Oh, dear. One visit to Arcobaleno and I fear I may have already developed an addiction to expensive, psychedelic, powdered substances.
Monday 30 September 2013
Sunday 29 September 2013
Marilyn
Hi Honor
I hope this gets me off the hook for not making San Marco at 6.30... Need to get a little bit of sleep xx
Unravel... (Honor)
A highlight of Sunday's exploration of national pavilions was France, and Anri Sala's peculiar and moving video installation.
Playing on the name of the composer, Maurice Ravel, and the English word unravel, the installation, which borrows Germany's grand and lofty pavilion, this year (they swapped!), incorporates three cinema rooms, and these rooms together tell a curious narrative. The first examines the face of a woman, intensely focused and attentive on something we don't fully understand. There is music, but it stops and starts, slurs and squeals, slides and stops again. Her expression is mesmerising, and her face dominates the room.
The second room features two screens, two films and two soundtracks, both showing a performance of Ravel's Concerto in D for the Left Hand, but each by a different pianist. All we can see are their hands on the keys. The inevitably unique interpretations cause the two soundtracks to fall in and out of synchronisation, sometimes dramatically, as one pauses to draw out a tension in the music, while the other stops only fleetingly before forging on. This central room is enormous and dark, and its fabulously geometric soundproofing is a work of art in itself. The film lasts the duration of the concerto, and despite the double soundtrack, the music is arresting and the quivering, trilling, running hands as fascinating as the face in the previous room.
The final room takes a broader view, as we return to the woman in the first film, and gain an understanding of her unusual obsession. We see her standing in the very pavilion in which we stand. She is casually dressed, alone in the towering, sunlit room, with her hands busy at two spinning turntables. She is trying to synchronise the two Ravel soundtracks, using small and gentle movements of her hands on the spinning records, her expression deeply attentive. The experience of watching someone listening is wonderful.
I don't know what it is intended to be about, but I found resonance in the twin strivings - on the one hand (as it were) to be unique, and stand apart; and on the other, to forge an impossible correlation, a perfect synchronicity.
Here's a glimpse to give you an idea.
Playing on the name of the composer, Maurice Ravel, and the English word unravel, the installation, which borrows Germany's grand and lofty pavilion, this year (they swapped!), incorporates three cinema rooms, and these rooms together tell a curious narrative. The first examines the face of a woman, intensely focused and attentive on something we don't fully understand. There is music, but it stops and starts, slurs and squeals, slides and stops again. Her expression is mesmerising, and her face dominates the room.
The second room features two screens, two films and two soundtracks, both showing a performance of Ravel's Concerto in D for the Left Hand, but each by a different pianist. All we can see are their hands on the keys. The inevitably unique interpretations cause the two soundtracks to fall in and out of synchronisation, sometimes dramatically, as one pauses to draw out a tension in the music, while the other stops only fleetingly before forging on. This central room is enormous and dark, and its fabulously geometric soundproofing is a work of art in itself. The film lasts the duration of the concerto, and despite the double soundtrack, the music is arresting and the quivering, trilling, running hands as fascinating as the face in the previous room.
The final room takes a broader view, as we return to the woman in the first film, and gain an understanding of her unusual obsession. We see her standing in the very pavilion in which we stand. She is casually dressed, alone in the towering, sunlit room, with her hands busy at two spinning turntables. She is trying to synchronise the two Ravel soundtracks, using small and gentle movements of her hands on the spinning records, her expression deeply attentive. The experience of watching someone listening is wonderful.
I don't know what it is intended to be about, but I found resonance in the twin strivings - on the one hand (as it were) to be unique, and stand apart; and on the other, to forge an impossible correlation, a perfect synchronicity.
Here's a glimpse to give you an idea.
Punta Della Dogana (Meredith)
Yummy white nectarines ready to eat (rosa p)
Roni Horn Interview (Honor)
For those who loved Roni Horn's Well and Truly and Punta Della Dogana yesterday, here is a terrific, candid interview with the artist about her other works. I really respond to her humility and her search to communicate exactly what she means.
She is interviewed y Dayanita Singh, an Indian artist whose evocative photographs at the 2011 Biennale were amongst my very favourite works. These two artists come from different parts of the globe, I discovered them on opposite sides of the lagoon, and here they are, face to face. Nice.
(PS. 29/9/13 To my surprise and delight - I visited the German pavilion today, in the rain, and found an even more beautiful Dayanita Singh installation, there. Happy girl.)
