Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation: 4 Exhibitions
The Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, on the occasion of the Art Biennale 2011, offers the public a series of initiatives based around young artists, both from the region and around the world, underlining its vocation for experimental art.
In Palazzetto Tito, near Campo San Barnaba, ENRICO DAVID’s first Italian solo show, entitled Repertorio Ornamentale, will be held. The artist from Ancona trained in the UK, and has participated both in the Venice Biennale (2003) and the Turner Prize (2009). He has held a solo show at the ICA in London (2007) and been given a residency at the Schaulager in Basel (2010).
His work comprises paintings and sculptures which owe a great deal to manual skill, featuring lattices, stylised human figures, large mouths telling of expressive difficulties, and the lump in one’s throat that is felt when one uses a tongue – be it metaphorical or real – which one does not entirely feel to be one’s own.
In the St Mark’s Square Gallery, the first Italian show by the artists’ collective XIJING MEN will be held, featuring a Korean, a Japanese and a Chinese artist. The name ‘Xijing’ evokes that of a make-believe capital of modern Asia, with a veil of irony over the cults of activism and capitalism pervading the Far East. The show has been designed specifically for the rooms of the Gallery, where the great light-blue flag of a fictitious state is unfurled, irony on the notion of national identity, the symbols of economic power and collective identity.
In the same Gallery, from June 2, TERRARIUM FOR TWO PUBLISHERS: an adaptation of the notion of the aquarium to a situation in which, instead, the books seem to spring up from the soil in which they are rooted, as if they were living beings. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s display features books published by Thea Westreich/Ethan Wagner and Three Star Books.
The artists’ studios in Palazzo Carminati on San Stae and in the Complesso di Cosma e Damiano on the Giudecca Island, which are assigned every year to 12 young artists living in the Northeast of Italy, will be open to the public as part of the OPEN STUDIOS – ATELIER 2011 event.
Visitors will be able to enter the ateliers and examine the various work phases: from the planning stage, the sketches that then go on to become paintings or even sculptures and installations.
