Alma Zevi
The Venice Show
At Alma Zevi gallery, The Venice Show, until October 31, a group exhibition with the city at its core. This show is a celebration of the enormous potential existing within Venice; both in terms of homegrown talent as well as the magnetism which brings artists working today back to the city time and time again. This magnetism is conveyed through a varied, multi-generational selection of artists; ranging from the emerging to established and including both Venetians as well as international figures.
Works
Marcantonio Brandolini d'Adda, Heidi Bucher, Simone Carraro, Juliana Cerqueira Leite, Tereza Cervenova, Charlap Hyman & Herrero, Michael Craig-Martin, Andrew Huston, Bice Lazzari, Katy Stubbs and Joe Tilson.
Rosy Kahane and Alma Zevi
An important recent addition to Venice is Michael Craig-Martin. The Irish-born conceptual artist, has been living partially in Venice since 2017. On view for the first time Untitled - watch fragment turquoise – 2019 - above title - it encapsulates several key themes and characteristics in the artist’s work, where everyday objects are transformed by a precise, linear aesthetic.
Untitled – Barcelona chair fragment black – 2019
Michael Craig-Martin
Michael Craig-Martin
Karol Vail and Norbert Salenbauch
Melba Ruffo
Another stalwart of the British art scene who has lived between Venice and the UK for many years is Joe Tilson. Tilson, who just turned 92, is one of the leading figures of British Pop Art. Tilson’s relationship with Italy began in 1955 when he won the Prix de Rome. His association with Venice, and particular the Biennale, began in 1964 when he exhibited in the British Pavilion. The piece included is part of Tilson’s Stones of Venice series, which features his iconic reinterpretation of Venice’s architectural features in the bright colours which have dominated his work over the past few decades. Highlighting a specifically Venetian vernacular style – including tile mosaics and religious symbolism – these paintings can be interpreted as a joyful portrait and celebration of the city.
Joe Tilson
The Stones of Venice - Deposito del Pane – 2015
Judi Harvest
Martin Craig-Martin, Andrew Huston, Beatrice Burati Anderson and Tristano de Robilant
The youngest artist in the show is a recent graduate of Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, Simone Carraro, who has created a commissioned piece on the occasion of this exhibition. The painting is based on the ecosystem of the Venetian Lagoon, creating an original and lively aesthetic born of researched scientific findings. The combination of traditional imagery with a critique on the fragile state of Venice’s environment is an apt metaphor for the city’s position as a place where the ancient and the contemporary must co-exist together in harmony.
Simone Carraro
Almanacco Organico Lagunare – 2020
Continuing the topic of the Biennale, the gallery is showing for the first time the work of Bice Lazzari, arguably the most important female Venetian artist of the 20th Century. Lazzari was born in Venice in 1900 and studied music at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venice, before going to the Accademia di Belle Arti. Her work was included in the 19th Biennale of 1934. Lazzari had close ties with Carlo Scarpa and Gio Ponti, with whom she often collaborated with on decorative commissions. Her work was extremely radical; combining great beauty with a remarkably pared down, minimal aesthetic that linked her passion for music with that of architecture, modernism and abstraction.
Bice Lazzari
Senza Titolo – Untitled - 1974
Stefano Gris and Silvia Dainese
Cristina Beltrami
Alma Zevi
Salizzada Malipiero - San Marco 3208
In the Salizzada gallery space, the sculptures by Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, a Venetian artist working with Murano glass. He has developed a revolutionary technique and practice that takes a fresh perspective on the place of glass in contemporary art. These objects, which are described as vessels, surprise by the vivacity of their colouring and their unexpected compositions; both of which remain at the core of the artist’s innovative approach to working with this medium.
Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda
Unknown – 49 – 2019
Shown for the first time in the gallery is Andrew Huston, an adopted Venetian and a painter. He established his studio in Venice in 2017 after 20 years of living and working in New York City. The influence of Venice continues to seep into his work in recognisable yet subtle ways. These include the silhouetted, abstracted forms of Venetian round glass windows, fragments of traditional boats and elements of gold leaf. All of these can be identified in the artist’s thoughtful and distinctive palette used for the majestic painting selected for this exhibition.
Andrew Huston
Mascareta – 2019
‘The insects are there because I was right next to the little garden while making the piece in the Arsenale where there are lots of little bugs and spiders. I like how insects have many different meanings to different people.’
Katy Stubbs
Katy Stubbs, a South African-British artist working with ceramics, completed her residency in Venice in 2019. Stubbs made a number of exquisitely crafted, witty pieces, many of which were influenced by Old Master paintings that she studied in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. Her Insect Vase is a characteristic example of Stubbs’s rendering of both Classical Antiquity and the natural world. Stubbs used for the first time a granular clay which is local in Italy, where she is based. The residency provided her with not just a wealth of new visual references, but also the chance to develop new techniques and material variations.
Katy Stubbs
Insect Vase – 2019
Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda
Untitled – 2020
Bikem de Montebello and Tristano de Robilant
Juliana Cerqueira Leite lives between New York and Sao Paulo. She was amongst the first of Alma Zevi’s artists in residence in Venice in 2017. The artist spent much of her time here walking through the city - making frottages -rubbings - of different historical and architectural surfaces such as doors, floors, windows, railings and more. This led to an important body of work which the artist has continued throughout her practice.
Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda
Untitled – 2020
Juliana Cerqueira Leite
JT201603 – 2016
Giorgio Mastinu and Antonia Miletto