If there is one thing that stands out more then the art during the Press Week at The Venice Biennale it would have to be all the free shit to be obtained. There are free fabulously catered parties, with DJs and bands. There is a myriad of free food and free wine. Its fun to watch the well dressed, sweaty intelligentsia push and shove one another for the complimentary Prosecco in the hot sun. During the 2015 Venice Biennale Press Week we, The Biennial Project, didn’t buy an actual meal from Monday to Friday. The free Steak Tartar at the Aberzajan exhibit stands out in our memory. Lots of the Pavilions give out free books, which we grab, because they are free, but end up leaving most of them behind because its too heavy for our luggage. We even witnessed a fight break out between to civilized looking ‘art patrons’ because one cut the other in line waiting for their gratis Lily sponsored espresso.

But we feel the most practical gift of all is the canvas bags that a lot of the pavilions hand out. Right away these are great because we can start to use them to carry all the other free shit we pick up through out the day. Second, they show the other visitors that you are important. Only the most important art wheeler and dealers, or the really pushy attendees like us, The Biennial Project, are given the privilege of getting a bag. It makes a statement that you have arrived. Norway really made us work hard for our bag. It took us 2 minutes to wear them down to give us one. France, with their moving tree, acted really stinhy, but we prevailed to be more pushy then the French in pursuit of our precious bag. England was selling their electric yellow bags for 10 euros but we managed to snatch one when someone wasn’t looking. Walking around with a bag from a not-well-visited exhibition also makes other very-important-art-VIPs in attendance think you are ‘in-the-know’. You get to give off an impression that you found that one underground, cool, new artist that they are too provincial to hear about. It’s a wonderful feeling making other think they missed out.

Best of all is the millage you can get out of your bags when you leave the Press Week of The Venice Biennale. If you carry you bags around Art Basel, in Berlin, while descending your yacht in the Greek Isles or stuck in customs at Newark Airport, everybody will know you were at the Press Week of The Venice Biennale. They will then know how extremely important you really are. We know for a fact that the girls at Market Basket here in Revere, Massachusetts are quietly in awe of our international-art-superstar bags while they pack up our groceries. When winter sets in a few months later, and you are picking through the cushions of your couch looking for coins to buy cat litter because you can’t stand the stench of feline urine anymore, you can sell these bags on Ebay!!

So the Venice Biennale 55 is officially closed. What happened there will now only be a memory. You will always hear people talk about that person whose eardrums shattered because didn’t wear their plugs during Konrad Smoleński loud-as-shit bells at The Polish Pavilion. You will have to decide if it was 3 or 23 naked artists running down Calle Avvocat and around the diners at Acqua Pozza restaurant in Campo Sant Angelo. Someone will have to figure out the truth behind the stories of people adding their own garbage to the organized chaos of Sarah Sze’s piece at The American Pavilion. The Venice Biennale 55 has only been closed a few days and art lovers world wide are already turning the tale of how much free Koskenkorva vodka a certain young American in a bow tie drank at the opening party for the Finnish Pavilion. How far Justin actually power puked will always vary in our collective memories. All we can verify is that the band Phantom, was great at the reception and that Justin made it home safe if not sound.

We, The Biennial Project felt that we should maintain some decorum and respect towards this gigantic art world event and not influence(or jade) your opinion of it until it closed. Only now is it truly safe for you to watch our reactions. Witness a video montage of some of the experiences The Biennial Project had during the opening week of this year’s Biennale. Fact or fiction is up to you now…..Rumor has it somebody saw an actual painting.

Sometimes we, The Biennial Project, get so caught up in the lives of being an artist, or caught up in the organized mind of being artists we forget to share with you some of the stuff we have already written about. Here is a review we did of some of the art we saw at The Venice Biennale 55 in June of 2015. Yes, too late for you to actually see it, but hopefully you can get a sense of it from our look back……Here is some of the shit The Biennial Party and our entourage liked when went to Venice Biennale 55 during the opening week.

