BIENNALE GUIDE 2011 - The Art Newspaper

CASTELLO
● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS
ESSENTIAL VENICE
Monica Bonvicini
Artist, ILLUMInazioni
● Sometimes I like to go and see where I
spent the first year of my life, before my
family moved to the Lido. It is a small
street in quartiere San Leonardo [Cannaregio],
close to the station: the centre, so to speak, for
Venetian people. The Communist party was next to
the apartment where my parents lived; my father
was not very pleased about it back then.
● I adore the Scuola Grande di San Rocco (San
Polo, p45). I have been there at least 15 times and
I always enjoy it. I love the architecture and the
way Tintoretto worked with it. There is absolutely
nothing wrong, everything blends together: the
marble stairs, the paintings. It is such an
extraordinary experience to wander around the
place holding a mirror to help you look at the
paintings on the ceiling. There is something totally
contemporary about it.
● My favourite painting for more than 20 years
now has been La Nascita by Tintoretto [Nativity or
Adoration of the Shepherds, 1577-81, Scuola
Grande di San Rocco]. The perspective; the
horizontal “cut” of the first floor, brutal and so
smart; the straw which looks like a carpet from a
1970s Playboy commercial; the broken ceiling.
The painting has something apocalyptic and at
the same time trusting, nursing, calming.
● To relax, I like to go to Lido (p35), which looks
like almost any other suburb in Italy, or take a
walk along the Zattere.
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, San Polo
Anton Ginzburg: At the Back of the North Wind
9 Singapore
Salone di Ss. Filippo e
Giacomo del Museo
Diocesano di Venezia, Castello
Exhibition: The Cloud
of Unknowing
Artist: Ho Tzu Nyen
● In a project fittingly
premiered in Venice—the
crucible of some of the
greatest paintings of celestial
skies and dramatic views of
the heavens—film-maker Ho
takes on the phenomenon
of clouds, exploring their
hallucinatory and
transcendent capacities,
informed by Baudelaire and
Ruskin’s thoughts.
10 Zimbabwe,
Republic of
Santa Maria della Pietà, Calle
della Pietà, Castello 3701
Exhibition: Seeing Ourselves
Artists: Berry Bickle, Calvin
Dondo, Tapfuma Gutsa,
Misheck Masamvu
● Produced with the British
Council, this presentation
promises to “lift the silence”
on contemporary art from
Zimbabwe. The country’s
dominant tradition of
carved sculpture features in
the work of Gutsa, while
Dondo is a photographer,
and both Bickle and
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THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011
Masamvu are predominantly
painters, but experiment
with other media.
© THE ARTIST
11 Anton Ginzburg:
At the Back of the
North Wind
Palazzo Bollani, Castello 3647
Artist: Anton Ginzburg
Organisations: Blaffer Art
Museum at the University of
Houston; Artpace San Antonio
1 Jun-27 Nov
● A multimedia exhibition,
which Ginzburg calls a
“dreamscape”, relating to his
search for the mythical land
of Hyperborea. It includes
sculptural installations, bas
reliefs set in niches originally
created for Venetian
paintings, abstract works,
and a video reflecting the
artist’s journey from Oregon
to his native St Petersburg
and on to the White Sea.
www.antonginzburg.com
12 Call the Witness:
Roma Pavilion
UNESCO Regional Bureau
for Science and Culture in
Europe, Palazzo Zorzi,
Castello 4930
Artists: Group show of over
20 including: Ferdinant Koci,
Kiba Lumberg, Aernout Mik,
Salman Rushdie, George
Soros, Zelimir Zilnik
Organisation: Open Society
Foundations
1 Jun-9 Oct
● Following an open call for
content relating to Roma
culture in Europe, this
show’s curators, a group of
Eastern European artists
and art historians, have put
together a “makeshift
exhibition”. Developing
across the biennale, the
show mixes works of art,
performances, and talks by
philosophers, artists and
politicians.
www.callthewitness.net
13 Lech
Majewski /
Bruegel Suite
Chiesa di S. Lio,
Castello 5661 (also at
Campo San Pantalon,
Dorsoduro 3711, p26).
