On Divinity, Water and UAE’s representation | by Khalid Al Ali

 

Walking on Water | color video installation ,with sound effects of wave for 2 mins loop,in overall dimensions variable.

My first impression ,same as the title of work, was walking on water.I like being in water and at first, I felt dizzy, after that I felt like it can be real ,what will happen if I am lost in middle of the sea ,Especially after I saw the time on the floor of the art work from the screen show the time of shooting the video was at 7:09:59 P.M almost the beginning of the night and darkness will soon be everywhere. Would someone help me?  If i am indeed lost in water, where would my friends be? busy on their new Apps, chatting in Majles or perhaps even busy watching TV. What about my family? would they rush to help me, knowing that I was probably staying late? If i was indeed lost in water, who would be there for me?

For me, it was Allah, and this is the divine connection I felt when experiencing the work of Mohammed Kazem; a divine connection.

Having one artist with one work representing the UAE is both negative and positive. On the positive note, people will be impacted and remember the one strong work presented by the UAE, but also it could be a missed opportunity to show the works of more artists during the Venice Biennale.

Mohammed Kazem’s work toys with water in the city of Water, and inspired by a beautiful coastal country, and  historical ties with water and the sea.

Water water water water everywhere

Water water water water everyday

Sun set dark start high wave

Water water water water all the way

Win or lose try to choose

Water water water water anyway…

Ca’Rezzonico and other Magical Palaces | by Maria Bagnara

If you have the chance to have a walk in a magical city like Venice you will quickly notice that there are many other hidden treasures besides wonderful landscapes, suggestive alleys and peaceful squares. From the Grand Canal you can admire the greatness and the splendor of the majestic buildings mostly from the sixteenth century that overlook the channel but if you really want to have a magic experience, a jump back to the past  or simply a not ordinary day you should enter and spend at least one day in one of these luxurious sixteenth palaces. One of the best example of the majesty of the Venetian palaces is certainly Ca’ Rezzonico Palace, built up in 1649 and bought in 1751 from the aristocratic family Rezzonico. The most famous and important eighteenth-century Venetian painters were employed  to decorate and to fresco the aristocratic palace and now we can admire in the same palace the most important artworks painted by our major painters as Tiepolo, Canaletto, Tintoretto and Guardi without really think about it.

In 1936, after the restoration works, the palace became the Museum of the Venetian eighteenth-century and the 25th April the museum was opened to the visitors. The purpose of the two curators, Nino Barbantini and Giulio Lorenzetti was, as we can easily perceive, to keep  the palace in the eighteenth-century atmosphere and give the visitors the feeling of living for a while the splendor of Renaissance Venetian courts. In fact after the monumental entrance and after the majestic marble staircase, built up by Giorgio Massari in 1756, we can reach the second floor and visit several rooms, as for example the Nuptial Allegory Room, the Throne Room and the Arras Room, with original furniture and chandeliers dated from the early eighteenth century and with frescos and paintings hanging on the walls executed by GiambattistaTiepolo(1696-1770) together with his son Giandomenico. Moreover another small room, called Room of Pastels, shows us several paintings drowned with the particular pastel technique in which venetians painters, as RosalbaCarriera (1675-1757), have been exceled.

Continuing our journey in the eighteenth Venetian century two rooms will certainly catch our attention: the bedroom and the pharmacy; by using original furniture and implements from the eighteenth century,these two rooms recreate with great care the aristocratic life-style of that period and give to the visitors a real perception of the luxurious Venetian courts. The bedroom have been furnished with original furniture richly decorated that evidences the fabulous Venetian art of carving wood; besides the bed  and nearby the small wood cradle an ancient showcase show us several ladies implements made from wood and silver. Not far to the bedroom we can visit the pharmacy were unfortunately we are not allowed to enter but we can still have a peek from the windows and admire the china and the original glass tools located on wooden furniture.

Ca’Rezzonico palace is just one of the several wonderful palaces that Venice offers to visitors. A lot of other palaces are hidden somewhere in some corner or in some unknown alley and they usually remain unknown for visitors but thanks to the art Biennale some of them are now used as national pavilions. Visitors can visit the art exhibition while they are walking in a sixteenth wonderful palace, but I’m afraid that they won’t realize that indeed they have the occasion to relive the past while they are going into the future. With regard to that I feel bound to mention “Glasstress”, an exhibition curated by Adriano Berengo and James Putnam in collaboration with Art Biennale and organized in Palazzo Franchetti a Venetian fifteenth palace. In Glasstress, in fact, the two curators propose to the artists, from all over the world, to create something new and extremely modern by using glass that is at the same time an ancient Venetian tradition. The purpose of contemporary glass art becomes clear when you face the artwork Quantum prayer from the Ukrainian artist Oksama Mas, where the superfine and ancient glass art “meets” a modern car engine. Besides I personally have to say that this is exactly what a modern country should always offers to its citizens: the memory and the respect of his heritage while promoting and supporting the natural modernity’s progress. Especially in an international exhibition as the Art Biennale, each country and each young artist, taking part in it, should realise the chance to promote the culture and tradition but more importantly, break some clichés and let visitors bring back to their countries new reflections about the said country. as for example the Palestinian pavilion certainly did it with his strong and powerful video installation “The trial” by Aissa Deebi in Otherwise Occupied.

