Monday, February 02, 2015

Venice: Candida Hofer - Ca Pesaro - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice - Exhibition

  photograph courtesy musei civic veneziani
Venice: Candida Hofer at Ca Pesaro - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice - Exhibition.
Where: On the Grand Canal at Ca PesaroInternational Gallery of Modern Art in the new Spazio Dom Perignon.
What: The second appointment of Paradoxes, A Series of Unforeseeable Encounters between Classic and Contemporary Art from the museum’s historic collection. One of the leading exponents of the so-called Dusseldorf School, the Internationally renowned German photographer, Candida Hofer’s Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice exhibition.  The exhibition presents a selection of  photographs from her 2001 work, Douze-Twelve, commissioned by the Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle of Calais, for which she photographed the twelve existing casts of Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais located around the world. And of which a large plaster cast can be seen inside the museum.
When: Candida Hofer’s Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice – until 29 March. The exhibition is curated by Gabriella Belli, with exhibition layout by Daniela Ferretti.
Above. Candida Hofer - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice - The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York II – 2000 – C-print – 152x152 cm. Copyright Candida Hofer – Koln/VG Bild-Kunst – Bonn.


 photograph and copyright manfredi bellati

Ca Pesaro: Auguste Rodin – The Burghers of Calais. Auguste Rodin’s impressive plaster version of The Burghers of Calais (1889).  The key work by the French artist was acquired by the Comune di Venezia at the 1901 Biennale and is on show on the first floor of the permanent collection. This well-known sculptural group, several times replicated by Rodin, has inspired Hofer, who has photographed the twelve casts by Rodin in their installations in various international public collections around the world.


Candida Hofer

  photograph courtesy musei civic veneziani
 
Candida Hofer - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice - Kunstmuseum Basel II – 2000 - C-print – 152x152 cm.
Copyright Candida Hofer – Koln/VG Bild-Kunst – Bonn.


Candida Hofer - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice: The dialogue with the sculpture renders topical all the creative energy of the past, offering us replicas of a masterly scenographic impact, powerful yet restrained, thanks to the strict perspective standards typical of the German photographer.
Above: Candida Hofer - Les Bourgeois de Calais in Venice – Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Washington II – 2000 – C-print – 107x85 cmCopyright Candida Hofer – Koln/VG Bild-Kunst – Bonn.




 A view from the back windows of Ca Pesaro