Three Powerhouse Art Exhibits open in Venice

Sebastião Salgado
Penisola Antartica, 2005; © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images

(Venice, Italy) Three major exhibitions opened nearly simultaneously in this soggy city. The wet weather did not stop the crowds from donning their high-water boots and toting their umbrellas to attend the openings of Genesis. Photographs by Sebastião Salgado at the Casa dei Tre Oci, THEMES & VARIATIONS. THE EMPIRE OF LIGHT at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. American Dialogues at Ca' Pesaro. 

Sebastião Salgado
Brasile, 2009 - © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images

The Brazilian photographer, Sebastião Salgado, has the heart of a poet who loves and respects Mother Nature, and She allows him to get close enough to capture Her soul. Sebastião and his wife, Lelia Wanick Salgado, who curates, travel the globe documenting the purity and power of Nature in black and white. Over 200 photos illustrate Nature in action -- icebergs in Antarctica; jungles in the Congo, New Guinea, Indonesia and the Amazon; the haunted beauty of the African and United State deserts, the frigid beauty of the mountains of Chile and Siberia, and the indigenous people on this Earth who still run around naked, living in harmony with Mother Nature to this very day.

Sebastião Salado
Isole South Sandwich, 2009 - © Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images

The photos of Salado's GENESIS fill three floors of Casa dei Tre Oci with joyfulness and awe, and remind us how utterly powerful the force of Mother Nature is, and that She has a rollicking sense of humor. As long as penguins are still lining up to slide down a glacier and plunge into the sea... WEEE!!!! you know the planet is okay. Sebastião Salado looks straight into the eyes of Nature without blinking.

Genesis. Photographs by Sebastião Salgado
Casa dei Tre Oci
February 1 to May 11, 2014
http://www.treoci.org/

René Magritte

Empire of Light

(L’Empire des lumières)

1953–54

Oil on canvas, 195.4 x 131.2 cm

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

© René Magritte, by SIAE 2014

This the the fourth time curator Luca Massimo Barbera has dipped into the Peggy Collection Collection to present some of the most important works in a fresh and dynamic way. Themes & Variations. The Empire of Light combines art from Peggy Guggenheim’s museum, other works from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and a number of loans, with Magritte's Empire of Light as the protagonist of the show. Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko, and Lucio Fontana are there; Salvidor Dali is there; Jackson Pollack is there -- there is even a video clip where he talks about his process. 

Philippe Halsman

Salvador Dalí's "Leopard Skull"

1951

Modern giclée print, 35 x 27 cm

Philippe Halsman / Magnum Photos

The museum's works are displayed with paintings and sculptures designed to shake up dusty labels and categories. Viewers are challenged "to look beyond the customary categories of the 20th century avant-garde, culminating in contemporary work by Gabriele Basilico, David Hockney, Gerhard Richter, Anish Kapoor, Thomas Ruff, Kiki Smith, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Piotr Uklański."

Piotr Uklański

Untitled (Skull)

2000

Platinum print, 35.5 cm x 27.9 cm

Courtesy of the artist and Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London

The final section of the exhibition is a tribute to Italian art by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and specifically to Fausto Melotti (1901-1986), who titled several of his sculptures Theme and Variations.

Il genio è un uomo civile che, dopo aver messo in ordine il passato, inventa l'avvenire. The genius is a civilized man who, after creating order of the past, invents the future. ---Fausto Melotti  

Themes & Variations. The Empire of Light

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

February 1 to April 14, 2014

www.guggenheim-venice.it

Robert Rauschenberg

Kickback, 1959

Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Panza Collection, inv. 87.17

© Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY, photo credit Brian Forrest

Giuseppe Panza di Biumo was an Italian who collected art by major post-war American painters, as well as Europeans. He was one of the first to sense the value and novelty of conceptual art -- "for the first time, philosophy has an image..." -- and, according to the press notes, "always acted as an accomplished talent scout moved by the need to discover and a boundless curiosity to know." When no one was interested in Rauschenberg, Panza bought the Kickback "because it contained an atmosphere full of emotions, a depiction of reality completely transfigured by memory and passion, episodes of the moment..."

Franz Kline

Buttress, 1956

Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Panza Collection

photo credit Brian Forrest

Italy allowed the collection to slip away in 1983 when the Piedmont Region turned down the offer to buy 80 works at a discounted price on the condition that they remain in Italy -- they were subsequently bought by the MoCA of Los Angeles. 

American Dialogues includes Panza's first Kline, Buttress, which he bought in 1956 for $550 US dollars, as well as some of the finest works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Mark Rothko, Dan Flavin, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra and many more. Approximately 40 works by 27 artists have been loaned to Venice from the Guggenheim Museum of New York and the MoCA of Los Angeles, as well as significant works from the family's private collection. 

Mark Rothko

Red and Brown, 1957

Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Panza Collection

© Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo credit Brian Forrest

The strangest thing about American Dialogues -- given the title -- is that except for the introduction, the entire exhibition is only in Italian, without a word of English -- unlike most other exhibitions put on by the Museo Civici. Curious. 