المتحف بين الكلاسيكي والحديث | بقلم حسن الشيخ

تعتبر مدينة فينيسيا صغيرة جدا كمساحة جغرافية، الا أنها مليئة بالمتاحف وصالات العرض الفنية. فبين كل مبنى وساحة هناك متحف ما، ،معرض فني أومكان أثري لزيارته. ومن بين هذه المتحاف الكلاسيكية متحف Palazzo Ducale الذي قمت بزيارته وأنا أتجول في فينيسيا. المتحف عبارة عن قصر قديم يرجع تاريخه لعام ١٣٤٠ للميلاد، بينما تم افتتاحه كمتحف في عام ١٩٢٣ م .

أكثر ما يميز المتحف هو الفن المعماري القوطي الجميل، الذي يأخذك في حكاية قديمة عبر غرفه وممراته عن أهل فينيسيا القديمة، ومدى اهتمامهم بالفن العمراني وبالفن عموما. حيث يزخر القصر بقطع وتحف فنية غاية في الحرفية، وغالبية جدران القصر مزينة بلوحات جدارية لفنانين عاصروا بناء القصر. والملاحظ أن القصور القديمة لم تغير جدرانها أو تطليها بالابيض مثلا لعرض اللوحات عليها، فهم لم تزل محافظة على الزخارف وألون الطوب الأصلية.

وبرأي أن ما يميز المتاحف الكلاسيكية هي حفاظها على طابع المكان الحقيقي دون زيادات حديثة، فيشعرك بدفء الجو وشاعريته تماما كما كان يوم بنائه. لذا أحرص في كل مدينة أزورها وخاصة المدن الأوروبية على زيارة القصور القديمة، فهي تجربة تغنيك عن قراءة مئات الصفحات عن المكان وطبيعة الفنون الموجودة فيه. فالرائحة القديمة وصوت الخشب والنور الذي يتسلل عبر النوافذ كلها عوامل تساعد على الاحساس بالفن المعروض ، والاستمتاع بالقطع واللوحات في مكانها الطبيعي.

وبعد زيارة هذا القصر الفينيسي الرائع، عدت لأتجول في أجنحة البينالي، وهو شعور مختلف تماما، كأنك تزور عالمين متضادين، لا رابط بينهما سوى الاسم فقط (الفن). فتجربة البينالي والفن المعروض فيه يختلف بمفوهمه وطريقة عرضه عن الذي تقدمه القصور والمتحاف الكلاسيكية. فالجدران في البينالي بيضاء، وتحتاج أحيانا لوقت طويل كي تفهم القطع المعروضة خاصة اذا استخدم الفنان الرمزية في أعماله، بينما الفن الكلاسيكي واضح وغالبا تفهمه من النظرة الأولى، دون الحاجة الى سماعات أذن أو “بروشور” يكون وسيطا بينك وبين القطع الفنية، فقط تبحث عن اسم الفنان وسنة انتاج العمل.

وحقيقة هذا ما يميز فينيسيا، فبعد أن تزور متحفا عمره ٦٠٠ سنة، تغادره وتمشي خطوات لتجد تفسك في أجنحة البينالي، أو في صالة عرض فنية تعرض أعمالا عصرية انتاج ٢٠١٣. فهذا التنوع المثير للحواس ولفضول الجمهور شيء ضروري في عالم اليوم. أعتقد أن المتحف الكلاسيكي يجب أن يكون حاضرا في كل مدينة، فهو امتداد للفن الحديث، ويعطي للزائر والفنانين الشباب مجالا لمقارنة التطور الزمني للفن عبر العصور.

2 Different Approaches of Arab participation in the Venice Biennale | By Nidal Touma

Since early beginning of art exhibitions with the Salon exhibition at the Louvre palace in France at mid-18th century, the private association events, and the art side of the World-fairs in England in the 19th century, as well as the beginning of Venice Biennial in 1985, the concept of featuring the country at international exhibitions has evolved drastically, along with the art/science of Curation

The probable approaches of national participations varies between featuring a national or even international pressing calls, or demonstrating the country’s glories and achievements in a certain field, or even exhibiting the country’s finest artists, architects, scientists… Nevertheless a good curation approach is always a must.

