old, multi-coloured plastic tablecloths evoking strange biomorphic forms filled with turgor pressure. The piece is entitled “Fountain”.

Andrei Molodkin presents a multi-media installation of two hollow glass sculptures, silhouettes, representing Nike of Samothrace, the symbol of victory. One sculpture is filled with pulsing black liquid – oil, the other with red – blood. Video cameras are directed at the sculptures. The projection on the screen combines the two images so that streams of black and red pulsate inside Nike of Samothrace, bringing her to life and symbolising the ambivalence of any Victory.

Sergei Shekhovtsov turns his hand to the heraldry of the Russian Pavilion, which was built by the great Russian architect Shchusev in 1914. His foam-rubber installation “Cartouche” for the façade of the pavilion transforms symbols of a new age into a contemporary coat of arms.

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Miquel Barceló / Spanish Pavilion / 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:47:38 +0000

Miquel Barceló represents Spain at the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009. On display is a series of large format paintings surveying Miquel Barceló’s work from 2000 to the present. The exhibition also features a group of ceramics.

The most recent works come from the same time as when the Miquel Barceló was creating the dome at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Miquel Barceló placed a number of canvases on the floor, which were randomly covered by the paint dripping from the ceiling. These canvases were used as backgrounds for the new paintings that address three major subjects: primates, African landscapes and sea foam.

The exhibition also features a screening of “Paso Doble”, the performance originally produced for the Avignon Festival in collaboration with the choreographer Josef Nadj and a series of works by the French artist and writer François Augiéras (1925 – 1971), whose oeuvre Miquel Barceló wishes to bring to a larger public.

Miquel Barceló was born in 1957 in Felanitx, Mallorca. He came into early contact with art through his mother who was an amateur painter. In 2003 he received Spain’s most prestigious award, the Prince of Asturias Arts Prize. In 2008 he created the dome at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.

The Spanish Pavilion has been curated by Enrique Juncosa.

Miquel Barceló, Spanish Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale 2009. June 5, 2009.

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Miwa Yanagi: Windswept Women: The Old Girls’ Troupe / Japanese Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:23:27 +0000

Miwa Yanagi represents Japan at the 53rd Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy, with her installation entitled Windswept Women: The Old Girls’ Troupe. For this work, Miwa Yanagi takes the Japanese Pavilion, built in 1956 and designed by Takamasa Yoshizaka and covers its exterior with a black, membrane-like tent. Inside, Miwa Yanagi installs giant 4m high photograph stands containing portraits of women of varied ages. The photographs are presented in ornately designed decorative frames. The women stand unmoved despite being surrounded by turbulent wind and the scenery is surreal. In addition to the photographs, Miwa Yanagi やなぎみわ presents a new video work.

The motif of this installation is a troupe comprised exclusively of women traveling with their mobile house – a tent – on the top of their caravan. This tent, inspired by the novels of Japanese modernist writer Kobo Abe, has already appeared in Yanagi’s previous Fairy Tales (2004-05) series of staged photographs, and has been a key to expressing ambivalent themes such as the tensions between “life and death,” “past and future,” “confinement and mobility” and “everyday life and festival.”
Miwa Yanagi was born in Kobe, Japan, and completed a postgraduate course at Kyoto City University of Arts. In 1993, Yanagi held her first solo exhibition in Kyoto, where she currently lives. Since 1996, her work has been exhibited internationally.

Running concurrently with her exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale is a wide-ranging overview of her work at the National Museum of Art, Osaka.

Miwa Yanagi: Windswept Women: The Old Girls’ Troupe 老少女劇団 / Japanese Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009. Opening reception, June 5, 2009.

PS: Some thoughts about the Biennale in general by Adrian Sanders (FAD Art Fast News).

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Dropstuff.nl at the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:10:44 +0000

Dropstuff.nl is a platform for media art and e-culture that broadcasts artworks by professional artists and designers on a network of Dropstuff Hotspots in (Dutch) museums, libraries, railway stations, schools and art academies. Base camp is the “glass house-pavilion”, a mobile AV-studio space with a gigantic LED screen that travels round various cities.

Dropstuff.nl has been invited to take part in the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia as collateral event. From June 2 -7, 2009, during the opening days of the biennale, Dropstuff.nl set up the gigantic 60 square meters LED screen on the pier between San Marco and Giardini (Riva Ca’ di Dio). Dropstuff’s main focus in Venice was to show a new generation of artists and designers, who approach the audience in a direct manner. No white museum walls, but interactive art in public space. By using SMS, bluetooth, touch screen and sensors, the audience was participating in the art work.

Birdsdays by Wayne Horse is not a cute Tamagotchi but an arrogant, ugly rooster which is giving orders to the audience. Leonard van Munster lets the audience do magic with words, which are generated by Google. David Kousemaker and Tim Olden of Blendid present a work which is controlled live from India, by an Indian employee who responds on people who pass by in Venice. Next to the ones mentioned, also works from Guido van der Werve and Klaas Kloosterboer are shown.