She is interviewed y Dayanita Singh, an Indian artist whose evocative photographs at the 2011 Biennale were amongst my very favourite works. These two artists come from different parts of the globe, I discovered them on opposite sides of the lagoon, and here they are, face to face. Nice.
(PS. 29/9/13 To my surprise and delight - I visited the German pavilion today, in the rain, and found an even more beautiful Dayanita Singh installation, there. Happy girl.)
Saturday 28 September 2013
A Useful Link
The Culture Trip has detailed articles on most or all of the national pavilions at this year's Biennale. The articles are well-written and informative, and include photos.
Those following this blog from a distance might enjoy exploring what's on offer, and those here might find it helpful in choosing which pavilions to squeeze in to our last, busy week.
It's also useful for offering insight into those pavilions that leave you thinking, "what the...?"
x Honor
Those following this blog from a distance might enjoy exploring what's on offer, and those here might find it helpful in choosing which pavilions to squeeze in to our last, busy week.
It's also useful for offering insight into those pavilions that leave you thinking, "what the...?"
x Honor
Piazza San Marco Diorama Project (Honor)
Quintessence and Coffee to start the day (Vic)
Ciao!
Friday 27 September 2013
F is for Frutte (Heidi)
Self portrait in a Marc Quinn shell (Mandy)
Rialto Market........Still Life (Meredith)
Got lost on the way home from the Rialto Market.......fresh berries and zucchini flowers didn't make the journey!
Day 5 - Rialto Market (Meredith)
Thursday 26 September 2013
Glimpses of Thursday (Honor)
Today, we managed to fit many things in, and still move at a leisurely pace.
Our lulling circuit on Joana Vasconcelos' floating wonderland, the Trafaria Praia (Portugal's pavilion this year), set the pace for the day.
(Above: Steph explores the glittering caverns below deck. Below: Mandy and Heidi busy with journals)
Still swaying, we took our sea legs across to San Giorgio Maggiore, (which I can see from my bedroom window!)
In the huge, pristine basilica, we found John Pawson's understated crystal lens, and Not Vital's giant game of marbles, 700 Snowballs (below).
We met Marc Quinn's famous Self (Blood Head)... and discovered how to have fun with it.
And spent the last hours drawing our distorted image in the gleaming surface of Quinn's giant Shells.
... until we'd had enough.
Our lulling circuit on Joana Vasconcelos' floating wonderland, the Trafaria Praia (Portugal's pavilion this year), set the pace for the day.
(Above: Steph explores the glittering caverns below deck. Below: Mandy and Heidi busy with journals)
Still swaying, we took our sea legs across to San Giorgio Maggiore, (which I can see from my bedroom window!)In the huge, pristine basilica, we found John Pawson's understated crystal lens, and Not Vital's giant game of marbles, 700 Snowballs (below).
We met Marc Quinn's famous Self (Blood Head)... and discovered how to have fun with it.
And spent the last hours drawing our distorted image in the gleaming surface of Quinn's giant Shells.
... until we'd had enough.
Wednesday 25 September 2013
Another amazing day! (Ann)
Who do you think you are? (Honor)
This afternoon I experienced a crisis of sorts - a failure of confidence on every front.
I had forgotten that this is part of the intense fortnight of art-making and art-viewing that is the LCAD tour.
Just like last time, I became so saturated with art that I ceased to see value or meaning in any of it, and felt a deep tremor in my sense of self to accompany it - for, if I can find no meaning here, where the contemporary greats are gathered - to what purpose am I making a life in art? Why this struggle? Today I could barely paint a small watercolour. Who do I think I am?
I think this experience is not peculiar to the Biennale tourist - it is part of any kind of travel. At some point, the aching limbs, the strain to communicate, the unfamiliar breakfasts and the baffling streets combine to render one temporarily stupefied, small and sad.
At day's end, I walked back down the long, dusty path beside the Arsenale, catching flashes and buzzings from the doorways as I passed - all that energy, all that straining to communicate the great and tiny aches of existence, to give them order, to package and sell them, to unravel and reconstitute them. I felt delirious, on the verge of a very profound sorrow. My feet hurt. Everything to right and left looked like art: a leaf, a scratch on the wall, the endless path, the white dust, like ash, swirling about my shoes. And none of it mattered, none of it helped.
In Via Garibaldi, I re-entered Venice.
