"The exhibition aims to reveal the icon as a vehicle of passage
to another world or other states of consciousness
(contemplation, meditation) through a selection of more than eighty works,
among which masterpieces from the Pinault Collection and
unseen works."
Punta della Dogana
Icones
An exhibition with works from the Pinault Collection
The Icônes exhibition at Punta della Dogana - until November 26 - is curated by Emma Lavigne, CEO of the Pinault Collection and Bruno Racine, CEO and Director, Palazzo Grassi-Punta della Dogana, it presents emblematic works from the
Pinault Collection, and proposes a reflection on the theme
of the icon and the status of the image in the contemporary
world. The word “icon” has two meanings: its Greek etymology defines it as an “image”, while it is used to designate a certain type of religious painting that characterizes in
particular Eastern Christianism. The idea of a model or an
emblematic figure is more contemporary. The status of the
image—its capacity to embody a presence, between appearance and disappearance, shadow and light, to spark
emotion—is at the core of this exhibition, conceived specifically for the Punta della Dogana and the Venetian context,
marked by its tight links with Byzantium. The exhibition
aims to reveal the icon as a vehicle of passage to another
world or other states of consciousness (contemplation,
meditation) through a selection of more than eighty works,
among which masterpieces from the Pinault Collection and
unseen works.
Lygia Page - Tteia1,C - 2003-2017
Donald Judd - Untitled - 1991
The show is punctuated by spaces like places
to pause or chapels in this era of saturation and trivialization
of images, and invokes, between figuration and abstraction,
all the dimensions of the image in the contemporary artistic
context—paintings, videos, sounds, installations, performances. Furthermore it highlights new dialogues between
emblematic artists from the Pinault Collection.
Camille Norment - Prime - 2016
Clementina Rizzi with Bruno Racine
co-curator and CEO and Director, Palazzo Grassi-Punta della Dogana
Danh Vo - Untitled - 2021
James Lee Byars - The Golden Tower - 1974
Francesco Lo Savio - Filtro e Rete - 1962
"Time measures / Nothing but itself,"
W.G. Sebald
Dayanita Singh - Time Measures - 2016
Danh Vo - Untitled - detail - 2021
Suspended at the heart of the central space, pieces of velvet fabric faded by light and time, coming from the Vatican museums, show the traces of lithurgical objects that had been placed on them. They reveal the original shine of the fabric where the crucifixes, chalices, ciboria, and monstrances once hung, reproducing their elaborate shapes and geometric arrangements. Taken by Danh Vo, these delicate skins and their ghostly presence are now in tension when they are shown: in a shapeless heap, they are paradoxically protected from further degradation; if hung, they are inexorably exposed to their slow destruction by the light.
Danh Vo - Christmas - Rome - 2012-2013
On Kawara
DEC. 1, 1974; DEC. 2, 1974; DEC. 3, 1974;
DEC. 4, 1974; DEC. 5, 1974; DEC. 6, 1974;
DEC. 7, 1974, 1974 - 7 paintings from the series Today - 1966–2013
Maurizio Catalan - Mother - 1999
With To Breathe-Venice, Kimsooja creates
a dizzying doubling of the interior volume
of the belvedere of Venice’s ancient dogana
da mar [sea customs], overlooking the basin of San Marco. Mirrors lining the floor
unify the space, conveying an impression
of weightlessness. The bay windows that
open onto the lagoon are coated with transparent films that diffract light infinitely.
These reflective surfaces convey the impression of walking on calm, clear water, thus
extending the lagoon into the building.
Confronting our reflection in the
mirrors allows us to perceive ourselves simultaneously as subject and object, encountering our own otherness. The polyphony
of Mandala: Zone of Zero, intertwining
Tibetan, Islamic, and Gregorian chants,
completes this renewed spatial experience, which hints at transcendence.
Kimsooja
To Breathe-Venice - 2023 + Mandala: Zone of Zero - 2004-2010
Paulo Nazareth - Antropologia do Negro - 2014
“the spacetime of an existence.”
Opalka 1965 / 1 - ∞, Roman Opałka’s magnum opus, consists of numbers painted on
a succession of canvases that he referred
to as “details”: the first begins, naturally,
with the number 1, and ends at 35,327. In
1972, he decided to add an additional 1%
of white to the dark paint he used as a
background with each new canvas: his later paintings in the series became lighter
and paler, gradually approaching a monochromatic white.
The octagonal architectural device that houses seven works from the series was conceived by the artist himself as the spatial representation of “the spacetime of an existence.”13 We hear a recording of Opałka’s voice reciting a series of
numbers as he paints them. This sound
dimension, like his paintings, conveys the
artist’s desire to capture and freeze the inexorable passage of time.
Roman Opalka
Roman Opalka
Autoportrait photographique ad nombre
4963115
peint sur la toile
OPALKA 1965 / 1 - ∞
Détail 4951385 - 4968511