I felt like I was walking through an enchanted forest, with the trees spreading out to make a trail for me. That was my answer when Ursula von Rydingsvard asked me how “The Contour of Feeling,” her current installation at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., made me feel. This forest of treelike forms was handcrafted from four-by-four and two-byfour lengths of cedar wood, layered upon each other like shingles intricately formed into massive constructions. They are temporarily screwed together in layers, then glued together with resorcinol — a World War II glue used for ship mending. They towered over me or lay on the floor, formed into slithering antediluvian monsters of shingled wood. This artist, veteran of shows and residencies at Storm King Art Center, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Venice Biennale, grew up in Plainville, Connecticut, after … [Read more...] about A WOMAN-MADE FOREST: VON RYDINSVARD’S CONTOUR OF FEELING
Venice Biennale
COMMENTARY: WARNINGS, TRUTH AND ART, VENICE BIENNALE 2019
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
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
Art Makes the World Go Around: First Day at the Venice Biennale
By Nancy Nesvet Surrounded by water, filled with foreigners speaking different languages, in a city where getting lost in ancient alleyways is a regular occurrence, Venice provides the perfect venue for the most famous of the World’s Biennales. Almost every exhibit at the Venice Biennale deals with risks to our changing world, whether they be political or environmental. Located at ground zero, with the risk of inundation by water if global warming continues to produce floods and facing refugees arriving in Italy every day, Venice is the perfect place for government-sponsored art projects seen by an international public. On my first day at the Biennale, coming by vaporetto boat down the grand canal, I entered the former Arsenale grounds, where an arsenal of weapons was once housed. Walking further, I surveyed what Paolo Buratta notes in the “Introduction to Biennale Arte 2017 Short … [Read more...] about Art Makes the World Go Around: First Day at the Venice Biennale
Day Two: Venice Biennale 2017 Continues
By Nancy Nesvet My second day at the 2017 Venice Biennale finds me attentive to Venice Biennale President Paolo Baratta’s assessment of the humanism and ability ofartists to “avoid being dominated by the powers governing world affairs” and their “resistance of liberation and of generosity” in his introduction to the Viva Arte Short Guide. Curator Christine Macel has judiciously assigned themes within the exhibition of artists’ work she has chosen; at the Giardini; Pavilion of Artists and Books, Pavilion of Joys and Fears and Pavilion of Time and Infinity (part 2). The Arsenale site includes Pavilion of the Common; Earth Pavilion; Pavilion of Traditions; Pavilion of Shamans; Dionysian Pavilion; Pavilion of Colors and Pavilion of Time and Infinity, part 1. Intentionally amorphous separations of the Pavilions without blatant markings allow unhampered flow. In her statement in the … [Read more...] about Day Two: Venice Biennale 2017 Continues
ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY ONE
by Nancy Nesvet MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2017 With Art Basel, in Switzerland and The Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel, in Germany and Athens, Greece respectively, happening all at the same time, it is the trifecta for art shows, and so far, I’m betting on Art Basel. Having seen all of the Liste show yesterday, when it opened, and Art Basel Design, I can tell you the art aficionados are coming out for art, beauty and fun. Done with the hard-hitting political landscape of last year’s work here, and taking a breather, maybe literally, everyone’s happier seeing fewer political statement or in your face art. A lot is concentrating on the process, the materials and the bringing in of concrete, beads, aluminum screening and more for innovative treatments of material. Watch Artscope’s Instagram and Facebook pages for Prem Sahib’s Concrete Lion reproductions (of the originals in front … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY ONE