Monday 20 July 2009

Venice Biennale, art




Venice Biennale 2009: The artists awarded are the first to be seen as they must represent what the jury thinks is the best of art today in the world.
Golden Lion for best National participation: USA, + Bruce Nauman: Topological gardens. At the outside walls of the American pavillion is displayed some of his neon art: words flashing in contradiction - lust, faith, greed, charity ... Inside, the exercise of hands in clay as sculptors is quite taking.
Golden Lion for best artist is : Thobias Rehberger (germany) for his installation of the bar : "his project consists of a complex scheme of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, creating a visually disorienting atmosphere"
Golden Lion for promising artist: Narthalie Djurberg (swedish living in Germany). In a dark room, she puts a strange world of the heavens with colored clay figures of flore and faun and videos of clay personas who undergo cruelty and dissections.

"If any show can be said to reflect a larger state of affairs in art now, this one suggests a somewhat dull, deflated contemporary art world, professionalized to a fault, in search of a fresh consensus (NYT, review on 10/6/09)" Many reviewers have a bitter taste to what art has become.
Yet for the Arab world representatives, there are a few hints of existance and turmoil. Next posts will contain a glimpse of that.

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