Looking at people looking at art, in Venice Biennale
Posted by Raluca Turcanasu on / 0 Comments
Apparently, my visit of the Venice Biennale was more about observing the other visitors than interiorizing the work(s).
I honestly can’t say I was taken aback by most of it… but neither did I expect it to be so. It’s rather hard to bring in controversial work when you’re “representing the nation”.
Yet, Cosmin Costinaș & Viktor Neumann did a brave curatorial work bringing Adina Pintilie’s “A Cathedral of the Body” work, split between Giardini & the Romanian Cultural Institute.
I could probably say what I most enjoyed were: Chile’s `Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol`, Poland’s `Re-enchanting the world`by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, the first Roma woman to represent a national pavilion and Austria’s ‘Invitation of the Soft Machine and Her Angry Body Parts‘. Probably followed by Malta’s ‘Diplomazija Astuta‘ and Oman’s ‘Destined Imaginaries‘.
But I had more fun looking at others looking:
- How much would they linger in front of a work?
- What passed by unnoticed?
- What did they photograph and with what did they photograph themselves with?
👂 Be in my ear: on what music did I post this?
IN GIARDINI
Belgium: The Nature of the Game
Brazil: com o coração saindo pela boca / with the heart coming out of the mouth
Chile: Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol
Denmark: We Walked the Earth
This obnoxious guard in the main pavilion of Giardini:
I enjoyed seeing kids there too 🙂 This little girl reminded my mum of myself as a kid, cute.
It’s difficult to take in an entire exhibition just when you’re there. It will stick with you, if it’s good, and you might need to revisit it later on to penetrate all its layers.
Hungary’s After Dreams: I Dare to Defy the Damage was pretty good, too.
Zsófia Keresztes’ exhibition deals with the stages in one’s search for identity. This concept reaches back to Arthur Schopenhauer’s porcupine dilemma.
Gonna paste directly from Wiki here:
The hedgehog’s dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is a metaphor about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to move close to one another to share heat during cold weather. They must remain apart, however, as they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur, for reasons they cannot avoid.
Arthur Schopenhauer conceived this metaphor to describe what he considers to be the state of the individual in relation to others in society. The hedgehog’s dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog’s dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others.
Those kinky Latvians… Selling Water by the River
Israel’s Queendom
Lebanon: The World in the Image of Man
New Zealand: Paradise Camp
Poland: Re-enchanting the World
Romania: A Cathedral of the Body
Serbia: Walking with Water
Ukraine: The Fountain of Exhaustion. Acqua alta &, in the background, Kosovo: The Monumentality of the Everyday – which was really good, too!
Ireland: Gather | Here you can watch a documentation of Niamh O’Malley’s work, by Jenny Brady.
Venice: Laurel
“Every image is formed in movement.”
Everything changes, nothing dies, everything flows, and every image is formed in movement.
Giardini Main Pavilion
on the left, Andra Ursuța’s works
People looking at Ceclilia Vicuna’s work
Arsenale’s main pavilion
Some more:
Today, we look with our mobile cameras.
But that’s ok. Sort of.
For my Romanian friends (or those willing to read with Google translate), here’s my text for Revista 22, who commissioned me for this work. Still to be translated.
