Thursday, May 07, 2015

Venice: La Biennale - Pick of the Day – May 6 - Giardini

  photograph courtesy Marco Biagini

Outsider Pavilion. Marco Biagini - High Visibility Burqa. Outside the Giardini on the riva overlooking Venice and the lagoon Marco Biagini created his own pavilion, the Outsider Pavilion, on show Expo - High Visibility Burqa – 2015 – high visibility clothing, Burqa, Hadish.


 


Marco Biagini



 

Swiss Pavilion - Pamela Rosenkranz – Our Product. Pamela Rosenkranz’s Our Product is curated by Susanne Pfeffer, director of the Fridericianum in Kassel.  The work takes aim at the empty centers of history, politics, and contemporary culture as a whole. It addresses the shifting philosophical and scientific meanings of the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ during Anthropocene (the geological epoch marked by the impact of human activities on the ecosystem). Rosenkranz deploys a palette of patented icons—polyethylene water bottles, soft drinks, Ralph Lauren latex paint, JPEGs of International Klein Blue, Ilford photo paper, and ASICS sneakers—augmented by flesh-toned silicone and acrylic paint. Her insistence on the ‘naturalness’ of these seemingly unnatural materials is premised on the fact that they were all produced by…. synthetic materials.


 


Swiss Pavilion - Pamela Rosenkranz – Our Product 

Seen at La Biennale – Andreina Longhi and Luisa Beccaria


 
Czech and Slovak Republic Pavilion – Jiri David – Apotheosis.  The installation concentrates all its energy and expression on the confusion of the audience who enter the whitewashed pavilion only to realize later that the focal point of the exhibition is a narrow hallway right behind them.  There a monochrome version of Secessionist artist Alphonse Mucha’s Slav Epic reflects on a mirror wall that contains the spectator, immersed in the archeology of knowledge and memory”. The exhibition is curated by Katarina Rusnakova.



 
Jiri David and Katerina Rusnakova

  
Czech and Slovak Republic Pavilion – Jiri David – Apotheosis

 
Polish Pavilion - C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska - Halka/Haiti 18°48’05”N 72°23’01”W.  Artists C.T. Jasper and Joanna Malinowska and curator Magdalena Moskalewicz, decided to stage the opera in Haiti inspired by the mad plan of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, who wanted to build an opera house in the Amazon. Considered a “national opera” ever since its 1858 Warsaw premiere, Halka was praised for its depiction of Polish folk culture at a time when the country was still struggling to regain independence. Far from a simple rural romance, the tragic love story of the eponymous highlander peasant girl seduced and rejected by her mighty landlord is haunted by the echoes of bloody peasant revolt, underscoring the tense class relations between Polish landlords and their feudal subjects. These echoes become even more prominent in the context of the Haitian Revolution. Though not a typical social-practice project, Halka/Haiti does aim to highlight this little-known aspect of Polish-Haitian history in order to attract international visibility to the community of Cazale. Presented as a cinematic installation recalling the format of painted panoramas, Halka/Haiti probes the present-day power of traditional artistic genres to embody, represent, and, ultimately, construct national identities in the 21st century.




 
Venezia Pavilion – Aldo Cibic – Looking Ahead. The Evolution of the Art of Making. 9 Stories from Veneto: digital – not only digital. The pavilion tells nine stories, the protagonists of each being excellence, the meeting of artistic creativity and new technologies.  Curatored by Aldo Cibic.
Above. Stockman Mini Dress – Defile Collection A/W 2015 – Maison Margiela.


 

 
Matteo and Aldo Cibic

 
Paolo and Caroline Marzotto



 


Israeli Pavilion –Tsibi Geva: Archeology of the Present. Archeology of the Present extends over the exterior of the pavilion as well as through its interior, destabilizing familiar divisions between inside and outside, functional and the representational, high and low, abandoned, found, and manipulated elements. It encompasses formal and thematic elements characteristic of Geva’s work throughout his career and presents paintings alongside sculptural installations and abandoned and manipulated objects, abolishing hierarchical distinctions between artistic mediums and structures. In doing so, the project gives expression to Geva’s ongoing concern with elements related to the notion of ‘home’ – including terrazzo tiles, windows, shutters, lattices, and cement blocks; elements which exist as fragments of what once was, or could in principle constitute, a home. The project raises self-reflexive artistic concerns and epistemological questions, as well as political and cultural questions of locality and immigration, hybrid identity, existential anxiety and existence in an age of instability.



Israeli Pavilion –Tsibi Geva: Archeology of the Present