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| Our Setup at British Pavilion "Still Life with Tandy Reverb" |
It's been months since Venice and still I think about it. Three days of intense art dialogue and observation were not long enough even for a taster. After a live performance with Chris Weaver and Bob and Roberta Smith at the British Pavilion (the set up for which is above) we spent most of our time with the Welsh and the Northern Irish, and it seems bizarre that we had to go to another country to all get together. The Welsh after-party was a feast, complete with mole poetry and a Super Furry Animals performance (moles are furry). Because the Venice experience was so vast, I will only relay three things here on this blog, in three different posts. Firstly a series of images below, then my thoughts about four of the best pieces, followed later by a video of our Resonance104.4FM performance. For more detail on the Biennial than my snaps, why not turn to the neatly put together Ideological Guide app to the Biennial
HERE
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| Venice Agendas Breakfast, local and international artists and curators debate the biennial and its methods |
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| In the British Pavilion |
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| The French Pavilion and the German Pavilion swapped buildings this year in an historic gesture |
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| Vadim Zakharov (Tajikistan) “Danae” the Russian pavilion theme |
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| "Gentlemen, time has come to confess our rudeness, lust, narcissism, demagoguery, falsehood banality and" Russian Pavilion |
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| Women only! We must keep the coins coming by dropping them in a bucket from a golden shower, that go up an escalator |
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| I forgot who this was by, distracted by the penis made of pages, a well preserved text mummy, Sth Africa Pavilion |
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| Sand chemistry - ephemeral work on the floor for Sth America at El Atlas del Imperio |
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Eco sound installation using infra red to indicate life - Finland's Terike Haapoja and her eco works
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| Bill Culbert at the New Zealand Pavilion, he told me "People ask if they are wine, but it's water." |
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| Bill Culbert, his partner and Bob and Roberta Smith glowing in the light of Culbert's installation of strip lights and empty bottles |
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| In the street - feminism in Italy takes on a approach |
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| In the street- "I Will Live" |
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| In the street - never forget the washing of the gondolier |
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| At the communist bar I got them to sing me Italian songs |
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| Travelling - no cars, aural bliss |
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| The aesthetics of audio pieces - Gerhard Marx, Maja Marx and Philip Miller
recall "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission", through the creation
of an installation of seven films with audio; using the source material
from their theatre production "Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and
Testimony" - Sth Africa |
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| A mere gimmick or integral to the piece. Seating for a film at the port side |
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| The Bahamas Pavilion was entirely about snow and the North Pole |
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| Detail - by Tavares Strachan |
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| Two pieces occupy one space, a silent mic and dripping water |
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| China's oppressive "human factory" atmosphere - China |
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| The much-lauded band on a ship. Not impressed by the music. |
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| Crumb does creation. Superb it was too, part of The Encyclopaedic Palace |
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| The visions of Carl Gustav Jung, he painted in his Red Book, the theme for The Encyclopaedic Palace |
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| This piece had the most amazing smell, Sth Amercan pavilion El Atlas del Imperio |
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| Women look up to see where the coins are raining from |
Sonic flowers in the Finland Pavilion responded to the oxygen in our breath, by opening and changing tone and pitch
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| Observers kneel at the pew-like barriers to the golden shower Russian Pavilion |
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| The communist bar, such a history |
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| The ground beneath our feet has cracked |
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| A Barber's up a tree |
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| Chinese art, very poor but very rich |
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| A room full of projectors |
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| A room full of projectors |
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| Jung's original book, on which the idea of “The Encyclopedic Palace” was based curated by Massimiliano Gioni |
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| Super Chinese film, very reminiscent of Iran's grappling with classicism |
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| Artists Bob and Roberta Smith with Chris Weaver on a sea of labelled fired, bricks. Elisabetta Benassi 'The Dry Salvages',
an uneven floor of 10,000 'bricks' made from clay taken from
areas of the 1951 Polesine flood (N.East Italy). Each bears the names and
alphanumeric cataloguing codes of the largest pieces of space debris
still in orbit around the earth. |