In this blog we will talk about the art works, not hockey, of our countries of heritage, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

The little country of Latvia became little engine that could because the
whole entire city of Venice were impressed with their Pavilion entitled
North by North-East. This site-specific work  explores the artists'
relationship to the natural and ever-shifting man-made world. The project
also investigates the concepts and conditions of identity, uncertainty, and
the 'in-between.
Kriss Salmanis' presented a large tree that swings upside down from
the ceiling, creaking from the sheer force of movement and slowly dropping
limbs to the floor. We saw this tree hit one or two inattentive people in
the ass as well. It also smelled divine. A good place to pass gas if you
have to while touring the Biennale. Too many Biscotti can be a bitch on your
digestive track. We ought to know. We spent plenty of time covering up our
human odors at the Latvian Pavilion.
http://vimeo.com/67229511
Kaspars Podieks hung  large-scale black-and-white photographic  and video
portraits of residents of Latvian village of Drusti standing emotionless in
the snow. Podieks feels strongly about Drusti. He is active in the social
and political activities as a member of its town council. Looking closely
the perspectives seem a wee bit askewed somehow floating above the
landscapes (much like Latvia and The Biennial Project). That is because he
hangs his subjects from a crane. Oh those Latvians!!

On a personal note we had a great time at The Baltic Bash, or Latvian
reception. Two of The Biennial Project's entourage  are of Latvian descent.
This stoke of cultural luck caused quite the stir with Eric Hess being
interviewed by Latvian news and Markus Blauss resembling Kaspars Podnieks.
The gene pool in Latvia isn't that big.  Anyhow with the insider genetics
mixed in with the abundance of Janu siers (caraway cheese) Bauskas Alus
(Latvian Beer) all of the members of The Biennial Project and our vast
entourage started to feel Latvian. So Latvian in fact that when it was time
for the actual presentation we sort of forgot to step out of the way and we
posed for photos and answered press questions. What a pleasure to be Latvian
for an afternoon. Eric said what he liked best was that everybody smelled
like his grandmother which he now realizes is from her daily consumption of
Latvian beer and cheese. No wonder she was always singing.

In addition to the two Latvian in our touring group  we had three Czechs. Bo
Petran and Sonia Domkarova were born and raised in Kolín, Czech Republic.
Kolín is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic some 55
kilometres (34 mi) east from Prague, lying on the Elbe River. In spring 2005
a new automobile factory was opened in Kolin by the TPCA consortium on the
northern edge of the town. It employs 3,000 people.
Also included in trio of Czechs is  Anna Salmeron who Czech by years of
insertion. Its really not a party without one or two rowdy Czechs. We had
three!!

In the Giardini we fell in with Czech artist Zbynek Baladrán. Our new friend
'Z' presented a film entitled 'Liberation or Alternatively'. In this flick Z
conceptualizes the relationship between the mental map of Venice, in his own
critical reading of the collected material and the context of the Venice
Biennale as an institution. Subjective comments of the montage of images
take the viewer through distant and close, personal, social and political
contexts of Venice as a contemporary art centre, without which the Biennale
would not be what it is - a joyous apocalypse of meanings and values. This
is exactly how the Biennial Project experiences Venice. No wonder we are all
somewhat Czech. Zbynek was so cool that he didn't even get too pissed at us
when we went to grab his photo when he was taking a much needed cigarette
break after a full day of press interviews and parties.

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

(Editors note: Not everyone can afford to send a correspondent to the Venice Biennale Opening Week, the biggest and trendiest art event in the world – sort of the Olympics of the art world. But because we truly care about keeping you informed – we sent not just one, but an entire troupe of reporters – all wildly talented writers and artists who rented an enormous villa smack dab in the middle of Venice the better to report on all the action. Over the coming weeks, we will share with you their tales of champagne-soaked art and mayhem. Let the games begin:

An Art Show with Balls – 55th Venice Biennale

by Kelly Stevens, Chief Biennial Project Art Correspondent

Historically, the art installations at the Biennale are oversized, but this year’s theme, the “Encyclopedic Palace” lends itself to smaller, more detailed works. The theme is about our desire to see and know everything. It’s a real thinking man’s show. Philosophers and inventors from DaVinci to Jung inspired many of the works. I put my reading glasses to good use and settled in to what was certain to be an art experience of a lifetime. I could feel myself getting smarter by the minute. I like to think of myself as an academic, but the truth remains this southern girl is no librarian. I might be found heading to the local biker bar if given the chance. So while the media poured and gushed over the illustrations, scientific drawings, and alphabetic works, I found myself searching for something bigger to rest my weary eyes upon. And then I saw them…..

A real feast for the eyes lay before me. A large set of concrete, ahem… meatballs dangled in front of me as I rounded the corner. UK artist and former teacher, Phyllinda Barlow constructed a rather large scale grouping of balls entitled “Untitled: Hanginglumpcoalblack” which resembles a set of male testicles (at least from pictures I’ve seen in medical books). They literally hung by thick strands of black chains from a 25 foot ceiling, nearly blocking the doorway. Carefully crafted of construction debris, including sand, wire netting, expanding foam, fabric and plaster, Barlow has made a name for herself giving cast off construction material a new life.

