portal for creative expression
Anita and I made plans to create a book with the drawings using handcrafted book-binding methods. Today we work to complete this book. She shows me a bookbinding book which explains how to bind with bird feathers and other such things.
First, she creates an armour over her red overalls by peeling layer upon layer of two blocks of unbaked raw clay with a string of dental floss. Her face is covered entirely, her body enduring the process, her hands searching and shaking slightly.
Improvised gestural forms have a visible sense of spontaneity, balance, symmetry, and flow. They feel very different to self-conscious and perfected ones. The difference is difficult to describe but I think it is the same difference between a self-conscious actor compared with somebody acting with their attention outside of themselves. Drawn marks reveal a state of mind.
The Alma Zevi gallery sits in the centre and is currently presenting drawings by Berlin-born/London-based painter Frank Auerbach, for his first solo exhibition in Italy since he represented Great Britain in the 42nd Venice Biennale of 1986 – winning the prestigious Golden Lion prize.
The work that struck me hardest for was a fishing boat, which on April 18, 2015, more than 800 refugees died. The surprisingly small, brightly coloured yet distressed vessel was designed for a crew of 15 people. It was installed as an art exhibit by Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel and titled Barca Nostra (Our Boat).
ITINERANT was created in 2010 by interdisciplinary artist Hector Canonge. Since then the festival has introduced, and featured the work of local, national and international emerging and established artists introducing and featuring their work at local museums, art galleries, performance art spaces, and public parks.
I discover that the audience had been packed full of brilliant artists, some of whom are exhibiting in the exhibition and across Venice during the Biennale. There are many professors from the arts and sciences and we talk until the early hours.
This show brings together spiritually nomadic sex-positive radicals working in the mediums of fabric, installation, herbalism, healing, new media, glitch, sound and ritual performance.