A fantasy of literature and art: Stephen Chambers’s ‘The Court of Redonda’ at the Biennale Arte

A fictitious royal court, a symphony of colour and a capricious cast of characters join together to create a fantasy constructed from literature and art — this is Stephen Chambers‘s monumental presentation, The Court of Redonda, currently on view as an Official Collateral Event of the 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.

Installation view, The Court of Redonda at Ca’ Dandolo. Photo by  FS@SCS.

The show which is presented by the Heong Gallery at Downing College, University of Cambridge and curated by Emma Hill takes its home at Ca’ Dandolo on the Grand Canal from now until 26th November, showcasing 101 portraits that represent a utopian society dominated by creators and known as Redonda.

Advertisement

The synergy of sound: Paul Benney at La Biennale di Venezia

Self-taught artist, Paul Benney, will make his Venice Art Biennale debut from 13th May with his monumental installation, Speaking in Tongues.

The 12ft by 8ft painting on show at the 14^th century San Gallo Church, just north of St Mark’s Square is the centrepiece of an installation that includes sound and other smaller works in oil by the artist. Curated by James Putnam and Flora Fairbairn, this is the first time Speaking in Tongues has been shown outside of the UK.

The work itself is secular but draws on the New Testament story of the Pentecost in which the twelve apostles encounter the Holy Spirit and then begin ‘speaking in tongues’. Modifying and updating this familiar interlude, Benney has painted twelve artistic contemporaries of various ethnicities and religious backgrounds, with the aim of capturing a collective state of spiritual awakening.

Playing with the idea of narrative painting, Benney introduced a sound element to the work, inviting each of the subjects to record themselves sharing transformative moments in their lives. These are relayed through holosonic speakers placed around the church. At first the viewer hears hushed murmuring, however, when they stand in a precise spot they hear individual voices, an effect achieved via sound-focusing technology that isolates the viewer from their own reality and the outside world. Then come the subject’s revelations. These are poignant and sometimes shocking – one man tells of how he accidentally shot dead his best friend; another reveals the joy of becoming a father – and, in the context of a religious setting they create the experience of receiving a confession.

ArtAttack’s ‘Best of Biennale’: India & Pakistan Historically Join Forces for ‘My East is Your West’

When art aficionado, businesswoman, and philanthropist Feroze Gujral – who is of Indian, Arab, and British origins – visited the Venice Biennale in 2013, she noticed there was neither an Indian nor a Pakistani pavilion. With great experience sustaining large-scale arts projects via the Gujral Art Foundation, she decided to change that, and selected internationally recognised artists, Shilpa Gupta (India) and Rashid Rana (Pakistan), to collaborate on ‘My East is Your West.’ The project is an official Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale, and unites at the Biennale for the first time the historically conflicting nations of India and Pakistan. Rana and Gupta have previously collaborated on the cross-border project ‘Aar Paar’, in which artists from Mumbai and Karachi each created public works in the other’s territories.

On view in Venice, Shilpa Gupta’s work, characteristically both poetic and direct in its delivery, reflects on her own experience visiting the borders of Mumbai, Bangladesh and Kashmir, which are partly controlled by India and partly by Pakistan. As a central focus of the work, she stages a performance wherein an actor diligently works away at a crafts table in a dramatically lit red room. Without acknowledging the presence of visitors, the actor traces a shape on carbon paper that rests on a pile of cloth. The cloth itself is significant, measuring the width of a sari and one-thousandth the length of the 3,400km security barrier, the longest in the world, that India is currently building along its’ perimeter with neighbouring Bangladesh. Although open-ended, the piece seemingly alludes to the vast and somewhat arbitrary effort of retaining distance through the gesture of drawing borders.

‘My East is Your West,’ 2015

ArtAttack’s ‘Best of Biennale’: Arsenale

After a quick Venezia break to bring you a bit of Central Saint Martins inspiration, we are back on our biennale grind, and ready to share some more of our favourite moments with you. As I mentioned previously, the main venues for this international event are the Giardini, (a beautiful garden dotted with various exhibition halls and country pavilions), and the Arsenale (a complex of former shipyards and armories for which construction began as early as 1104). The latter, perhaps due to its’ age and history, has a very majestic feel to it, and witnessing such a multitude of art within its’ antique walls is truly special.

Like the Giardini, the Arsenale houses both specific country pavilions and a general ‘All the World’s Futures‘ exhibition, showcasing multiple international artists and curated by Okwui Enwezor.

I suppose the major difference between the two spaces is that while the Giardini feels light and airy — no doubt because of its’ outdoor setting — the Arsenale gives off a much more severe vibe, leaving less room for dillydallying and daydreaming, and hence producing, in my view, a more focused and intense experience.

The armory itself also feels endless, with art around every dark corner, and even outside rising from the canal (Chinese artist, Xu Bing‘s ‘Phoenix Project‘ and Brazilian Vik Muniz‘ ‘Lampedusa‘ to name a few). Walking through the exhibition feels something like making one’s way through a maze — you tread carefully so as to not miss anything, and yet you deliberately plough forward too, with the pulsing goal to make it out the other side.

ArtAttack’s ‘Best of Biennale’: Wu Tien-Chang’s Taiwan Pavilion

As you may have gathered from the multitude of photos circulating on our social media accounts, ArtAttack has been at the 56th Venice Art Biennale enjoying the fruits of 18 months of creative labour by artists and curators across the globe.

Personally, my main takeaway was SO. MUCH. ART.

Throughout the 3-day visit, our team was, all jokes aside, in danger of mutating to HeartAttack during the insanely busy days and BugAttack every night. Nonetheless, the experience, despite the chaos, was undoubtedly worth it, and over the course of the next couple weeks we are excited to provide reviews of some of our favourite moments from this truly inspirational trip.

As the cynic in the ArtAttack team, I’ll admit I tend to turn a blind eye to some of the more esoteric forms of contemporary art. Sound based art leaves me cold, performance art has never quite held my attention and I find video art to be more ‘video meh’.

ArtAttack’s ‘Best of Biennale’: Giardini

I’d be lying if I said that Venice isn’t always magical — in the rain, snow, steaming summer sun, even when the canal floods and you’re ankle deep in water just trying to get down the road. But Venice during the biennale is another level of magic altogether. It’s as if the entire island turns into one giant exhibition, a festival of creativity, a canvas for art, culture, emotion and politics. This year marks the 56th edition of this world renowned, international, bi-annual art extravaganza and my and ArtAttack‘s first time attending.

The central event, entitled ‘All the World’s Futures‘ and curated by Okwui Enwezor is a splendour to behold, made up both of spaces personally curated by Enwezor and individual country-sponsored pavilions each showcasing a native artist. Between the two main venues of the exhibition, the Giardini and the Arsenale, 136 artists from 53 countries are represented, with 89 of them showing at the biennale for the first time. There are also 44 official collateral events taking place all across the city, and too-many-to-count independent exhibitions on top of that.