As I stared, I realized that in that brief moment, I was nothing more than a naughty school girl posing as an art professional. Big or small, art has a way of transforming us and making us feel emotions we may not have been aware of, and suddenly I had a craving for Spaghetti.

by Kelly Stevens, Chief Biennial Project Art Correspondent

(Editors note: Not everyone can afford to send a correspondent to the Venice Biennale Opening Week, the biggest and trendiest art event in the world – sort of the Olympics of the art world. But because we truly care about keeping you informed – we sent not just one, but an entire troupe of reporters – all wildly talented writers and artists who rented an enormous villa smack dab in the middle of Venice the better to report on all the action. Over the coming weeks, we will share with you their tales of champagne-soaked art and mayhem. Let the games begin:

Nice Spice Rack - 55^th Venice Biennale

by Kelly Stevens, Chief Biennial Project Art Correspondent

Be memorable or be anonymous. That’s the goal of every artist. Biennale artists are no different, but the stakes are higher in Venice. Over 300,000 art lovers will converge on Venice, Italy this summer to visit the 55^th Venice Biennale. Over 150 artists representing 88 countries were selected to show by outfitting massive pavilions with elaborate concepts. It’s a challenge to stand out with each pavilion trumping the next. Artists create that lasting impression with extra sensory experiences to make sure they connect with you. First, an eye popping visual show piece; then a film project for emotion, and finally a hands on element to get you involved. This menu has become de rigueur at national art shows, but most artists’ work stimulates only 3 of the 5 senses; sight, sound, and touch. Taste and smell get left to The Food Network. But at this year’s Biennale, my two neglected senses got a rare whiff of attention.

Inside the bunker like pavilion of Latin America, Bolivian artist Sonia Falcone’s exhibit “Fields of Color” is a large spice rack containing dozens of delicately sculpted foot high cones of exotic spices seated atop flat clay terrines. One gust of wind and the entire installation blows away. I held my breath, but not my nose. The beauty of it alone was a lush artistic visual, but oh, the scent... The aroma of smoky cumin, pleasant nutmeg and sweet cinnamon gave me a warm feeling of that early morning market magic before the selling begins.

If a smell can change your mood, it can certainly transport you to another era. By using spices as art, Falcone gave a nod to a time when Venice was the hub of the spice trade, when the spices which lay before me would be more valuable than diamonds. Imagine paying your rent in black pepper. But the addition of smell gave it a deeper dimension. I could smell the history as the fragrance hasn’t changed in eight hundred years. The richness of curry powder and paprika, the crushed cardamom, cilantro and black pepper represented the colors and tastes of the people of the world. It seemed fitting that I was at this international show looking at this artistic spice rack with people from Asia to the Middle East, South America to Africa, all sniffing a shared aroma in our own language. It was as if were at a dinner table, seated together, having been served a fine meal. Now that is memorable.

by Kelly Stevens, Chief Biennial Project Art Correspondent

OMG, Venice, where to start?

Where exactly to start to tell this mind-fuck of a tale?

The Fabulous Villa, overflowing with ever-so-talented and as-of-yet unindicted co-conspirators?

The City, well not exactly a city so much as the world’s largest convention center, but oh what a god-damned jaw-dropping convention center after all?

The Convention Itself (that’s the 55th Venice Biennale, thank you Sir) – a head-spinning and entirely overwhelming conglomeration of all that goes by the name of ART?

The Parties Out There – who knew it was even possible to get tired of champagne?

The Parties At Home – rooftop dancing till the sun came up (and in retrospect perhaps a tad more nudity than was entirely necessary - goodbye, Security Deposit, we hardly knew ye)?

The Famous People – rubbing elbows (AND MORE!) with artists who were actually invited to this thing? 

(Not that we would ever kiss and tell, but well, if we were to, we would have to mention that at least two Artists Representing Their Countries had, uh, breakfast at our Fabulous Villa. (The Biennial Project Venice Work Group takes their practice seriously!)

Well, Us, being Us, we’ll start with some of The Famous People that we met.

But don’t worry, it’s a long lazy summer up here in New England, and before it’s over, we’ll have gotten to everything!

US with Art Forum Writer Linda Yablonsky, plus Bahamas Pavilion Curator Stamatina Gregory, and Bahamas Artist Tavares Strachan!

