As most of you know my handsome Nick proposed shortly before I left for Venice. We found a ring that had to be made and Nick picked it up yesterday, so I thought most of you would want to take a sticky beak! I can't wait to see it in real life!!!!!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
More jewellery, but totally unrelated to venezia
As most of you know my handsome Nick proposed shortly before I left for Venice. We found a ring that had to be made and Nick picked it up yesterday, so I thought most of you would want to take a sticky beak! I can't wait to see it in real life!!!!!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Life on the water
As you can imagine, being surrounded by water Venice has some fairly unique options for day-to-day services. Above is a photo showing a barge/platform thing that transports trucks around to stock up grocery shops etc.
The local police
The military police - the Carabinieri
An ambulance.I haven't got a photo of their fire 'trucks' yet, but will get one soon.
Street sights
A lot of apartments and businesses have these metal barriers to stop water coming in during aqua alta.
A better photo of what Venice looks like on washing days. These are the washing lines we have to use as well - Fi and I have them down pat now, but you get a bit of an ab workout leaning out the window and trying not to fall out, whilst pulling a rope and pegging washing!
Hopefully this gives you some idea of how narrow some of the streets are here.
A lot of the really narrow streets have these arches between buildings. We're not entirely sure what they are for, but imagine that they work to stabilise movement and prevent buildings leaning together - although we have seem some buildings that at the top are only about 10cm apart!
Making (Perfect) World
Making (Perfect) World is one of my favourite exhibitions so far. It is a collateral event organised by Hong Kong and is a solo exhibition of work by Pak Sheung Chuen. The show includes a number of humorous conceptual pieces, some of which are explained below.
In this work the artist found rocks around Venice that added up to his body weight. He then split them in two slightly unequal halves and connected each half with string - the heavier half supports the suspended weight of the lighter half.
This work is a collection of the artist's breath in plastic bags, collected over a period of time in an apartment (all of his breath during the stay in the apartment was collected).
This work was particularly fantastic - the artist went on a trip to Malaysia and kept his eyes shut or was blindfolded the whole time in order to experience the trip without vision. He took all his photos without looking, just by feeling. When he returned home he then viewed the trip through the photos. For the installation, these photos were in a completely black room - in order to view them you were asked to take in your camera and take a photo of them, which you could then view outside.
For this work the artist sat opposite a random apartment building and took 5 photos throughout the night, recording lights going out as people went to sleep. One person stayed up all night, so the artist shared a night with them, but from across the street.
The artist has done a number of works in libraries. For this work he went into a library (in NY I think) and turned the corner done on page 22 of half of the books in the library (something like 40,000).
Another library work - the artist went through a small library collection (6,000 books) and selected all books with full page images of the sea on their covers or inside covers and then joined the horizon lines of these together to create a circular 'sea'.
In this work the artist found rocks around Venice that added up to his body weight. He then split them in two slightly unequal halves and connected each half with string - the heavier half supports the suspended weight of the lighter half.
This work is a collection of the artist's breath in plastic bags, collected over a period of time in an apartment (all of his breath during the stay in the apartment was collected).
This work was particularly fantastic - the artist went on a trip to Malaysia and kept his eyes shut or was blindfolded the whole time in order to experience the trip without vision. He took all his photos without looking, just by feeling. When he returned home he then viewed the trip through the photos. For the installation, these photos were in a completely black room - in order to view them you were asked to take in your camera and take a photo of them, which you could then view outside.
For this work the artist sat opposite a random apartment building and took 5 photos throughout the night, recording lights going out as people went to sleep. One person stayed up all night, so the artist shared a night with them, but from across the street.
The artist has done a number of works in libraries. For this work he went into a library (in NY I think) and turned the corner done on page 22 of half of the books in the library (something like 40,000).
Another library work - the artist went through a small library collection (6,000 books) and selected all books with full page images of the sea on their covers or inside covers and then joined the horizon lines of these together to create a circular 'sea'.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Exhibition design part 2
I came across this work while looking at a few other shows in Palazzo Zenobio. It is by Roberta Rose Cavalari and Caterina Curzola called "A hole can make a difference". I like their use of space - the work is installed in a stairwell, in a little alcove.
This was a video in Atta Kim's exhibition, about the making of works and an interview with the artist. I like how they have installed the plasma screen behind the wall so it is flush. The small circle hole is so they can power it on and off.
This photo is the installation image of Bestue/Vives work in the Arsenale. The plasma screen is suspended on brackets and wire so it is almost floating.