Dropstuff is a concept and initiative of designer René van Engelenburg, developed in cooperation with Edwin Jacobs, director of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. The project is realized by Pleinmuseum Foundation, Amsterdam. i.c.w. the following Dutch museums: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Museum De Paviljoens in Almere, Armando Museum and Kade in Amersfoort, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, SM’s in Den Bosch and Marres in Maastricht.

Venice Biennale 2009. Venice, June 4, 2009.

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Silvia Bächli / Swiss Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:38:53 +0000

Silvia Bächli from Basel and Fabrice Gygi from Geneva represent Switzerland at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Silvia Bächli shows drawings in the Swiss Pavilion in the Giardini, Fabrice Gygi presents an installation in the Church of San Stae.

In this video, we have a look at Silvia Bächli’s works in the Swiss Pavilion. Bächli studied in Basel and Geneva. She is known for her drawings, which she has consistently developed over three decades. For the rooms in the Swiss Pavilion, she presents her work from 2008 – 2009 in the form of a spatial synopsis that offers a representative insight into her graphic oeuvre.

Silvia Bächli at the Swiss Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009. Venice, June 4, 2009.

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Roman Ondak: Loop / Czech and Slovak Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:43:25 +0000

For the Slovak Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition Biennale di Venezia, Roman Ondák has developed a work that deals with the relationship between reality and art. Roman Ondák takes the park landscape between the exhibition pavilions in Venice’s Giardini Publici with their bushes, trees and paths, and replicates and places it in the interior of the pavilion. So the external reality continues into the art space. The path to the pavilion leads without interruption or obstacles into the building on one side, crosses through it and leads out of it again on the other side.

Roman Ondák was born in 1966 in Zilina, Slovakia. He is currently considered one of the most significant representatives of neo-conceptual strategies. He was a DAAD scholarship holder in Berlin (2007-2008) and has presented his work in group shows and individual exhibitions such as at Tate Modern (2006) and the Museum of Modern Art (2009). Roman Ondák lives and works in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Roman Ondak: Loop, Czech and Slovak Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2009. Venice, June 4, 2009.

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Mona Hatoum: Interior Landscape / Fondazione Querini Stampalia / Venice, Italy

Enrico — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:18:50 +0000

The Fondazione Querini Stampalia currently presents a major solo exhibition with new works by Mona Hatoum. The exhibition, entitled Interior Landscape, coincided with the opening of the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale and takes place over two floors of the museum – both in the contemporary exhibition spaces as well as within the existing Museum collection in this historic building, formerly the home of the Querini Stampalia family. Mona Hatoum: Interior Landscape includes over 25 works, many of which are new or previously unseen in Europe.

“New works in the exhibition include Interior Landscape (after which the exhibition is named), a haunting installation of bedroom furniture and domestic elements that imagines the conflict between the dreams and aspirations of a Palestinian individual juxtaposed with the harsh reality they have to face. Another large work created specifically for the space is a delicate and precariously suspended installation made of barbed wire. Hot Spot III is a metal globe with its continents outlined in glowing red neon shown in the proximity of what looks like an enlargement of a rosary or “worry beads” where the beads have been scaled up to the size of cannon balls. As well as these new works, Hatoum will be making a number of interventions in the museum collection using the furniture as the container or frame for some new ideas and some existing works which, when placed in this historic setting, generate different meanings.” (excerpt from the press release).

Mona Hatoum: Interior Landscape at Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice / Italy. Opening reception, June 3, 2009.

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Liam Gillick / German Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:45:45 +0000

In Liam Gillick’s German Pavilion at the 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009 one meets a kitchen and a cat. The kitchen is inspired by the design of the Frankfurter Küche (Frankfurt Kitchen) by the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Conceived in 1926, the Frankfurt Kitchen with its functional form was intended to optimize household workflows. The first prototypes of today’s built-in kitchen were integrated into more than 10,000 public housing units in Frankfurt, Germany. The (animatronic) cat sits on top of the kitchen and fights against the echo in the building and tells us a circular story of misrepresentation, misunderstanding and desire.

In this video, Liam Gillick talks about how his German Pavilion should be experienced, and Ralf Schlüter of the German art magazine Art – Das Kunstmagazin reviews Liam Gillick’s work (in German language).

Liam Gillick at the German Pavilion, 53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2009, June 4, 2009.

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Elmgreen & Dragset: The Collectors at Venice Biennial 2009 / Interview with Ingar Dragset

Enrico — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:24:00 +0000

In this video, Ingar Dragset of the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset talks about their exhibition “The Collectors” that they showed as representation of Denmark and Nordic Countries Finland, Norway and Sweden at the 53rd Venice Biennale 2009 – the idea behind the exhibition, how it came about, the different concepts for the Danish and the Nordic Pavilion, and the audience’s reaction to the show.

In the previous episode, we had a look at the Danish Pavilion by taking a guided tour with an alleged real estate agent. It’s still on sale, time to invest in real estate ;–) The neighboring Nordic Pavilion by Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn has been turned into a flamboyant bachelor’s pad that features contemporary art by Wolfgang Tillmans, Tom of Finland, and others, as well as iconic design pieces and a swimming pool.

