Vernazia: La Biennale

La Biennale was not only an overwhelming amount of art, but also an overwhelming experience, in the best way possible. I really enjoyed the chance to see so much art in such a condensed amount of time, because I was able to closely compare the art from so many different countries and figure out what made the biggest impression on me.

Overall, I enjoyed the Giardini the most. I feel the art there was well rounded and offered something for everyone. I learned more about art from those delightfully packed 5 hours than probably most people learn in a lecture hall. I think the Biennale is an amazingly powerful experience in the way it effects an artist and what an artist can learn from art from around the world.

The exhibition I enjoyed the most was at the Spanish pavilion, ironically the first art I saw. The mixed media pieces, by Miquel Barcelo, stuck with me throughout the entire Biennale experience. The large size and very 3D aspects of his work drew me closer and had me studying each stroke, color, and protruding paint covered pieces of fabric. There was so much thought and care placed into each color and placement of the fabric pieces to create the wave like texture. I was captivated by the artist’s obvious talent to create such a complicated and eye catching piece. Every time I looked through his work there was something else to study and inspect more closely. His art was all done in a harmonious manner that made his art enjoyable, calming, and easy to appreciate for what it is, art.

-Taylor

The biennale was a massive amount of art for 2 days but none the less an amazing experience. The artwork that I would definitely included in my top 3 of favorite works was Australia's exhibit.

Outside you are greeted by a sleek black car and a black building with Australia on it but the bottom of the T was a lightning bolt. It got me really excited because i was sure i would see something fast paced and action packed.

When i walked into the black building I was proven wrong. It was a compilation of videos that had been put into slow motion. Due to time restraints and readers possible boredom I will talk about the video I enjoyed the most.

There were five monitors one on top of the other, so it stood about 20 feet. Each monitor contained a different person spinning in slow motion (e.g. a guy on a bike or a girl on stilts) and each video was a different length. The videos created an elegant dance in my mind, with each video starting/stopping and being at different positions at different times. It was very beautiful.

~ Andrew

The End

Ragnar Kjartansson

Iceland

When we as viewers walk into a gallery, we see pieces that are perfectly planned out. We hear audio that is perfectly timed out. Everything is perfect; everything is planned. Sometimes it is hard to fight the feeling of disconnect from the pieces the artists are presenting. What are their processes? What were they feeling? How do they work? 

After moving from Pavilion to Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, I was exhausted. Too many videos I didn't understand. Too many pieces that seemed redundant. I left feeling somewhat uneasy with the art I saw. I thought to myself, "Is this really what I'm getting myself into?" This is not to say I didn't enjoy it. There were some artists that struck my eye. There was still a little glimpse of hope that art could still be created by the hands and not fancy computer software. (Mostly, I am just jealous of those capable of using this software).  

On the way back to the hotel, we decided to stop at the Icelandic Pavilion, which was outside of the Giardini. Upon entering, I was immediately confused and uncomfortable. I had stepped into what looked like a private artist's studio. Beer bottles, blank canvases, old records, everywhere. There was a man painting a model on the couch. The doors opened up to a beautiful Venetian canal. There were numerous canvases sprawled about the room; some painted, some not. I looked around and saw that all of the paintings had been painted in that same room with that same model. I realized THAT was the art piece! The artist had recreated a studio in the Pavilion and painted everyday for everyone to see. For 6 months! 

I was so refreshed. The piece wasn't about perfection---it was about the experience. The piece was about the making of a piece. It was something I, as an artist, could relate to the most. My favorite part about making art is the process and the experiences I have while creating it. I was honored to feel like I had experienced part of this man's process. It didn't feel staged (though to some respect, it was), it felt real. And it was awesome. 

Overall, the Biennale was incredible. I really did thoroughly enjoy the entire experience. I am lucky to have seen such a wide variety of artists from all over the world. And what better place than Venice? 

-Emilee

Procession in the Dark from Tyler Centanni on Vimeo.

This video was projected onto a flag and carried down a dark alley in Siena on Thursday.

Ciao Tutti!
In the process of creating this blog, I asked the group "What do you guys think a good title would be?" The answer I received was "I dunno, something really cool." And so it was written...

For this first project we were given a very loose set of guidelines (paraphrased from lectures):

1. Use these new 3M projectors we bought
2. Somehow deal with the subject of the famous Sienese Palio
3. Make something cool!

We've got the first two down, and we've struggled with the third one a bit, but I'm thinking the end result is going to be right in line with the title of our blog.

At first we threw around some basic ideas of how we could use this medium to interact with the Sienese people and architecture. Some of our initial ideas were projecting faces onto statues, image distortion with glasses and bottles or possibly a kaleidoscope, a snaking image feedback loop, and projecting onto a flag. After some concentrated evaluation, we decided that a simple and easy, but clever way to go about it would be to create our own flag to parade around the town and project images of intense expressions, flags, and horses that we would collect from the Palio. We even thought it would be cool to sing our own version of the song that each contrada belts out as the march the streets.

Come Palio day we all ventured out into the Piazza di Campo several hours early and set ourselves up to capture the event. I focused mostly on capturing footage of peoples faces, Brian captured flags and the procession, Andrew got some nice footage of the race and images of people, Taylor took some lovely photos as well, and Emilee managed to capture some beautiful audio of the crowd and the songs of the locals.

Our only problem at this point was figuring out how we were going to piece the massive puzzle of media we had collected into a coherent and interesting project. Several of us met Sunday night as we all felt that we did not yet have a solid direction to work towards. Not only that, but we had some dissagreement within the group as to wether or not singing during the performance would offend the locals, and if so whether or not we should do it anyway. We were so uncertain at this point, in fact, that we almost tried to reinvent our project entirely. Some of the ideas we threw around were isolating images of people through desaturation and alphachannels, projecting onto a three-pane surface (Something that was experimented with during our first live performance, the one documented on the main Site Siena page), and keeping the flag stationary. Luckily, the final decision (or most final decision we've come to so far) incorporates the original idea of the flag procession.

As of now we are working on creating a patchwork of images and video of people and their expressions isolated out with blank alphachannels so as to construct our own living crowd from a variety of sources. Brian and I are working on isolating video people, while Andrew and Taylor are working on photos, and Emilee is sketching people based on these images. We intend to walk around the town carrying a flag and projecting onto it as in our first idea, and we will probably use some of the audio that Emilee collected as an audio backdrop to set the mood. I'm really excited to see how it finally all plays out!

With love and a cone of delicious lemon gelato,
~Tyler