Photo
by Jacopo Salvi – courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
The 57 Venice Biennale
The Golden Lion
Viva Arte Viva - Franz Erhard Walther
Arsenale: Golden
Lion for the Best Artist of the
57th International Art Exhibition Viva Arte Viva, curated by
Christine Marcel goes to to Franz Erhard Walther for his work, which
brings together forms, color, fabrics, sculpture, performance and continues to
activate the viewer in engaging ways; for the radical and complex nature of his
oeuvre that has an impact on our time and suggests a way of living in transit.
The Jury was chaired by Manuel J.
Borja-Villel (Spain): Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Italy), Amy
Cheng (Taiwan), Ntone Edjabe (Cameroon), and Mark Godfrey (Great
Britain).
“This moment of manipulation and
action as a component of the work, or as the work itself – became my main theme.
The decisive fundamental idea was to build up an oeuvre from action”
Franz
Erhard Walther
57th International Art Exhibition Biennale
Viva Arte Viva
Curated - Christine
Macel
“...the title Viva
Arte Viva immediately sets the tone of this Biennale: an exhibition which, even
if it addresses complex political and social issues, has its own particular
energy and dynamism. I chose it to inspire a lively interest in the public:
Viva is a celebratory exclamation but also an expression of exuberance, and so
it encourages a feeling of engagement with the exhibition.”
Christine Macel
President
of La Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta
with the curator of Viva Arte Viva,
Christine Marcel
Viva Arte Viva
“The
work of art and produced in solitude, but is a sediment of cultures accumulated
in millennia of collective experiences”
Maria Lai
Se il cielo fosse in
terra l’avrebbero rinchiuso pure - 1997
Il the sky were on the ground, they
would have locked it up as well
1997
Viva Arte Viva
Maria Lai
Enciclopedia Pane –
2008
17 bread books
Viva Arte Viva
“Construction and construction materials appeal to me
because
of their deep-rooted familiarity, the way that we are
immersed in them and the possibilities of their re-shaping through use.”
Martin Cordiano
Common Places - 2017
Viva Arte Viva
“Space. The work of art no longer has an autonomous form /
The work of art adopts the form of nature: swim, dynamics / The work of art has
no place (gallery, museum ...) Outside of nature / Its place is nature.”
Nicolas Garcia Uriburu
Hidrocromia
Intercontinental –
series 1970
Viva Arte Viva
“Time and distance are shrinking with new technology [...]
it is the end of geography.”
Julian Charriere
Future Fossil Spaces - 2017
Viva Arte Viva
“A little like a gardener ... has to
work with things that are beyond my control.”
Michel Blazy
Michel Blazy
Acqua Alta - 2017
Viva Arte Viva
“I have lots of objects. Every object has a story,
which makes me think I should write a story about every
object.”
(from
an interview by Haley Weiss on Interview Magazine)
Michelle Stuart
In the Beginning – Islas Encantadas –
1981-2015
Dream Collectors Carpinteria
– 2002-2012
Michelle Stuart
James Island Logbook (for Herman Melville) -
1982
Viva Arte Viva
“I really believe that art exists in a context, so I don’t
see (my sculptures) outside of the spaces where they exist.”
Leonor Antunes
…then we raised the terrain so that I could see out
– 2017
installation
Viva Arte Viva
“I feel the form. More
so from the inside than from thinking.
I do think about the
construction to place the skin. To place the canvas which is the skin.”
Zilia Sanchez
Los Amazonas – The
Amazons - 1968
Viva Arte Viva
“Wanting to be an artist. Being an artist.
For forty years I have used the vernacular mass-market object and the hand-made
as the site for my work. I would like the work to slip between boundaries, from
a recognized use
in the world to another experience of thought or pleasure.”
Nancy Shaver
Standardization, Variation and the Idiosyncratic
– 2017 Installation
Viva Arte Viva
“To a child toys are very important; they store many
emotions in them. Adults have a
different way of perceiving things but I think that they are still able to
think the same way.”
(from
an interview by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand
for Art Observed)
Liliana Porter
Man with an Axe – Venice 2017 –
2017
installation - detail
Liliana Porter - Man with an
Axe – Venice 2017 – 2017 - detail
Special Thanks
Biennale Arte Mag
VeNews