WHAT IS ART ?

So, what is art? Contemporay or modern....is it this?


Vladmir Peric - Mickey for a children's room

sarah-sze-US - 3 months to gather objects in Venise

and to put them into place sarah-sze-US

Russia - Danée coins falling from "heaven"

Or perhaps this?

deller - UK

Walter de Maria - Arsinale

J.B. - FR- 2012

Or could it be this?

Roberto Cuoghi- Arsenale

Hans Josephsohn- Arsenale

Mathew Monahan - Arsenale

Catherine Lorent -Luxembourg

My definition of art is something which lasts and lives with time.

Installations of any kind are a set up of objects - whatever they may be - and could be desribed as works that are often site specific and designed to transform a given space. Outside installations would be land art.

I guess video art is moving pictures - not films but something which an artist feels should be displayed in this manner.

Why am I trying to define - (and as simply as possible) - different art forms? When we were returning from four wonderful days in Venice at the Biennale, Jerome asked me to define art....It wasn’t that it was difficult to do, it was just because we had lived four days of - well could it be called art?   The three of us (Laurent, Jerome and me) were somewhat perplexed. What had we seen this year at the Biennale ?

The title was:-

Il Palazzo Enciclopedico /The Encyclopedic Palace

The following is the curator’s concept (Massimiliano Gioni)

"The exhibition will place at its heart "a reflection on the ways in which images have been used to organize knowledge and shape our experience of the world." Inspired by what scholar Hans Belting has called "an anthropology of images", the Biennale Arte 2013 will attempt "an inquiry in the realms of the imaginary and the functions of imagination."

If you have understood something, you are better than I am. If I look up one of my many dictionnaries I see this as one of the definition for encyclopedia

«a book or set of books giving information on many subjects or on many aspects of one subject and typically arranged alphabetically».

Gioni, as the curator for the 55th edition, opens the Arsinale with a work by Marino Auriti.

All Knowledge - Marino Auriti

In reading the introduction message I was somewhat bemused that anyone at all could think of building an imaginerary museum where ALL wordly knowledge could be brought together under the same roof - the greatest discoveries of the human race from the wheel to the satellite. He worked on his brainchild for years, constructing a model of 136 stories that would stand 700 metres tall and over 16 blocks in Washington DC. It could never have come to life but perhaps it explains the Biennale concept. A museum with over 150 artists from more than 37 countries which initiates the individual to look at a work while trying to sort out the different art forms - both old and very new. Every thinkable art form is brought together. Their works help to illustrate changing art and images throughout time. I would sum it up as saying this «museum» contributes to a new mental structure - which I do not have.

In my book, this year’s addition is a series of work by physchiatric cases,

Thomas Zipp - centre in a Parisian hospital for certain "cases"

after 30 min. you are zen
but Jerome did not find out

A sound proof room

A hospital room

Artists who discover art late in life and were slightly mad to begin with,

Arthur Bispo de Rosario -Main pavillon

Arthur Bispo de Rosario

Papa Ibra Tall

Matt Mullican

Anonymous Tantric paintings

Anna Zemankova

Marisa Merz

exhibitionnists,

Shadow is clever and sculpture sexual

Last Riot Sculpture - two boys

Some sculptures are amusing

Chen Wenling

Shinichi Sawada

Paul McCarthy

Peter Fischli

Fascinating and new - all made out of books,

William Botha - South Africa

Were they real?

Jimmie Durham

Duane Hanson - Bustop Lady

Charles Ray

Lighting which changes all the time

Changing lights with sound

silk map


Yiging Yin "in-between"

fascinating,

Pawel Althamer - 90 Venetians

Beautiful

Khaled Zaki

Art we all know - Street art from Venezuela

Art which is not art at all.....

Glasstress - White light/White heat

A beautiful palace but not really new (Berengo centre)

Climbing up the stairs....

Tracy Emin

Joanna V.

Australia or Africa?

Full Body Scan

I'm stopping there.....

I go along with Weiwei in the German Pavillon....

Weiwei contributed an installation consisting of 886 wooden antique stools called Bang. For centuries in Chinese culture it was common for families to have at least one of these handcrafted 3-leg stools for use in the home that was often passed down through generations. As the country has developed at lightning speed the stools have quickly been replaced by plastic and metal alternatives. Weiwei salvaged hundreds of these stools and used them to build this sprawling and nearly organic installation in the German Pavillon

and definitely with Joana Vasconcelos in her Floating Pavilion

the Trafaria Praia,

She brought to Venice an actual cacilheiro, the Trafaria Praia, and is presenting it as the Portuguese pavilion. This particular ship was decommissioned in 2011, and in the past six months it has undergone major transformations in a shipyard on the outskirts of Lisbon. In Venice, it is moored next to the Giardini's vaporetto stop and sails around the lagoon at regular intervals. Rather than a conventional pavilion with a fixed location, then, Vasconcelos offers up an idealistic floating pavilion. She is deterritorializing territory—metaphorically circumventing the power struggles that so often mark international relations.

http://www.vasconcelostrafariapraia.com/en/apresentacao/#sthash.tdkhHpLd.dpuf

I sorted the 800 odd photos the other day, trying to remember which country they had come from. In which pavilion I had seen a work and by the end of the day, there were perhaps less than 200. And why ? Because so many were «have seen it before» art forms. There was little originality and when there was, we jumped on it.

I can quite honestly say that if Joana Vasconcelos had not been there and with the photos I enjoyed again at home, I might have given up on sorting out so many, looking up for references and trying to work out what is what. Her boat was the last «pavilion» we saw.

The Biennale itself is conducted in two majour sites, the Giardini with 50 countries participating (or there abouts). Then the magnificent Arsenale with other countries then again all over Venice. In all there were 88 countries participating and 10 for the first time.

A visit to the Punta Della Dogana (François Pinault museum) is always a great pleasure because of the space given to the different art works...Adel Abdessemed saved the day with his four life sized sculptures of Christ. He calls it «Decor» and although it could also be described as a symbol of danger because of the material used, it is without any doubt a very touching work.

Abdessemed

There were sculptures too which gazed back at us and not always in good terms.....these were by Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schütte, Laurent and Jerome

Thomas Schütte

Thomas Schüt

Another artist we discovered and I really did like, was Mark Grotjahn (Turkish). He lives in Los Angeles. His work seems to be based on vanishing points - it always moves beyond a frame.....

Now that I have read and tried to understand the concept I am looking at all those photos in a different light. BUT, for me it was a «gimmicky and gadgety» notion, but then I am no longer young enough perhaps to understand such works - which, from my point of view, are not always ART.

Venice though, is one of the most beautiful cities I know. I hope to go back with Jerome and Laurent - for the next Biennale !

Commentaires

Lo a dit…

Good work Mrs Keane! Compared to the previous Biennale, I hardly took any pictures and that must be a sign... of what, I'm not sure but let's say I was very disappointed and frustrated by what we saw at both venues. Thankfully there was Glasstress, Bill Culbert, Pawel Althamer, Wim Botha and a few other interesting things around Venice. And of course, we look forward to the next one! PS: when you wrote Palais Grassi, did you mean Punta della Dogana?

22/8/13 20:36