Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Venice Art Biennale 2013: National Pavilions Around Town – Mexico



Venice Art Biennale 2013:  National Pavilions Around Town – Mexico. The old church of San Lorenzo, venue of the Mexican Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, is a building that still speaks of its past greatness. It is important that the project to be developed there actively relates to a place of intrinsic aesthetic appeal. Consequently, the curatorial proposal consists in creating a sonorous dialogue with the space. Cordiox, by Ariel Guzik, is a complex machine that describes its environment through sound, spreading a tonal, subtle and expansive crystalline cadence, thus creating a unique listening experience.



 
Old church of San Lorenzo – Mexican Pavilion. With this four meters high machine, the artist has achieved an important synthesis of elements and functional simplicity. His design is backed by decades of research and study; hence it is not a mere representation, but the result of a perfection achieved in the laboratory, with the backing of thorough experimentation. The machine's core is made of a very fine quartz cylinder, unique in the world (45 cm in diameter and 180 cm high) manufactured especially for this piece by an expert German company. It has long and tense chords, very much like a musical instrument. All sorts of vibrations, empathic and environmental energies are susceptible to be captured by its subtle mechanism, which transforms invisible entropy into harmonious order. Furthermore, because of its sound-descriptive nature, without speakers or amplifiers, Cordiox has the capability to envelop the complete inner area of San Lorenzo with sound. Therefore the audience will sonorously experience a site that cannot be traversed physically due to the church's deterioration.

 
Old church of San Lorenzo  – Mexican Pavilion.  This antique church has a surprising musical background. Among other important facts, it is said that, due to its excellent acoustics, Antonio Vivaldi liked to rehearse for his concerts there. In 1984, for the 41st edition of the Venice Biennale, this site hosted a great public event: the opera Prometeo, by Luigi Nono, one of the most important avant-garde composers of the twentieth century. This concert was his final realization of what he conceived as the theater of consciousness: "An invisible theater where the sound production and its projection in space are fundamental for the creation of dramaturgy". For this concert, the famous architect Renzo Piano produced a complex intervention that was later taken apart in San Lorenzo and reinstalled wherever the opera Prometeo was later presented.
 
Old church of San Lorenzo – Mexican Pavilion. Cordiox, by Ariel Guzik.


Old church of San Lorenzo.

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