Photograph by Manfredi Bellati
Palazzo Fortuny: In-Finitum. The exhibition In-Finitum at Palazzo Fortuny (until November 11th) is curated by Axel Vervoordt and Daniela Ferretti and drawn from the collections of the Vervoordt Foundation, the Musei Civici Veneziani, and various other public and private collections from all over the world, the exhibition is the third installment of a trilogy that began in 2007 with Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art and continued with Academia: Qui es-tu? in Paris in 2008. And as with the first show, which was also held at Palazzo Fortuny, the mysterious and mythical spaces of this wonderful museum represent a natural habitat for the exhibition. Its structure and atmosphere still so strongly inspired by Fortuny’s investigative, creative, and genial spirit—perfectly suit the quest for the unknown and unknowable that runs through In-finitum.
Photograph by Manfredi Bellati
Palazzo Fortuny: In-Finitum. New York based painter, Natvar Bhasvar talks to Axel Vervordt in front of Bhasvar’s painting Ahdhee, pure pigment, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2006.
Photograph by Jean-Pierre Gabriel
Palazzo Fortuny: In-Finitum. In the Mezzanine a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti called Lady of Venice, 1956 and a painting by Alberto Burri, Nero Cretto, 1988.
Photograph by Manfredi Bellati
Palazzo Fortuny: In-Finitum. Sadaharu Horio did a performance at the opening party. Horio is a Gutai artist of the third generation. He plucks various found objects-including household objects, string, bits of wood, branches, roots, planks, crates, boxes, stones, and a leather bag-in order to use them as surfaces on which to paint, it is certainly not a matter of aestheticization, or of raising the banal to the level of an artwork. What he does also has little to do with painting in the strict sense of the word, but rather with the ritual of an ever-repeating practice. Every day, regardless of what is happening around him, or whether the earth may be trembling, he applies paint to the objects. To avoid making the choice of color himself, he sticks to the sequence of colors in the paint box. He thereby avoids everything that is connected with subjectivity, because what he does could be done just as well by anyone else and could be endlessly continued. By always branding diverse objects in the same manner, he thereby unites them into a whole. The paint is the link between mankind and the movements of the cosmos. Instead of portraying his own lifetime, it is the infinitude of time that is so wonderfully revealed here.
Photograph by Jean-Pierre Gabriel
Palazzo Fortuny: In-Finitum. On the ground floor, Anish Kapoor’s Glow, 2009 and Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale, Natura, Bronzo, 1959/60.