I neglected to mention in my earlier posts that this is my third trip to Venice. My first visit was in August 2002 on my Italian honeymoon. Kevin and I both hated Venice. It was hot, overpriced, touristy, and the food was terrible. In October/November 2005 I had occasion to visit the city again when I couriered artwork to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection while working at MOCA. The 2005 Biennale was going on at the time and it was at that exhibition that I came to appreciate "new-media" works of art such as video and learned of many artists whose work I have since appraised. I remember loving just about every single piece I saw. On now this third visit, I still find Venice to be touristy, overpriced and lacking in good cuisine; however, it's been overall pretty amazing.
Pressed for time, with only one day of possible Biennale viewing, Kevin and I blitzed through both sections of the Biennale: Giardini & Arsenale. This is a huge feat not to be attempted by the faint of heart or those without good walking shoes. We skipped a number of the national pavilions and breezed through certain rooms of the main themed exhibition
The Encyclopedic Palace, but all things considered, we conquered this Biennale.
Karen's Top 5 Things to See at the 2013 Biennale:
#5 - Sarah Sze at the America pavilion.
I selected the American pavilion for the #5 slot so as not to seem unpatriotic and avoid accusation of not liking freedom or apple pie. Honestly, Sarah Sze's installation took me back to my registrar days and sent my blood pressure soaring. How does one dismantle and store this work? How does one keep track of all of the pieces and keep it clean and in good condition? Granted, it's an amazing artistic feat. It makes use of ordinary materials and completely immerses the viewer at times, but it's also just a little "too much."
#4 - Vladim Zakharov at the Russian Pavillion.
Zakharov created an environment based on the Greek myth of Danae, who was locked in a room by her king father and yet impregnated by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold. Only women visitors were allowed into the dark basement-like first floor of the installation. Gold coins dropped from above (hence the safety umbrellas) and women were encouraged to collect handfuls of coins and place them in a bucket which was then lifted and dumped on them again. Each woman also got to keep one coin.
This work "[is] about how money corrupts and the hope for the future of women," said Berlin curator Ugo Kittelmann. I'm not sure how scrounging around on the floor collecting coins while they are being "showered" on you from above just to toss them in a bucket and have the cycle start all over again is supposed to empower women, but whatever, it was fun and I can dig it. I enjoy art that requires viewer participation.
There was also this guy sitting in a saddle on the rafters eating peanuts and dropping the shells on the floor. Not sure what that was all about.
#3 - Ragnar Kjartansson,
S.S. Hangover
This work is more of a kinetic sculpture. A boat sails between two landings of a canal in the Arsenale while a brass sextet plays. One by one the musicians are dropped off at the dock left alone to play as the boat sails away with the rest of the musicians still playing onboard, only to be picked up a round or two later and replaced by another musician in a continuous loop. It was the end of the day, the music was soothing and the rhythmic movement of the boat and lapping of the waves was just what I needed to relax after a long day of Biennale-ing.
#2 - Tino Sehgal
British-born artist Tino Sehgal, known for creating art with no physical form, won this year's Golden Lion award for best artist in the Biennale. Two or three individuals sit on the floor improvising their own music, humming and chanting while responding to one another in movement and gestures (the performers rotated in and out). This work was situated in the main hall of the central pavilion, so the sounds were really powerful and echoed through most of
The Encyclopedic Palace exhibition. I was completely mesmerised by this work and could have sat watching for hours. It was just as interesting to watch the spectators react to the performers: some took photos (like me), some walked around giving the individuals a wide berth, a few asked questions of the guards, and still others sat in close proximity on provided benches and texted or consulted their maps.
#1 - Finland
Finland is so awesome that it has not one but
two pavilions devoted to its artists! In the first one: artist Antti Laitinen's
Tree Reconstruction and
Forest Square.
Tree Reconstruction revolves around birch trees that Laitinen felled and chopped up in Finland and then reconstructed in Venice. In
Forest Square, the artist felled an area of forest, removed the undergrowth, trees, roots, and surface soil. He then spent five months sorting out the materials in order to recompose them into a geometric pattern the same size as the area of felled forest (executed in a huge warehouse). The result is a photographic triptych.
I appreciate when an artist combines art with science, and Terike Haapoja does just that. The artist's meditative
Community consists of infrared videos showing the postmortem cooling down of animal bodies (see the circular pedestals in the photo below). Other works in the installation included a coffin of decaying leaves with sensors measuring carbon dioxide output and a video portrait recording the growth of bacteria on a canvas that was pressed against the artist's face.
