Wednesday 16 November 2011
Friday 21 October 2011
Christian Marclay's 'The Clock' (Honor)
A favourite of many of ours, and the winner of this year's Golden Lion for best artist, was 'The Clock' and Christian Marclay. A truly remarkable feat of perseverence, for a start, but compelling and interesting, too. I found this clip of Alain de Botton discussing it, in his typically lucid way:
The Clock, by Christian Marclay
The Clock, by Christian Marclay
Thursday 20 October 2011
When in Venice... (Honor)
On my last day, I thought I'd better hop on the lovelock bandwagon before they pass the bill to criminalise this sweet gesture of amorous vandalism! As is tradition, the keys have been cast into the canal. It's nice to feel that a part of my heart is still on the Arsenale bridge, communing with the stone lions in the warmth of the sun, while the rest of me is back in Melbourne writing class plans.
Arrivederci, Venezia. xx
Sunday 16 October 2011
Palazzo Fortuny... Oh, My Goodness. (Honor)
I can't believe I almost didn't discover this extraordinary place.
I spent a few hours rambling through the cavernous rooms of this very ecclectic and eccentric collection of art and artefacts from ancient times to the present. Everything jumbled in together in the most wonderful way. Walls draped with exquisite silk and velvet brocade, hand-painted silk light shades two metres across and looking like something out of the Arabian nights... so deliciously exotic and strange. Downstairs, a gallery as dark as an old Venetian church, with spotlights illuminating a collection of works on a theme of transition between worlds... heavy timber beams across the ceiling, water lapping under the door and into the stairwell from the canal. I felt like I'd stumbled on the home of a mad and magical prince. I sat on one of the enormous, becushioned couches and drew for ages.
I had to colour it when I came back to my apartment - my momentum and enchantment was such that it was inevitable, but on reflection, I think I preferred the simple graphite drawing made in situ. I may work at it yet, to bring back some of its detail and warmth.
Still, the exercise prolonged my bewitched state well into my very last night in Venice, and I can now head homeward as full to the brim with wonder as I felt on my first day.
I spent a few hours rambling through the cavernous rooms of this very ecclectic and eccentric collection of art and artefacts from ancient times to the present. Everything jumbled in together in the most wonderful way. Walls draped with exquisite silk and velvet brocade, hand-painted silk light shades two metres across and looking like something out of the Arabian nights... so deliciously exotic and strange. Downstairs, a gallery as dark as an old Venetian church, with spotlights illuminating a collection of works on a theme of transition between worlds... heavy timber beams across the ceiling, water lapping under the door and into the stairwell from the canal. I felt like I'd stumbled on the home of a mad and magical prince. I sat on one of the enormous, becushioned couches and drew for ages.
Still, the exercise prolonged my bewitched state well into my very last night in Venice, and I can now head homeward as full to the brim with wonder as I felt on my first day.
Saturday 15 October 2011
Friday 14 October 2011
Wednesday 12 October 2011
A Day with Pinault's Riches (Honor)
Today we visited two important contemporary galleries - really one collection divided between two buildings within twenty minutes walk of one another. The collection belongs to a stupendously wealthy Frenchman named Francois Pinault. He is one of the two wealthiest men in France!
The first museum we saw was Punta Della Dogana - south-west of Piazza San Marco, and jutting out at the mouth of the Grand Canal - literally a point, as the name suggests.
The building, originally Venice's Customs House, has been beautifully customised to display Pinault's collection to the public. The collection is often confronting, but each work is given so much space of its own that I didn't feel assaulted by the content. The emphasis seemed to be on serious, mindful contemplation in the long, cool rooms, while Venice glimmered, blinding bright, through the windows. For instance, Maurizio Cattelan's sombre sculpture/installation of nine bodies covered with white sheets lying in the centre of the polished concrete floor of one large room. Though disturbing and sad, the piece didn't wrench at my conscience and make mincemeat of my sensibilities the way that some work can. Instead, unspecific, apolitical, it seemed to invite compassion and respectful vigil over the anonymous forms. I sat and drew them for a while.
*Maurizio Cattelan is also responsible for 'The Others' - the extraordinary installation of 2000 taxidermied pigeons on the facade and rafters of the Central Pavillion of the Biennale.
In the adjoining room - another barn-like space of gleaming concrete floor and beamed ceilings - was my favourite piece. Another installation, this one by a New York artist named Roni Horn, it comprised a series of wide, short, cylindrical blocks of glass (maybe more than a metre in circumference) set on the floor, with translucent matte sides and the tops so crystal-clear and smooth as to give the illusion of cups filled 'up to the brim, and even above the brim' with pure, cool water. They glowed like blue beacons across the space, and were so peaceful and lovely to watch.
The second museum was Palazzo Grassi, literally a palace - huge and ornate with fabulously decorative ceilings, marble pillars, the works. This collection - also late-modern and contemporary artwork, was even bigger, and much of it had an apocalyptic theme. There were really only two special moments in it for me: One was by a French artist, Loris Gréaud, who had made a forest of blackened - seemingly burnt - trees in a big, darkened room (even the big palace windows were tinted to block the light). It felt like being in some sort of fairytale - Hansel and Gretel comes to mind in particular - especially as one walked through the darkness to the huge, white, glowing ball of a moon.
