Other exhibitions in Venice...

4:00 a.m.

07/17/17 - One of the most talked about artworks in Venice is that by Lorenzo Quinn, although it's not part of the Biennial. The artwork is entitled "Support" and the artist made it as an answer to global climate change. It's made of two huge hands that protect and "give support" to the historic hotel Ca’Sagredo. According to Quinn, Venice is a floating city and to survive, it needs the help of this generation and the next. With his giant hands, Quinn wants us to think about our planet and the people that inhabits it.

Support, by Lorenzo Quinn

Installation

Another installation on island San Giorgio Maggiore pays tribute to a local material: glass. Artist Pae White created a sculpture called "Qualala", an indian word that refers to the flow of the Gualala river in North California. The artwork is in fact a curved wall of glass bricks, each one handmade. The structure is 75 mts long x 2,4 mts tall. Approximately half of those bricks are transparent and the other half range through all color spectrum. The distribution of the colors in the wall was chosen by the artist through hundreds of posible combinations determined by a software specially created for this project. Although it may seem simple, the wall seeks to explore the limits of glass as a building material. Plus it combines two techniques: the very old one of glass molding with advance engineering. The sculpture becomes architecture or the other way around: through architecture we obtain a work of art.

Qwalala, by Pae White (2017)

Glass

In a small Palazzo in front of the Ponte dell' Academia, where we find the Pavilion of Humanity, there's an exhibition by Ekin Onat and Michal Cole, entitled "Objection". Both artists worked together for the installation, which consists, literally, of a house inhabited by a female couple.

According to Onat and Cole, the exhibition is a protest held in the quietness of this house, cut off from outside problems. The lower space is the social area, while the top floor is more intimate. Behind a closed wardrobe, up the stairs, there's a sound installation of two voices that speak in an unintelligible language. Finally we reach the bedroom, where we see two cast models, the size of Cole and Onat, seated on the bed, as if they had just woke up. This is the most reflective part of the exhibition since they consider the bed as a shared object in humanity, a universal level, because we all use one to sleep.

Domestic Godless, by Michal Cole (2017)

Installation

Neverland, by Michal Cole (2017)

Digital film installation

The Journey from Being Human to Human Being, by Michal Cole y Ekin Onat (2017)

Absent Presence, by Michal Cole y Ekin Onat (2017)

Installation - mixed technique

On the way to Arsenale, at the Giardino della Marinaressa, you'll find an exhibition by Carole A. Feuerman, an hyperrealist artist that takes advantage of the walking procession of art lovers around Venice to present her bathers. Feuerman uses the traditional sculpture pedestal and supports on them a series of funny women in different positions. They all look like classic Venuses but in the 21st century.

Kendall Island, by Carole A. Feuerman

Enamel on bronze

Near the Palazzo Grassi, at the Andrea Tardini gallery, we see pieces by another hyperrealist artist; Valter Adam Casotto. One of them is a hand with a rosary. The sculpture is almost a portrait of those women of past generations that dedicated much of their time to Church and praying. The hand could belong to an elderly, working and devoted woman. Because of the inclination, we could say she is tired. Our perception however is a bit altered by the size of it and because it looks rather out of place.