A Walk Through The Art. Venice Biennale 2017
This year’s Venice Biennale – the 57th edition, titled Viva Arte Viva and curated by Christine Macel – is open to the public through Sunday, November 26th, 2017, as usual in several locations in Venezia, but mainly at the Arsenale and at the Giardini.
Of the 86 National Participations in the Venice Biennale 2017, the most remarkable are the German Pavilion – winner of the Golden Lion this year – at the Giardini, and the Italian Pavilion at the Arsenale. At the German Pavilion, performance piece Faust by Anne Imhof takes places in an antiseptic scenario whose complexity is cracked open to allow the viewer complete vision. At the Italian Pavilion, three artists successfully welcome the visitor to 3 completely different (alternative) universes. Roberto Cuoghi: Imitation of Christ is an alchemic experimentation that envelopes the viewer in its miasmas, a result of the artist’s probing exercises into mortality, decay and transformation, with powerful aesthetic references. Adelita Husni-Bey’s The Reading is a video (and props) installation that resulted after a workshop, for which the artist created a new – magical/transformative – environment and a set of tarot cards to ease a group of young New Yorkers into creatively discussing important issues and conceptions of our contemporary world. Giorgio Andreotta Calò: Untitled (The end of the world) is a surprise for the viewer, visible only after a dark flight of stairs and a body-reorientation – a world beyond the mirror, a portal accessible only at certain magic places of transcendence.
Among the most distinguished exhibitions happening in town during this Venice Biennale 2017 (and that are not technically collateral events), the most honorable mention goes to Palazzo Fortuny, where the curatorial board that has turned the Palazzo into the perfect contemporary art venue presents yet another success. Intuition – a group show curated by Axel Vervoordt and Daniela Ferretti around a theme resonating with concepts of ephemerality and invisibility – unravels throughout the Palazzo’s 4 floors of unique architecture, masterfully interlacing Mariano Fortuny’s (1871-1949) eccentric historic collection with contemporary artwork.
Another remarkable show, even if controversially so, is Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at two different – and magnificent – venues, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. The overwhelming quantity of sculptural objects presented, although spurring from a valid concept, isn’t able to meet the high expectations of a more “professional” public, also because – although with exceptions – the sculptures generally lack of artistic quality or care; thus, their immaterial value isn’t enough to justify the “artifacts” overproduction in this show.
All photographs © Matilde Soligno/Droste Effect magazine.
ARSENALE:
- Roberto Cuoghi: Imitation of Christ (2017) at the Italian Pavilion
- Roberto Cuoghi: Imitation of Christ (2017) at the Italian Pavilion
- Roberto Cuoghi: Imitation of Christ (2017) at the Italian Pavilion
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Giorgio Andreotta Calò: Untitled (The end of the world) (2017)
at the Italian Pavilion
-
Giorgio Andreotta Calò: Untitled (The end of the world) (2017)
at the Italian Pavilion
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Giorgio Andreotta Calò: Untitled (The end of the world) (2017)
at the Italian Pavilion
- Adelita Husni-Bey: The Reading (2017) at the Italian Pavilion
- Adelita Husni-Bey: The Reading (2017) at the Italian Pavilion
- Jeremy Shaw: Liminals (2017), video
- Maria Lai: Legare Collegare (1981), video
- Ayrson Heráclito: O Sacudimento da Casa da Torre (2015), video
- Kader Attia: Narrative Vibrations (2017), two-part installation
- Achraf Touloub: Untitled (2017)
-
Ernesto Neto:
A Sacred Place (2017)
- Petrit Halilaj: Do you realise there is a rainbow even if it’s night!? (2017)
- Heidi Bucher: Anna Mannheimer with Target (1975)
- Michele Ciacciofera: Janas Code (2016-2017)
- Julian Charrière: Future Fossil Spaces (2017)
- Charles Atlas: The Tyranny of Consciousness (2017), video installation
- Shimabuku: Do Snow Monkeys Remember Snow Mountains? (2016)
- OHO group: Summer Projects (1969-1970), video, photographs
- Alicja Kwade: Pars pro Toto (2017), partial view of the sculpture group
- Hassan Khan: Composition for a Public Park (2013/2017) at Giardino delle Vergini
GIARDINI:
- A view of the installation for the performance piece Faust by Anne Imhof at the German Pavilion
- Cerith Wyn Evans: Pasolini Ostia Remix (1998-2003), super 16mm film at the International Pavilion
- Olafur Eliasson: Green Light – An Artistic Workshop (2017) at the International Pavilion
- Video from the installation Cinema Olanda by Wendelien van Oldenborgh at the Dutch Pavilion
- Jordi Colomer: Ciudad de bolsillo (Pocket city) (2017) at the Spanish Pavilion
- Irma Blank: Trascrizioni, Twelve Chapters (1977) at the Central Pavilion
- Abdullah Al Saadi: Al Saadi’s Diaries (2016) at the International Pavilion
- Ciprian Mureşan: All Images from a Book of Giotto (2015) at the International Pavilion
- Facade of the Korean Pavilion
- Erwin Wurm: One Minute Sculptures at the Austrian Pavilion
- Erwin Wurm: One Minute Sculptures at the Austrian Pavilion
PALAZZO FORTUNY:
- Marina Abramović: Standing Structures for Human Use (2017)
-
Nicola Martini: Untitled (2017),
detail of light-sensitive bitumen installation
-
Bernardì Roig: An Illuminated
Head for Blinky P, 2010
Lucia Bru: (aérocubes), 2017
- Anish Kapoor: White Dark VIII (2000)
- Mariano Fortuny: Model for the Bayreuth Theatre (1903)
-
Matteo Nasini: Sparkling Matter,
3D sculptures
- Installation view
- Installation view with Basquiat
- Kimsooja: Archive of Mind (2017)
OTHER VENUES IN VENICE:
-
Pierre Huyghe at Fondation
Louis Vuitton – Venice Biennale collateral event
- Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at Punta della Dogana
- Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at Palazzo Grassi
- Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at Punta della Dogana
- Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable at Punta della Dogana
- Yuri Ancarani: Rio grande (2017), video, at Caffè Florian
by Matilde Soligno
in A Walk Through The Art
Aug 7, 2017