Giuseppe Panza Di Biumo

American Dialogues

Ca' Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice

Curated by Gabriella Belli and Elisabetta Barisoni
Layout by Daniela Ferretti

February 2 to May 4, 2014

Ca' Pesaro

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

RENAISSANCE - Bill Viola Confronts Carpaccio at Espace Louis Vuitton, Venice

(Venice, Italy) A quiet Renaissance is taking place between two artists who were born almost five hundred years apart. The pioneer video artist, Bill Viola (1951-), shares the same space with Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465/70 - 1525/26) in the second exhibition presented at Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia. Designed by the art historian Adrien Goetz and the exhibition curator Hervé Mikaeloff, Renaissance is an inspirational gem tucked away on the top floor of the new Maison Louis Vuitton just off Piazza San Marco.

Two "little masterpieces" by a young Carpaccio were recently attributed after sitting for nearly two centuries in storage.

Madonna and Child by Vittore Carpaccio (1487 ca.)

The Madonna and Child had been part of the original Teodoro Correr collection bequeathed to the city upon his death in 1830, but no one knew it was by Carpaccio. A couple of years ago, in 2012, Andrea Bellieni, the Scientific Director of the Museo Correr pondered the painting as it hung in storage. It was cataloged as a work by a 16th century Venetian painter, but something about it stood out.

On a hunch, Bellieni gave the painting to the restorer, Antonio Bigolin. After removing a recent over-painting, the inscription VETOR(E) SCHARPAÇO OPV[S] appeared on the short bottom ledge. There was no doubt it was the work of a young Carpaccio before he had Latinised his name to "Carpathio," and whom we know today as the great master Carpaccio.

Pietà by Vittore Carpaccio (1488-90 ca.)

Incredibly, the same thing happened again when Professor Giorgio Fossaluzza was in the storeroom's of the Correr to conduct a comparative analysis between a small panel recently acquired from an American collection with a old picture from Federico Zeriì's photo archive. He came face to face with the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ on her lap (Pieta) in a very poor state of preservation, and proposed that it might be another Carpaccio. Again the restorer, Antonio Bigolin, performed his magic, and again another work by a twenty-year-old Carpaccio was uncovered.

Eternal Return by Bill Viola (2000)

Louis Vuitton has partnered with the Fondazione Musei Civici a Venezia, Venice's Civic Museums, to sponsor the restoration of classic artworks, which are then loaned to the new space on the top floor -- the funding for Madonna and Child came from the Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia and the Regione del Veneto. The funding to restore the Pietà came from Louis Vuitton.

Then, a contemporary artist is invited to exhibit, inspired by the classic work. To complement Carpaccio, the invited artist was the American contemporary video artist, Bill Viola.

Bill Viola happens to be my absolute-most-favorite-male-contemporary-artist-ever -- I think he is a genius -- and Carpaccio is, well, Carpaccio, so it was an enormous thrill to sit and enjoy these two artists who are separated by the centuries in the here and now... in the same space and time...

Hervé Mikaeloff: You refer to the theme of the Pietà in your video called Emergence. What are your sources of inspiration? Can we see it as a reminiscence of the Pietà by Carpaccio?

Bill Viola: Emergence came from my fascination with the early Renaissance, and artists like Paolo Uccello, Luca Signorelli, Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale. At that time, I was especially taken by Masolin's Pieta in Empoli. Christ's figure is half risen out of his tomb, supported by his mother Mary and John the Evangelist.

My idea for Emergence was to create an extended vigil for the two women waiting by the tomb. I wanted the scene to transform from their vigil, to a Resurrection, then to an Ascension, which soon becomes a Birth as water flows out onto the ground, and finally takes the form of a Pietà and Lamentation as the two Marys grieve their loss. But I feel that this is not the end of the story.

In Emergence, I tried to express that when we think all is lost and empty, the Christ figure, or someone like him, rises up seeming to ascend to Heaven, but, in fact, he deliberately falls back to earth in order to help relieve the suffering of all human beings and creatures. This is the time for us to re-connect with the earth, with nature, and the people who we care about most. I think Emergence relates very well to Carpaccio's Pietà.

Hervé Mikaeloff: Why did you use slow motion in your works?

Bill Viola: I use slow motion so that I can see more deeply into the fabric of space and time, and especially our Souls.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog

RENAISSANCE
Carpaccio
Bill Viola

January 24 to May 25, 2014
Mon to Sat 10-7:30
Sunday 10:30-7:30
Free entrance

Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia
Calle del Ridotto 1353
30124 Venezia
+39 041 88 44 318
Email: store__venezia@it.vuitton.com

All photos of the work of Bill Viola: 2014©Bill Viola and Kira Pervo
All photos of the paintings of Carpaccio © Fondazione Mu.Ve.-Venezia/Antonio Bigolin restauratore-Quinto di Treviso