21 Feb Shocking art pieces, awesome buildings and tired limbs: the second day of the Venetian Biennale
Posted at 13:31h
in Blog
We began the morning with the other big scene of the Biennale, the Arsenale, which is a huge complex of construction sites where the Serenissima fleets were built. Since 1980 the Arsenale has become an exhibition site of La Biennale on the occasion of the 1st International Architecture Exhibition. We found scores of people at the entrance even at the opening time.
We started our visit with the areas of the Corderie. Here we could see wide-ranging ethnography of the arts at the main exhibition. We would like to give a foretaste of what we saw -although it is quite hard to highlight only some. Entering the first room we found Gabriel Chaile’s awesome statues about five members of his family created in his special style. Chaile often applies materials, shapes and symbols of archetypes which can be related to the culture before Colombus and which are poetic and funny for the audience. During the creation he always reclines on objects like pots and clay furnaces. These are often personalised and they also represent social activities- here they show ability of care in a family. This was the perfect expression of the artistic mixture of tradition and innovation.
An other piece we would like to share with you is the capsule of American artists. It was inspired by a sci-fi author who linked the birth of civilisation to tools of care instead of the invention of guns. The pieces of the installation called Time Capsule IV. showed this metaphor by using different shapes of pots connected to nature and human bodies.
Out of these art pieces we would like to highlight Ruth Asawa’s creations. She learned how to draw and paint from Walt Disney’s animators during the Second World War. Later she acquired different techniques of how to wattle during her journeys in Mexico. This technique served her experiments by reaching sculptural softness. She used common industrial materials like rough yellow copper, steel and heavy copper wire. She began to build graceful statues which are hung and are 3D, but haven’t got inner mass referring to the mass of the pots, too. Besides the details and the soft elaboration we must mention the light-shadow game of the statues. Thanks to the hung pieces which were mirroring not only on the walls but on the floor as well. This way the visitors could see enlarged and detailed pictures of the well-wattled net.
Jakup Ferri coming from Kosovo introduced his textile pieces with the title “The Monumentality of the Everyday”. He worked with women from Kosovo, Albania and Suriname to develop group dynamics in the communities. He introduced paintings, carpets and embroidery which were inspired by kids’ drawings, the graphics of a computer game and elements of folklore. In the pictures the artist’s surreal drawings appear which are about everyday situations with kids, animals and utopian architecture. Entering the monumental room we were welcomed by the mess of colours and shapes and fortunately we had time to sink in the details of traditional patterned carpets running on the walls.
After finishing the Arsenale we felt it was time to have a break since not only were our feet tired but also our eyes and brains got exhausted. So it was the point where we decided to find the perfect place for an afternoon coffee and a glass of prosecco. Our first place was the Fondaco Dei Tedeschi shopping centre where you can find the nicest panoramic cafe in Venice. Sadly there wasn’t any free table, but we admired the awesome details of the interior besides the elegant clothes. After that we walked to the Rialto bridge and we were favoured by fortune as a table at the foot of the bridge became free at the very moment we arrived. This is how we had the chance to help us get attuned to the afternoon programmes by enjoying delicious food and prosecco and by watching the amazing view.
In the rest of the day we only planned to visit only one scene, the Querini Stampalia Fondazione Museum, which awaits its visitors with the original furniture, paintings and objects. There were two other reasons of our visit: on one hand the famous architect, Carlo Scarpa, designed inner and outer spaces on the ground floor in 1961; on the other hand Danh Vo and Isama Noguchi’s exhibition was presented here during the Biennale as well. It was really interesting how a contemporary artist introduces his pieces at an imposing venue like this and uses it as a toy. The impressive spaces and art pieces were lit by Noguchi’s iconic Akari lamps in a wide range of sizes and shapes. This special lamp was based on the Japanese chochin lamps and was influenced by the American design aesthetics. The paper structure made of strawberry trees is an excellent example how to connect traditions to modern art. Vo presented his pieces as a living archive and as such reflected to the greatest library of the city that is also in the building of the museum.
