Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Venice - Not Only Biennale - Punta della Dogana - Icones


"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


Edith Dekyndt - Ombre Indigene - 2014


Joseph Kosuth - An Object Upon Itself? - Adieu - 2022


Robert Ryman - Untitled - 2010


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


Etienne Chambaud - Uncreature - 2022 + Stase - 2022


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







 

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