More than twenty artists and designers of all ages have contributed to the show, ranging from established to emerging ones. Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset’s exhibition is also a first time collaboration between the Danish and the Nordic Pavilion and the first joint venture of two national pavilions in the Biennale. The Collectors has earned Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset a special mention (Curating Worlds) for their curatorial work for the Danish and Nordic Pavilion from the Biennale jury of the 53rd International Art Exhibition.

Elmgreen & Dragset: The Collectors. 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennial 2009. Interview with Ingar Dragset, June 6, 2009. Interview: Raphaele Shirley.

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The Collectors. Curated by Elmgreen & Dragset / Danish Pavilion / Venice Biennial 2009

Enrico — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:32:17 +0000

For the 53rd Venice Biennale, the Danish and Nordic Pavilions host “The Collectors“, an exhibition curated and staged by artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. With contributions from twenty-four international artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset transform the Danish and Nordic Pavilions into domestic environments, and invite the audience to be guests in them.

In Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition concept, the Danish Pavilion in the Giardini in Venice is for sale. The public is guided on a tour by a Vigilante real estate agent through a “For Sale” Danish Pavilion, and is told the story of the family dramas that used to haunt the house. This video is an excerpt of such a tour we attended on June 4, 2009. For the full-length version, click here!

In an upcoming episode we will have a look at the Nordic Pavilion and talk with Ingar Dragset about the concept of the exhibition.

The artists and designers included in the exhibition are: Thora Dolven Balke, Massimo Bartolini, Hernan Bas, Guillaume Bijl, Maurizio Cattelan, Elmgreen & Dragset, Pepe Espaliú, Tom of Finland, Simon Fujiwara, Han & Him, Laura Horelli, Martin Jacobson, William E. Jones, Terence Koh, Jani Leinonen, Klara Lidén, Jonathan Monk, Nico Muhly, Norway Says, Henrik Olesen, Nina Saunders, Vibeke Slyngstad, Sturtevant and Wolfgang Tillmans. Other features Fredrik Sjöberg’s Fly Collection, Massimo De Carlo’s Porcelain Collection, Collected Etnographica, Real Estate Agents performed by Helen Statman & Trevor Stuart.

The Collectors is not a group show in the conventional sense. The pavilions will undergo a radical reconstruction, and more than twenty artists and designers of all ages, ranging from established to emerging ones, will contribute to creating a different kind of exhibition format, one that will appear closer to a film set than a conventional art display. The curators aim to establish a unique atmosphere of intimacy with their staged exhibition ‐ one that can run counter to the official spectacle and formal nature of the Biennale – and, in close collaboration with the participating artists and designers, they hope to circumvent all the usual competitive aspects of the larger art event.

The Collectors. Curated by Elmgreen & Dragset. Danish Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennial 2009. La Biennale di Venezia 2009: Fare Mondi (Making Worlds). Professional Preview, June 4, 2009.

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Tobias Rehberger: Was du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen (Cafeteria) / Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:56:39 +0000

The Golden Lion for best artist in curator Daniel Birnbaum’s Fare Mondi / Making Worlds art exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale went to German artist Tobias Rehberger. Tobias Rehberger designed the cafeteria at the Biennale pavilion (formerly known as Italian Pavilion). The jury stated: “Tobias Rehberger is awarded the Golden Lion as best artist for taking us beyond the white cube, where past modes of exhibition are reinvented and the work of art turns into a cafeteria. In this shift social communication becomes aesthetic practice.”

La Biennale di Venezia 2009: Fare Mondi (Making Worlds). Professional Preview, June 4, 2009.

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Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens / US Pavilion / 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:52:46 +0000

Bruce Nauman’s exhibition Topological Gardens, currently on view at the U.S. Pavilion in the Giardini at the 53rd Venice Biennale, has won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. The Biennale stated that Bruce Nauman’s work “reveals the magic of meaning as it emerges through relentless repetition of language and form.”

Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens presents a thematic survey comprising four decades of Bruce Nauman’s innovative and provocative work over three exhibition sites: the United States Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale, Università Iuav di Venezia at Tolentini, and the Exhibition Spaces at Università Ca’ Foscari.

In this video, we have a look at Bruce Nauman’s works at the United States Pavilion at the Giardini.

La Biennale di Venezia 2009: Fare Mondi (Making Worlds). Professional Preview, June 4, 2009.

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Claude Lévêque: Le Grand Soir / French Pavilion / 53rd Venice Biennale 2009

Enrico — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:32:25 +0000

This year Claude Lévêque is the artist who represents France at the 53rd International Exhibition of Art – La Biennale di Venezia. At the French Pavilion, he presents an installation entitled “Le Grand Soir”. According to the press release, the work is a uniquely French concept from the eve of the Revolution. “Le Grand Soir” evokes the moment when the world changed.

To support him in this project, Claude Lévêque has selected Christian Bernard, director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva, as curator.

Claude Lévêque’s works refer to popular culture, to the everyday environment, and to mental images. He creates ambiances, environments and objects while expanding the installation’s dimensions through the use of the sensory effectiveness of light and sound.

La Biennale di Venezia 2009: Fare Mondi (Making Worlds). Professional Preview, June 4, 2009.

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