Venice - Not Only Biennale – Ca Corner della Regina – Fondazione Prada – Machines a Penser – Exhibition - Party

  Photograph -  Mattia Balsamini
 - Courtesy Fondazione Prada

Not Only Biennale – Exhibition
Ca Corner della Regina – Fondazione Prada
Machines a Penser – Preview Party

At the Fondazione Prada the exhibition Machines a Penser, curated by Dieter Roelstraete, until November 25, explores the correlation between conditions of exile, escape and retreat and physical or mental places which favor reflection, thought and intellectual production.  Machines a Penser focuses on three major philosophers of the 20th century: Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The latter two shared a life-long need for intellectual isolation: Heidegger spent long periods of his life in a secluded hut in the village of Todtnauberg in the Black Forest in Germany, whilst Wittgenstein retreated on several occasions to a small mountain cabin situated in a fjord in Skjolden, Norway. Adorno, on the other hand, was forced into exile from his native Germany during by the Nazi regime, first to Oxford and then to Los Angeles, where he wrote Minima Moralia, a collection of aphorisms that also reflects on the fate of forced emigration. These reflections inspired the installation conceived by the Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay in 1987 titled Adorno’s Hut, a centerpiece of the exhibition alongside architectural reconstructions of the actual huts of Heidegger and Wittgenstein.

http://www.fondazioneprada.org/project/machines-a-penser/?lang=en

  

 “…these were the places where our protagonists hatched out their deepest thoughts. Isolation, whether chosen or imposed, appears to have inspired them decisively—and over the years their huts have proven to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration in turn for generations of artists, attracted to the fantasy of withdrawal as articulated in its most elemental architectural form.”
Dieter Roelstraete
curator

Adorno’s exile is recalled through a large-scale reproduction of a photograph by Patrick Lakey showcasing the interior of Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. The fate of forced retreat is explored through the work of artists such as Susan Philipsz; Ewan Telford; Patrick Lakey; Anselm Keifer, Alexander Kluge. The exhibition takes place on the ground floor and on the first floor of the 18th century palazzo, creating an immersive journey that deepens our understanding of these three philosophers and the relationship between philosophy, art and architecture. 

Patrick Lakey - Photographs

Cesare Cunaccia

   

Cecilia Matteucci

 

Roberto De Feo
Anselm Keifer – Hirnhauslein (fur Alexander) - 2017

   

Machines a Penser - Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger’s Black Forest cabin is evoked through a remake that contains, among other works, a series of personal photographs by the photo-journalist Digne Meller-Marcovicz and a set of ceramic pieces by Jan Bontjes van Beek. Contemporary work by artists such as Giulio Paolini, Sophie Nys, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle and Paolo Chiasera chart the long shadow cast by Heidegger’s thought across philosophies of building, dwelling and belonging.

 

Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran

   

Marie-Rose Kahane and Aud Cuniberti

 

Donata Grimani and Caterina Napoleone

  Photograph -  Mattia Balsamini
 - Courtesy Fondazione Prada

Machines a Penser - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Inside the reconstruction of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s small house in Skjolden, Norway, the viewer encounters Head of a Girl (1925-1928), the only artwork known to have been made by the Austro-British philosopher, shown here alongside his personal belongings. Wittgenstein’s self-imposed exile and lifelong quest for philosophical peace of mind form the subject of artworks created by a Norwegian artist collective comprised of Sebastian Makonnen Kjolaas, Marianne Bredesen and Siri Hjorth; Jeremy Millar; and Guy Moreton. A newly commissioned work by Leonor Antunes and a sculpture by Mark Manders are also featured in the exhibition.

 Photograph -  Mattia Balsamini
 - Courtesy Fondazione Prada

   

Marianne Bredesen, Sebastian Makonnen Kjolaas and Siri Hjorth
Preliminary Model of the Wittgenstein Monument 1:23 - 2018

 

Marianne Bredesen, Sebastian Makonnen Kjolaas and Siri Hjorth

 

Giovanni and Servane Giol with Isabella Capace Galeota

 

 Jerome Zieseniss and Matteo Corvino

Fabio Moretti, Roberta Rossi, Massimo Luca Barbero and Cinzia Giol

 Photograph -  Mattia Balsamini
 - Courtesy Fondazione Prada

Mark Manders – A Place Where My Thoughts Are Frozen Together -  2001

Lorcan O’Neill and Luca Cipelletti

 

 Gaby Wagner

Jean-Marie Degueldre and Alessandro Palwer

 

Studiolo – Northern Italy – c. 1480

Vue de Differentes Habitations de J.J. Rousseau – c. 1810

 

Ian Hamilton Finlay – Adorno’s Hut – 1986-87

Goshka Macuga - Heidegger – Adorno – Wittgenstein – 2018

Goshka Macuga designed three sculptures for the exhibition depicting the heads of the three philosophers, Mark Riley presents three dioramas and Gerhard Richter exhibits overpainted photographs of Engadin mountainscapes and sculpture Kugel III, evoking Friedrich Nietzsche’s thinking quarters in Sils-Maria where Thus Spoke Zarathustra was conceived.

Alessandra Zoppi and Elvire Mazzucco

   

Cristina Beltrami and Luca Bombassei

Astrid Welter and Giuseppe Barbieri

  Photograph -  Mattia Balsamini
 - Courtesy Fondazione Prada

 

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle – Schwarzwald – 2015
Giulio Paolini – L’Arte e Lo Spazio. Quattro Illustrazioni Per Martin Heidegger - 1983

 

Machines a Penser

The exhibition also includes a historical section focusing on Church, father Saint Jerome (347-419), famous for leading the life of an anchorite in the Syrian desert while translating the Bible into Latin. Renaissance paintings and prints dedicated to the iconography of the saint are exhibited alongside a Renaissance studiolo containing, among other items, first editions of Heidegger and Wittgenstein’s writings, its outer walls clad in a site-specific installation by the Scottish artist-poet Alec Finlay titled Hutopia (2018), featured above.

Bartolomeo Montagna – Saint Jerome in Bethlehem – 1505-10

 

The Grand Canal

 

Pin It