The low sun was dazzling and made the shadows long. In a bakery the cashier looked at me without expression, then served the woman behind me. I felt like a ghost.
I propelled myself back out into the street, breadless.
I thought, tomorrow, all this will have mended in me and I will feel reborn.
And then I stepped into the cheese shop, where I was greeted by the owner, a man my landlady described as 'a really kind and special person'. He has gentle eyes, a soft voice, a neat moustache and a white apron. He asked how I was, and I told him how tired I felt, after looking at all the work in the biennale. From there we chatted for ten minutes or so about this and that, I in my stumbling Italian, making myself venture into sentences and stories I was not sure I had the words to complete, to see what resources presented themselves. He was as patient and gentle as though tending to a wound - which, indeed, he was. He told me that Venetians, especially those in Castello, have an exceptionally long life expectancy. The diet is good, the pace is slow, and everyone knows one another, he said. Everyone who lives here is greeted by name whenever they enter a shop, or pass a neighbour in the street. Being known, he suggested, is very good for you.
I put out my hand, "Mi chiamo Honor, " I said.
"Mi chiamo Gabriele," he shook my hand with a smile.
I walked out with waxed-paper bundles of ricotta and parmigiano reggiano, some bread rolls and yoghurt, and a wave from the cheese seller, who knows who I am.
I had forgotten that this is part of the intense fortnight of art-making and art-viewing that is the LCAD tour.
Just like last time, I became so saturated with art that I ceased to see value or meaning in any of it, and felt a deep tremor in my sense of self to accompany it - for, if I can find no meaning here, where the contemporary greats are gathered - to what purpose am I making a life in art? Why this struggle? Today I could barely paint a small watercolour. Who do I think I am?
I think this experience is not peculiar to the Biennale tourist - it is part of any kind of travel. At some point, the aching limbs, the strain to communicate, the unfamiliar breakfasts and the baffling streets combine to render one temporarily stupefied, small and sad.
At day's end, I walked back down the long, dusty path beside the Arsenale, catching flashes and buzzings from the doorways as I passed - all that energy, all that straining to communicate the great and tiny aches of existence, to give them order, to package and sell them, to unravel and reconstitute them. I felt delirious, on the verge of a very profound sorrow. My feet hurt. Everything to right and left looked like art: a leaf, a scratch on the wall, the endless path, the white dust, like ash, swirling about my shoes. And none of it mattered, none of it helped.
In Via Garibaldi, I re-entered Venice.
The low sun was dazzling and made the shadows long. In a bakery the cashier looked at me without expression, then served the woman behind me. I felt like a ghost.
I propelled myself back out into the street, breadless.
I thought, tomorrow, all this will have mended in me and I will feel reborn.
And then I stepped into the cheese shop, where I was greeted by the owner, a man my landlady described as 'a really kind and special person'. He has gentle eyes, a soft voice, a neat moustache and a white apron. He asked how I was, and I told him how tired I felt, after looking at all the work in the biennale. From there we chatted for ten minutes or so about this and that, I in my stumbling Italian, making myself venture into sentences and stories I was not sure I had the words to complete, to see what resources presented themselves. He was as patient and gentle as though tending to a wound - which, indeed, he was. He told me that Venetians, especially those in Castello, have an exceptionally long life expectancy. The diet is good, the pace is slow, and everyone knows one another, he said. Everyone who lives here is greeted by name whenever they enter a shop, or pass a neighbour in the street. Being known, he suggested, is very good for you.
I put out my hand, "Mi chiamo Honor, " I said.
"Mi chiamo Gabriele," he shook my hand with a smile.
I walked out with waxed-paper bundles of ricotta and parmigiano reggiano, some bread rolls and yoghurt, and a wave from the cheese seller, who knows who I am.
Tuesday 24 September 2013
From marilyn
(Editor's note: Vietnamese artist Danh Vo presents this remnant stretcher from a stolen Caravaggio painting as part of his installation for Gioni's 55th Venice Biennale exhibition, The Encyclopedic Palace. Find out what other extraordinary armature Vo managed to bring to Venice, here.)
Heidi has just eaten
...And who would guess that pasta in a takeaway plastic container would taste so good? First day at the Biennale and I'm seeing a lot of delightful quirkiness, profound thoughts and stunning colours. Captivated by wooden animals in boxes.
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Monday 23 September 2013
Traditional and contemporary lions (Mandy)
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