Hans is in the house!!!

Hans van Meeuwen wins inaugural Boston Online Biennial

Well….when The Biennial Project began planning our fabulous trip to participate in the 54th Venice Biennale we knew we would be successful—but who could have imagined the extent of our smashing success as The Biennial Project and their entourage of glitterati took the Big V by storm???!!!! Suffice it to say that we were surrounded by art rock stars of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities….but few could hold a candle to our own Hans van Meeuwen—the first place winner of the inaugural Boston Online Biennial.

vanMeeuwenH10_drawing vanMeeuwenH10_drawing

Originally hailing from Rotterdam in The Netherlands, Hans moved to Germany in 1991 and then to New York in 2004—he currently lives in Brooklyn. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and in New York.

vanMeeuwenH01_AMansHeight vanMeeuwenH11_Table vanMeeuwenH13_SergeBernierReading

In 2008 he showed at New York’s Christinerose Gallery which was reviewed in (wait for it….) ART IN AMERICA, my bitches!!!!!! This alone officially make Hans Art World Royalty.

        vanMeeuwenH08_drawing                       vanMeeuwenH07_Langnek

His work capitalizes greatly on elements of scale coupled with a deadpan dry wit. The pieces are often fanciful if not dreamlike, evoking a surreal and mysterious presence (giant CHICKEN FEET outside your tent, anyone???)

vanMeeuwenH03_LesVacances

 

Though he has created public art pieces and installation, even his sculptures have an installation-esque quality. They seem like smaller parts of a larger whole which invites the viewer to interject his/her own narrative—explainations for what frequently appear to be extraordinary or paranormal phenomena.

 

        vanMeeuwenH02_Spookrijder                                 vanMeeuwenH09_SweetPotato

 

vanMeeuwenH14_Shrine 

HATS OFF TO OUR CHAMPION!!!

2011 VENICE BIENNALE: THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

2011 VENICE BIENNALE: THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

By Bo Petran

I’m in Venice – at last – and, with its subtle mists and roaring crowds, it does not disappoint. I have seen my first ineffable sunset and have had the various parts of my anatomy shoved by an indifferent attendant into an impossibly packed vaporetto. So I’m in Venice and pretty indiscriminately happy, wandering around the ‘back-behind’ of mobbed St. Mark’s Square, escaping from the sun and heat and screaming masses of people, who, as Henry James observed a century ago, should immediately leave and let me properly enjoy all this alone, when I happen on the big red “Biennale” pennant outside an old building, church, whatever, and enter, mostly just to get a rest.

The place is dim, quiet, cool, and a bit of a ruin, stripped to its architectural bones, former function unrecognizable.  I climb the stairs to the loft and settle into a room-sized beanbag, and all I want or expect is about 15 minutes of peace.  Luckily not to be had.

As I become accustomed to the light, I see around me people transfixed by a large screen cycling into a new showing of Singapore’s ‘The Cloud of Unknowing,’ which turns out to be the trippiest experience one could possibly have without aid of hallucinogen or other radical brain alteration.  And no one already present is leaving.

The video cycles through six apartments in a low-rent neglected urban high-rise, showing its largish occupants, 4 men, one woman, and some vegetation, at various mostly ordinary occupations leading up to – what is this? — their envelopment by cloud emanating from various parts of their apartments, from the bookcases, appliances, furnishings.

It’s a wonderful set of contrasts between the ‘nothingness’ of the cloud and the persistent bulkiness of the humans (and possibly the plants as well), the mundanity of their quotidian existences and the magical things that happen to them as they’re being engulfed, the silence of the solitary, monastic modern high rise cells otherwise known as apartments, and the joyous uproar of a drummer exuberantly banging things from a zone somewhere between monastic gongs and pure rock and roll.

As the cloud descends, dreaming man is sucked into white-sheeted bed, drummer is subsumed by torrential rains, and moss-filled apartment just plain luxuriates … I think.

Giving away the end – since it’s not likely to be in the local multiplex any time soon – as the screen fills with luminous cloud turning to pure light, the dark-ribbed old wooden loft begins also to fill with all-obscuring cloud.

Spectacle, you say?  You bet.  And I’d see it again.  And, what’s more, it’s stayed with me and resonated this past month as no blockbuster movie has ever been able to do.

One other point, about going to Venice.  Getting there cost an obscene amount of money and was a hard thing to decide to do in these times.  For anyone who still contemplates the purchase of, say, that big i-thing, using the logic that these things are tangible and lasting whereas some vacation will be over in a matter of weeks,

my advice is to go for the real lasting thing, the trip.

We’ll Always Have Venice!!!!!!

  

“Up on Housing Project Hill, it’s either fortune or fame. You must choose one or the other, although neither of them are to be what they claim.” 

venicereiclauracutouts

That’s our friend Bob Dylan talking, and we figure he should know.

We, of course, want both. We haven’t noticed much movement lately in the fortune thing, but boy has the fame thing been coming along.

And by fame, we mean The Venice Biennale 2011, in all it’s sparkling glory, with US as Participants!  We have so much to tell you!

First, we are aware that in addition to the Legions of Fabulous Fans who appreciate our sublime parody of artistic pretension, there exist also a Few Dreary Naysayers - those who feel that The Biennial Project is perhaps, well, too focused on US.

We know, that’s just ridiculous, but you know how petty and jealous people can be when their own careers are in the toilets while ours are really taking off.

So, to prove these Few Dreary Naysayers to be the bitter farts that they are, we and our conspirators have have written reviews of some of our favorite art at the VB2011, without even mentioning ourselves!

And had these reviews published in Boston’s Coolest and Hippest Cultural Weekly – The Dig!!!

No way, you say? Yes way, we answer! 

Read our fabulous reviews below!

 

American Pavilion

 

Chinese Pavilion

 

Singapore Pavilion

 

Egyptian, Polish & German Pavilions

 

All Our Coverage in the Hip and Cool Dig!

 

And, of course, us being us, in between looking at and reviewing the other art, we did find a little time to show the art world some of our Unique Edgy Avant-Garde Conceptual Performance Art, and you just know that they loved it!

In the weeks to come we’ll fill you in on everything, but here’s just a taste of how the Art World Press took notice (pay special attention to seconds 26-28!):

Art World Press Raves for The Biennial Project!

Bizarre Art Happenings Indeed!

Stay tuned for more!!!!

 

The Biennial Project