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So it’s been a few months since we, the Biennial Project attended the glamorous preview week of the Venice Biennale.
Only now have we recovered from our hangovers, washed the glitter from our private parts and sorted out our brains from the overwhelming visual stimulus that is The Venice Biennale.
We realize that the art show closes in a month and that many of you still haven’t made plans to go.
TBP are procrastinators too and generally we catch shows the day they close like you.
The Biennial Project thought maybe if we shared with you just a little of what we liked of what we saw of the ‘Superbowl of Art’ we could get your asses in gear to go see the assemblage of creations located in Venezia for the next month.
It would be impossible to cover all we loved in one article so hopefully there will be follow ups leading right up to the closing day.
We loved Turner prize-winning artist Mark Leckey, ‘The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things’. At first we thought this was the sub-theme for the whole Biennale. Somewhat fitting don’t you agree? But it was just some more art mixed in with the other art. Whatever, we liked it. Plus it was from England like our dear friend Tom Estes.
The Russian Pavilion floored us. And that’s not only because they had a big old hole in their floor. Despite the injustices Vladimir Putin signed into laws against gays in Russia this past summer, we have to say we can separate all that bullshit and still enjoy The Russian representation of this year’s Biennale. Actually the artist Vadim Zakharov, addresses the injustices in today’s Russian society in his piece Danae. Hopefully he doesn’t end up in jail.
In Greek Mythology Danae is impregnated by Zeus who appears to her as a Shower of Golden Rain.
It seems as if pissing on one another was a cheap thrill even in ancient times. Anyhow, our buddy Vadim demonstrates this by dropping 200,000 gold coins continuously from 2 stories up through a hole in the floor (the vagina for those of you who need this spelled out) to the basement.
Only female visitors are allowed on the bottom floor with an umbrella to protect them from the golden shower (of coins, not urine you perverts). A really, really sexy man with a well-fitted suit drops these coins on the women. Around him is the phrase ‘Gentlemen, time has come to confess our Rudeness, Lust, Narcissism, Demagoguery, Falsehood, Banality, and Greed, Cynicism, Robbery, Speculation, Wastefulness, Gluttony, Seduction, Envy and Stupidity."
So what Mr. Zakharov is really doing is acknowledging the fact the Russian society is segregated and treats different groups of people, in this case different genders, in different and unfair ways. Though this doesn’t directly address the outright gay torture the Russian government is inflicting on their gay population, Eric, of The Biennial Project, got a raging boner from the good looking Russian men yelling at him and would let them pee on him any day of the week. Thank you hot Russian men for not eating your asparagus, and fuck you Putin you fucker.
Another Artist we liked a whole lot was WILFREDO DIAZ VALDEZ, who represented Uruguay at THE URUGUAY PAVILION.
We didn’t only like Willy simply because he is kind sweet man with a kind sweet family.
We also didn’t just like him because he gave us a free autographed book or that he invited us to participate in the next Montevideo Biennial.
No, we weren’t even overcome with him simply because his son-in-law is an extremely hot looking, masculine type of Latin Man we all think about when we masturbate.
No - all these reasons were outshined by his incredible sculptures, which were made of found wooden objects modified and made into pieces that seem to impossibly balanced work with unexpected folds and joints.
He studies wood and the human interventions that have transformed it into utilitarian artifacts - at the same time examining how wood and utilitarian objects evolve. He dissects and observes the organic qualities inherent in the wood and its relationship with light—the role of photosynthesis and the effects of the passing of time—at the same time that he contemplates the historical and cultural contexts through which wood is transformed into artifacts for several uses.
Speaking of Uruguayan hotties (I mean aren’t we all always talking about the scrumptious men of Uruguay), we really enjoyed work by artist Martin Sastre - a perfume ad for his scent ‘U from Uruguay’.
At first we felt a little uncomfortable being that we, the Biennial Project, were in Venice to do our own European launch of our scent ‘Star of Venice’. But then we figured, imitation is the best form of flattery and all he was doing was borrowing our totally original idea and making it his own.
Where our perfume breathes personal artistic success in the creative world, Martin’s fragrance leans towards social activism in the Art World.
Also he had the pretty cool idea to auction off ‘U From Uruguay’, also known as “Pepe's Perfume”.
“Pepe's Perfume” is made with the essences extracted from the flowers grown by the President of Uruguay – “Pepe” – aka José Alberto Mujica Cordano. President Mujica is an icon and global representative of Uruguayan culture. A former guerrilla fighter and member of the Broad Front coalition of left-wing parties, he has been described as "the world's 'poorest' president", given that he donates around 90 percent of his $12,000 monthly salary to charities to benefit poor people and small entrepreneurs. Of the funds raised by Pepe’s Perfume, 90 percent will be designated to the creation of the first National Contemporary Art Fund in support of Latin American artists.
See, not only are Uruguayans irresistibly sexy, they also smell good, and they have the same socialist values we The Biennial Project aspire to.
This is the ad for U From Uruguay featuring the titillating and provocative artist Martin Sastre.
More importantly here is the ad for Star of Venice
We were also psyched to see the work of Albert Oehlen.
We’ll tell you more about it later, but right now our typing finger needs a little rest.
And we wanted to end this particular post about our discoveries in Venice on a special positive note.
We were very, very happy to see the lovely lady of Charles Ray’s “Fall ’91” again.
We had first stumbled across her, in all her power suit brilliance, in LA in the early 1990s - while on some sort of psychedelic drug (or two).
Now we know we that we really did see her. It wasn’t a mind trick (a common a side effect of hard drugs).
She really exists.
Damn. Venice rules.
XXOO,
The Biennial Project
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