I'm yet to fully see the Greece pavilion because they are having some technical difficulties getting their rather extensive row of Macs to work - I think there are something like 20 Macs all networked and everyone goes on holidays in August so they can't get them fixed yet. I just had to show you their signage solution! There is a lot of dodgy signage around at the moment and a lot of works out of order - one of the main Bruce Nauman works from the USA pavilion isn't working either.
Lubi I thought you'd appreciate the row of macs!
Chile
The Chile Pavilion is definitely one of my favourites so far. The artist is Ivan Navarro and the work is made from neon and fluro lights combined with one-sided mirrors. Kim Demuth, a Brisbane-based artist, uses a similar technique but his work is conceptually quite different. One of the other works in the show (I don't have an image unfortunately) is a bike made of fluro lights, which the artist rode around a town and his pedaling generated power for the lights to come on - the harder he pedaled the more lights came on and the brighter they got.
This is what the work looks like as you approach it - it is a cylindrical drum, and then when you look in the text seems to go forever.
This work was similar to the doors in the freezer sections of supermarkets and they looked like you could open them and walk in. While a was there a man walked straight into one of them, thinking they were hallways you could walk through!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
More daily life in Venice
Fi and I keep finding more and more things we have in common, but I like the photo below of our two matching Macs - they even have the same cases!
Strange chimneys(?)
Strange chimneys(?)They have the clothes lines that stretch across the streets here and I was walking through a small campo one day and happened to look up and see the washing lines mirrored in trails left by planes, so these are my attempt at artistic photos.
Atta Kim: ON AIR
This show of photographs by Atta Kim was quite interesting conceptually. He has done a number of works based on monuments made out of ice. Below is his version of the Terracotta Army and the Parthenon. 
The following work is from a series that I found most interesting. The artist took 10,000 photos of different cities (below is Washington) and then overlaid these and was surprised that the result was pretty much a grey picture - think Ad Reinhardt. But once you stay with them for awhile all sorts of subtleties emerge and they are quite beautiful.
The following work is from a series that I found most interesting. The artist took 10,000 photos of different cities (below is Washington) and then overlaid these and was surprised that the result was pretty much a grey picture - think Ad Reinhardt. But once you stay with them for awhile all sorts of subtleties emerge and they are quite beautiful.
Daily life in Venice
A number of everyday things are quite a mission or at least rather unique here in Venice. You put your rubbish bag out beside your doorstop every morning between 8-9am (except Sunday of course) and then collectors come along with bit metal cage type carts and collect all the rubbish. The carts have a double wheel system to go up and down bridges easily. They then take them back to green boats fitted out with cranes that pick up the cart and dump and compact the rubbish.
You can see the crane lifting the cart here (photo courtesy of Fi)
A taxi rank Venice style!
The courtyard opposite us - it looks so relaxing
Our 'bus stop'Bernar Venet
I came across this exhibition called "The Arc Hypothesis" of works by Bernar Venet. At first glance they obviously suggest Richard Serra (doesn't every monumental steel sculpture?) but they are quite different in a number of ways. The shapes are based on degrees of an arc - for example one set of sculptures is based on 236 degrees (this is just a random number I made up - I haven't got the exact numbers written down) and then around 13 identical steel arcs are placed together in different positions, so they all look quite different. They are at once quite heavy and imposing, and then light and fragile almost. They also appear simultaneously stable and precarious. The work is quite amazing and is some of the best I have seen so far.
Jewels continued...
As anyone who knows me will attest, I hate photos of myself, but Fi did an impromptu photo sho0t of me in my new necklace outside Palazzo Fortuny, and got some nice photos. Seeing as everyone keeps bugging me for photos of myself, here are some to keep you content.
This is one of my latest jewellery purchases (the necklace). It is handmade wire mesh with red murano glass beads spread throughout.
This is my favourite.
This is one of my latest jewellery purchases (the necklace). It is handmade wire mesh with red murano glass beads spread throughout.
This is my favourite.
Unconditional love
One of my favourite exhibitions so far is a collateral event called "Unconditional Love". The show has some great works and good exhibition design that adds to the slightly 'dark' take on the subject. I'm going back to visit the show with Fi on Monday so hope to get a catalogue then and more info. I can't remember all of the artists shown below, but there were photographs by Marina Abramovijc (which you can slightly see in the background) and a new video by AES+F.
The new AES+F work. If you click on the image you'll get a larger version. I've joined them together so they are a bit skewed but it gives you a sense of the round room they were displayed in.
The new AES+F work. If you click on the image you'll get a larger version. I've joined them together so they are a bit skewed but it gives you a sense of the round room they were displayed in.
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