The other was a slideshow of photographs taken by a Belgian photographer, David Claerbout, of a bunch of young men and boys in a bleak landscape in Algiers, on a fenced-in, asphalt soccer court. They have been momentarily captivated by a frenzy of gulls swooping above the court. One man reaches into the air with a piece of bread - almost everyone is smiling. The special part is that all the photographs, though they are taken from many different viewpoints - including above the birds - seem to have been taken at the exact same moment. The result is like a three-dimensional freeze-frame, meticulously examined, of one moment of joy in a hard town. The piece is actually called, "Sections of a Happy Moment", and it is just about as moving and uplifting as one could want. (especially after the dismembered corpses and brutalised animals and women of some of the other exhibits!)
The first museum we saw was Punta Della Dogana - south-west of Piazza San Marco, and jutting out at the mouth of the Grand Canal - literally a point, as the name suggests.
The building, originally Venice's Customs House, has been beautifully customised to display Pinault's collection to the public. The collection is often confronting, but each work is given so much space of its own that I didn't feel assaulted by the content. The emphasis seemed to be on serious, mindful contemplation in the long, cool rooms, while Venice glimmered, blinding bright, through the windows. For instance, Maurizio Cattelan's sombre sculpture/installation of nine bodies covered with white sheets lying in the centre of the polished concrete floor of one large room. Though disturbing and sad, the piece didn't wrench at my conscience and make mincemeat of my sensibilities the way that some work can. Instead, unspecific, apolitical, it seemed to invite compassion and respectful vigil over the anonymous forms. I sat and drew them for a while.
*Maurizio Cattelan is also responsible for 'The Others' - the extraordinary installation of 2000 taxidermied pigeons on the facade and rafters of the Central Pavillion of the Biennale.
In the adjoining room - another barn-like space of gleaming concrete floor and beamed ceilings - was my favourite piece. Another installation, this one by a New York artist named Roni Horn, it comprised a series of wide, short, cylindrical blocks of glass (maybe more than a metre in circumference) set on the floor, with translucent matte sides and the tops so crystal-clear and smooth as to give the illusion of cups filled 'up to the brim, and even above the brim' with pure, cool water. They glowed like blue beacons across the space, and were so peaceful and lovely to watch.
The second museum was Palazzo Grassi, literally a palace - huge and ornate with fabulously decorative ceilings, marble pillars, the works. This collection - also late-modern and contemporary artwork, was even bigger, and much of it had an apocalyptic theme. There were really only two special moments in it for me: One was by a French artist, Loris Gréaud, who had made a forest of blackened - seemingly burnt - trees in a big, darkened room (even the big palace windows were tinted to block the light). It felt like being in some sort of fairytale - Hansel and Gretel comes to mind in particular - especially as one walked through the darkness to the huge, white, glowing ball of a moon.
The other was a slideshow of photographs taken by a Belgian photographer, David Claerbout, of a bunch of young men and boys in a bleak landscape in Algiers, on a fenced-in, asphalt soccer court. They have been momentarily captivated by a frenzy of gulls swooping above the court. One man reaches into the air with a piece of bread - almost everyone is smiling. The special part is that all the photographs, though they are taken from many different viewpoints - including above the birds - seem to have been taken at the exact same moment. The result is like a three-dimensional freeze-frame, meticulously examined, of one moment of joy in a hard town. The piece is actually called, "Sections of a Happy Moment", and it is just about as moving and uplifting as one could want. (especially after the dismembered corpses and brutalised animals and women of some of the other exhibits!)
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Contribution for Blog (Janice)
all the oldies who visit, they have their regular tables and spend time
chatting. I have no idea what they are saying, but the conversations
appear very animated and everyone joins in. The women seem to wear special
support stockings and artifice is at a minimum. Facial hair, open legs,
voluptuous rolls all seem more than acceptable.
Cheers Janice
Another homage to Tim Davies (Mandy)
Piazza San Marco (Mandy)
An epic afternoon's drawing! Honor if you can crop this, then it will be more drawing and less couch!
[editor's note: Here's the crop, but I've left the uncropped version, too. I love the Italianate couch, Mandy! (and a spectacular drawing indeed) xx]
Monday 10 October 2011
Sunday 9 October 2011
Saturday 8 October 2011
Dancing ghosts
Read about Elad Lassry's Untitled (Ghost) here: http://www.luhringaugustine.com/news/elad-lassry-untitled-ghost/
Homage to Tim Davies (Mandy)
Friday 7 October 2011
Honor's Red legs and Nicholas Hlobo
Find more about Hlobo's amazing dragon at: http://vernissage.tv/blog/2011/08/31/nicholas-hlobos-dragon-sculpture-at-venice-art-biennale-2011/
(Honor's) Red legs - Gallerie dell'Accademia (Jo)
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