Artist: Lech Majewski
Organisation: Angelus
Silesius Society
● After his earlier film based
on Bosch, Polish director
Majewski continues to
animate the masterpieces of
the Northern Renaissance in
a series of works inspired by
Bruegel’s Way to Calvary. As
“the old master meets CG
technology”, Majewski
attempts to place the viewer
amid the violence and rich
atmosphere of Bruegel’s
visionary epic. Also shown in
Dorsoduro (p26).
14 Menglong: Darkness
Sala San Tommaso, Campo
San Giovanni e Paolo,
Castello
Artists: Jia Aili, Qiu Anxiong,
Qiu Xiaofei
Organisation:
Nanjing 4 Cube
Museum of
Contemporary Art
4 Jun-9 Sep
● Apocalyptic moods
dominate the work of the
three artists here: Jia Aili
creates grand, expressive
canvases evoking anxiety at
man’s technological
creations, while Qiu
Anxiong and Qiu Xiaofei
produce work in varying
media which explore history
and memory.
15 The Heard and
the Unheard:
Soundscape Taiwan
Palazzo delle Prigioni,
Castello 4209 (sited just at the
back of San Marco Basilica)
Artists: Wang Hong-Kai,
Su Yu-Hsien
Organisation: Taipei Fine Arts
Museum of Taiwan
4 Jun- 27 Nov
● Two sound installations in
a relaxed environment
called Sound Library / Bar.
In Music While We Work,
Wang takes retired sugar
factory workers back to their
former workplace. Su
samples the voices of street
people, from a boatman to a
homeless person, pointing
up the individuality of the
dispossessed.
http://tfam.museum
16 Tim Davies ★
Ludoteca Santa Maria
Ausiliatrice, Castello 450
Artist: Tim Davies
Organisation: Arts Council
of Wales
● New work made following
a week filming in La
Serenissima dominates this
Welsh pavilion. Responding
to Venetian architecture,
Davies draws out contrasts
between light and dark, soft
and loud, place and
displacement. He also shows
new works on paper which
relate to his ongoing
sequences of bridges
isolated from the
surrounding landscape.
www.artscouncilofwales.org
/artsinwales/venice
17 Memory of Books ★
Gervasuti Foundation,
Fondamenta S. Anna (Via
Garibaldi), Castello 995
Artist: Chiharu Shiota
Organisation: Haunch of
Venison / Gervasuti Foundation
2 Jun-10 Sep
● The Japanese artist weaves
a web throughout the space
from strands of black wool,
evocatively connecting a
reading table and chair with
suspended books and pages
from the library of the
Gervasuti Foundation.
www.haunchofvenison.com
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THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011
CASTELLO
● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS
PS
“ I have only been
there once, but the
ruins on the island of
Certosa, where John
Gerrard did his
project in summer
2009, were a total
surprise to me, and
a magical place
”
ANNE ELLEGOOD
Senior Curator,
Hammer Museum; Curator,
Australian Pavilion
All
exhibitions
run 4 Jun -
27 Nov 2011
unless stated
otherwise
Certosa
Catch line 41/42 for
a cult venue and film
Giardini
S Pietro
S Elena
Certosa
42
41
This ex-firing range was a
hit venue in 2009 for John
Gerrard. It’s a mere hop
from Castello: get line 42
clockwise from S. Pietro or
41 anti-clockwise from
Giardini. It’s a request
stop, so when boarding
make it clear you want
Certosa. The Certosa
Hotel has food and loos.
Rebel ★
Certosa Island
Artists: James Franco with
Douglas Gordon, Harmony
Korine, Paul McCarthy, Ed
Ruscha and others
Organisation: MOCA, LA
1 Jun-6 Nov
● This site-specific film
“went viral” in April when
its co-creator, cult actor
James Franco, posted a
curious excerpt on Twitter,
then removed it soon after.
A filmic “ode to Hollywood
iconography”, it was made
in collaboration with arch
provocateur Harmony
Korine and an impressive
clutch of big-name artists.
www.moca.org