On view at the Palazzo Grassi, The World Belongs to You, is an excellent group exhibition of contemporary art from across the globe. The international scope is notable, with forty artists from six continents, fitting the spirit of the concurrent Venice Biennale.
There is a lot of good work and many great artists in this exhibition, making it difficult to choose what to focus on here. I admired maps of Alighiero e Boetti and I enjoyed photographs by Sergey Bratkov and Boris Mikhailov. I was alternately intrigued and disturbed by Nicholas Hlobo's stitched sculpture and I am always impressed by El Anatsui's fabric-like draperies made of bottle neck wrappers. And of course there was work by the ubiquitous Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami.
Below I've given extra attention to some things I especially liked.
Upon entry into the museum's atrium the viewer finds Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos' Contamination, a creature-like plush sculpture of staggering proportion. A seemingly organic form with many protruding bulbous, pointy, and tubular shapes sprawls out upon the floor. From the floor a central axis grows up to the building's second level. Sprouting from the main trunk are tentacle-like limbs that have climbed across the floor, up the stairs, and around the balconies. The title Contamination proposes the invasion of an unwanted presence. The soft construction weaves and roams and takes over in a way similar to kudzu. It is pervasive, yet this massive growth is extremely inviting and cheerful. The title suggests something ominous and it is eerie how the crocheted, knitted, and stitched mass weaves its way through the museum. However the majority of surface area is joyously decorated, with diverse shapes, bright colors, variegated patterns, textured fabrics, and applique details, all creating whimsey, as opposed to impending doom.
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| Joana Vasconcelos, Contamination |
Vasconcelos has chosen to work in a medium that has often been relegated to the realm of craft, a 'minor art' traditionally practiced by women. However, there is nothing minor about this work. The scope is incredible and the ingenuity and detail is fascinating. By stitching and sewing this massive sculpture she has reminded us of the high level of respect that craftsmanship deserves.
I also found the Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré interesting. I could not help but be drawn to a collection of simple and colorful drawings, called Voitures Partout, (Cars Everywhere). On a considerable portion wall space there is an installation of individually framed drawings, all of little cars driving in various directions. Each drawing is approximately 4 x 6 inches, done in ball-point pen and crayon. They all have a border with a textual explanation of what is happening. The only real difference between the drawings is that the cars of each composition are decorated with the colors of different flags. Voitures Partout was inspired by the many traffic jams that occur in the city of Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.
from Cars Everywhere
"Cars Cars Everywhere: A Traffic Jam Right in the Heart of Rome or The Exposure of the Rich"
Frédéric Bruly Bouabré was born in 1923 in Zéprégüuhé on the Ivory Coast and belongs to the tribe of the Bété. He was one of the first Ivorians to receive a French colonial education, learning to read and write in a catholic school. He was one of the first of his generation to be exposed to written language. One project of his was to create a visual language for the Bété. He formulated an alphabet with 440 monosyllabic ideograms. He says that his art began as a vision in March of 1948, where he saw seven suns orbiting round the known sun. Since then he has called himself a searcher who records his observations in books and drawings.
He always made drawings for himself and for his tribe, until 1989 when his work was included in the exhibition, ´Magiciens de la terre´ (Magicians of the Earth), at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Since then he has become quite a presence in contemporary art.
You can see more of his work here.
Another favorite is Maurizio Cattelan's In Bed with Lorca, a double self portrait of the artist side by side with himself in a neatly made wooden-framed bed. It is a hyper realistist sculpture just a fraction smaller than life size. The diminution makes the subject humorous and curious, but there is also a morbidity, as the suited men look like they are at their own wake.
I was interested and delighted by the sculpture without knowing anything about it, but after reading the text I came to find out there was something happening on another level. This is an artwork referring to an artwork, referring to an artist. Cattelan's work is a reference to a photograph by the British duo Gilbert and George. In 2007 a photograph by Gilbert and George was included in Everstill, an exhibition celebrating the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. In their photograph the tweed suited pair are seen lying side by side on the poet's narrow wooden framed bed. Gilbert and George's In Bed with Lorca is a nod to García Lorca’s homosexuality, something he never publicly acknowledged. In Cattelan's version, he continues this reference to include himself. All of the men have deadpan expressions and one feels the same witty, snide, and almost silly sense of humor.
Lastly, I have to mention the work of Charles Ray. He carves meticulous reliefs and makes hyper realistic sculptures of people. In Family Romance he realistically depicts each member of the nuclear family in complete detail, but uses scale and proportion to alter the sense of reality.
Two Boys looks like a snap shot photograph of two smiling adolescent boys. It is an obviously sweet and heart warming image, but Ray has made it ghostly and distant. This portrait is warm and engaging, yet unsettling. It is oversized, colorless, and the boys are conspicuously missing the pupils of their eyes. The happy, impressionable young subjects look out from hollow eyes, amused and content in their position as silent spectators.