This year 6 Arab countries have participated in the 55th run of Venice Biennial; Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, and UAE. Though they adopted different approaches … Some of them took the classical approach of featuring a cohort of their prominent artists. Bahrain for example chose 3 of their award winning artists; Mariam Haji, Waheeda Malullah, Camille Zakharia to showcase their works . which can be seen as a sound approach similar to the old days when Greeks and Romans focused on producing monumental artworks to convey their glories to whoever walk their land (except that the message here will be sent globally through the Venice Biennial)

Of course the country’s participation in this case will depend solely on the individual talent of the chosen artist(s), and it is up to the artist to choose motifs related to the reality of the featured country or be completely inspired by his / her own world and personal experience, which might be the case with the three artists of Bahrain pavilion; Malullah chose to  tackle the issue of urbanism in Bahrain through the eyes of a rural girl, Haji chose to depict horses -an element well-related to culture and tradition- to be the main element of her fictions composition, and Zakharia tackled a humanist idea trough the sensibility found in letters.

Obviously the three artists ranged on all the spectrum from being driven by national topics to being driven by their own imagination

On the other side another probable approach for national participations at the biennial is to show an artwork to present the country itself; one of its national calls, or maybe a part of its rituals and history.

This approach is adopted by Lebanon, where one artist was chosen to show a solo work explaining an incident from the national history, a true story involving a high political charge; “a letter to a refusing pilot by Akram Zaatari” 35 minute video talking about the Israeli pilot who refused to bomb an elementary school in Lebanon.

The movie received positive critique over all, and it shed light on the historical event in an exquisite artistic frame.

However this approach in general might risk reducing the awareness about the country to the demonstrated aspect, or even to a narrow slot through which the artist depict the national call.

 Both approaches are valid, and both has its strengths and weaknesses, therefore the role of the curator comes very essential here to tailor the country’s participation in the most desired and useful way.

Museums and Art Exhibitions as Educational Institutions | By Nidal Touma

Art, history of art and art education are several facets for the culture of a nation, and for that museums and art exhibitions can be considered as pedagogic institutions or educational events, their role is to educate visitors while entertaining them at the same time… mainly through exhibiting the collection of their artworks in a certain way that convey an educational message and allows the visitor to grasp it

Hence we can notice that the collection of a museum is indeed its most important asset. At the same time this very same asset impose certain limits on the pedagogic role of museum by making it destined to the limitation of its permanent collections, on the contrary art exhibitions are relatively more free from such limits because they depend on collections of any museum in the world that is willing to give it on lend.

Based on the type of the collection of the museum, the museum “genre” or specialization is determined; classical art museum, modern art museum, contemporary art museum, also further specializations can be found when the museum’s collection is linked to a certain geographic area; for example:  Ca’ Rezzonnico is an example of classical art museum of Veneto; which is the district in north east Italy where Venice is, while Ca’ Pessaro is another museum in Venice dedicated for modern and contemporary art

Other museums in Venice are actually Palazzo (Italian for a palace) turned into a museum, and the main thing they exhibit is the building itself with the original decorations and some of the original furniture. This can be considered a “period museum”. A good example of that is the museum Correr, which at the same time can be considered as classical museum since it has a classical art collection and an exhibition center because it has a whole floor dedicated for temporary exhibitions

Away from museums and palaces, art exhibitions are a parallel path of educational art events, they don’t have a permanent collection, and their pedagogic message is tailored in a different way; usually it’s oriented to present a particular idea or theme. Those art exhibition can be periodic; once a year, once every two years (biennial), or even once every five years. And some of them gained big reputation due to their long history and emportance; like the Venice Biennial which started in 1985 and it never stop except for one cycle at the time of the world war

Another strength of art exhibitions is the way they attract their visitors, and the way they are sought by a wide public. Many people from all over the world are ready to travel internationally to attend a famous art exhibition… so it’s a good opportunity for artists and curators to get a global exposure and send their artistic message to people all around the globe

Even though art exhibition seem to be able to attract more visitors and be capable of crossing national limits to deliver their message globally, also they seem to have more freedom from a lot of the collection limitations… countries shall make equal efforts to focus on art exhibitions as well as museums… because both museums and other art events are needed to formulate a thorough strategy for publics’ art education, having several types “genre” of museums is also a plus to make the educational role more complete and effective