Art Matters. Artists matter. The world has become art’s domain. Culture unites us as art informs us of threats to our environment, governmental institutions and existence. Nearly all of the exhibits at the Venice Biennale 2019: “May You Live in Interesting Times” showed nations joining to save our earth, respecting nature, amending damaging practices and coming together to save those of lesser means or threatened lives. Even more than Venice Biennale 2017’s curator Christine Macel’s removal of border markings at entrances to rooms, curator Ralph Rugoff boldly showed work by the same artist at both the Arsenale and Giardini, providing different neighbors, siting exhibitions depending on the fitness of the particular space for the exhibit. This Biennale declared the world an interdependent space. Addressing political lies, coverups of current and long-hidden governmental documents and … [Read more...] about COMMENTARY: WARNINGS, TRUTH AND ART, VENICE BIENNALE 2019
May You Live in Interesting Times
TOWARD AWARENESS AND SOLUTIONS: CONSIDERING CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE — DAY THREE
It is fitting that on my last day at the Venice Biennale, as on my first, it is raining buckets, only underscoring what I perceived as the themes of the biennale: false facts and the implications of global warming on climate change. Regarding false facts, the Indigenous Peoples exhibit, “Volume 0,” establishing its place as an original document, was held at the Zuecca Project Space outside the Giardini grounds. Sponsored by the Venezia Fondamenta Sant’Anna, organized by Dr. Max Carocci, the “Indigenous Peoples” pavilion showed a video on four medicine-ball size spheres, sequentially narrating the story of Venice’s impact on 16th century North American settlements. It said that trade and the necessity of acquiring gold and gems for trade provided the impetus for invading other lands, and Venice was a crossroads of trade. The video’s narration began, “We think of these explorers, taught … [Read more...] about TOWARD AWARENESS AND SOLUTIONS: CONSIDERING CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE — DAY THREE
FALSE FACTS ON DISPLAY BY ARTISTS: DAY TWO AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
VENICE, ITALY, MAY 9, 2019 — I spent my second day at the Venice Biennale touring the national pavilions at the Giardini site and in other areas in Venice. The most beautiful exhibit I saw was on the second floor of the Russia pavilion, where the director of the 2004 film, Russian Ark and the 2011 winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, “Faust,” directed an exhibit that featured a life-size giclée of a Rembrandt painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” on permanent display at the Hermitage, here along with the biblical verse, The Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke, and Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke, that speaks of property deeded to a son by a father, squandered by the son, further illustrated with statues of biblical figures. On two video screens were a vision of fires burning down buildings in present and biblical times, with Jesus sitting on a rock watching the … [Read more...] about FALSE FACTS ON DISPLAY BY ARTISTS: DAY TWO AT THE VENICE BIENNALE