US with Russian Artist Vadim Zakhaov!

US with Kosovo Artist Petrit Halilaj!

US with Hungarian Artist Zsolt Asztalos!

US with Zimbabwe Artist Portia Zvavahera!

US with Finland Artists Terike Haapoja AND Antti Laitinen.

US with Turkey Artist Omer Ali Kazma!

US with Indonesia Artist Albert Yonathan Setyawan!

US with Latvian Artist Kaspars Podnieks!

US with Czech Artist Zbynek Baladran!

US with Palestinian Artist Bashir Makhoul!

US with Uruguay Artist Wilfredo Diaz Valdez – we LOVE this guy AND his family!

OK, we’re fairly certain you get the idea – WE met lots of Famous Folks.

And we’re just positive that knowing Famous Arty Folks will eventually pay dividends in our campaign to achieve the fame for ourselves that we so deeply deserve.

To paraphrase our hero Tony Montana, “we want our fucking artistic rights NOW!”

(FYI – there are a few deck of our amazing Limited Edition Venice Biennale 2013 Artist Trading Cards still to be had. To order yours: click here)

Ciao bella, for now darling, but we’ll be back soon.

Next up, The Best Party in Venice (OURS of course).

OMG, Venice, where to start?

Where exactly to start to tell this mind-fuck of a tale?

The Fabulous Villa, overflowing with ever-so-talented and as-of-yet unindicted co-conspirators?

The City, well not exactly a city so much as the world’s largest convention center, but oh what a god-damned jaw-dropping convention center after all?

The Convention Itself (that’s the 55th Venice Biennale, thank you Sir) – a head-spinning and entirely overwhelming conglomeration of all that goes by the name of ART?

The Parties Out There – who knew it was even possible to get tired of champagne?

The Parties At Home – rooftop dancing till the sun came up (and in retrospect perhaps a tad more nudity than was entirely necessary - goodbye, Security Deposit, we hardly knew ye)?

The Famous People – rubbing elbows (AND MORE!) with artists who were actually invited to this thing? 

(Not that we would ever kiss and tell, but well, if we were to, we would have to mention that at least two Artists Representing Their Countries had, uh, breakfast at our Fabulous Villa. (The Biennial Project Venice Work Group takes their practice seriously!)

Well, Us, being Us, we’ll start with some of The Famous People that we met.

But don’t worry, it’s a long lazy summer up here in New England, and before it’s over, we’ll have gotten to everything!

US with Art Forum Writer Linda Yablonsky, plus Bahamas Pavilion Curator Stamatina Gregory, and Bahamas Artist Tavares Strachan!

US with Russian Artist Vadim Zakhaov!

US with Kosovo Artist Petrit Halilaj!

US with Hungarian Artist Zsolt Asztalos!

US with Zimbabwe Artist Portia Zvavahera!

US with Finland Artists Terike Haapoja AND Antti Laitinen.

US with Turkey Artist Omer Ali Kazma!

US with Indonesia Artist Albert Yonathan Setyawan!

US with Latvian Artist Kaspars Podnieks!

US with Czech Artist Zbynek Baladran!

US with Palestinian Artist Bashir Makhoul!

US with Uruguay Artist Wilfredo Diaz Valdez – we LOVE this guy AND his family!

OK, we’re fairly certain you get the idea – WE met lots of Famous Folks.

And we’re just positive that knowing Famous Arty Folks will eventually pay dividends in our campaign to achieve the fame for ourselves that we so deeply deserve.

To paraphrase our hero Tony Montana, “we want our fucking artistic rights NOW!”

(FYI – there are a few deck of our amazing Limited Edition Venice Biennale 2013 Artist Trading Cards still to be had. To order yours: click here)

Ciao bella, for now darling, but we’ll be back soon.

Next up, The Best Party in Venice (OURS of course).

THE BIENNIAL PROJECT AWAKES TO FIND THAT WE HAVE ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF A MAJOR CURATOR:

Dear Mr Hess, Ms Rollins and Ms Salmeron,
I'm writing to you in connection to photographs on your Facebook page - namely Nos 18 and 19 from "Shit we liked at The Venice Biennale 54".
Corban and I would be grateful if you could remove these, as permission to stage/use these photographs was not obtained from us and the images present the artist, his work and the Pavilion in a less than favourable light. Also we find the captions rather derogatory, in particular: 

• It is deeply offensive to refer to Corban as "a little person from Ireland"
• Despite your claims he is not married
• You comment about "Irish Slaves" is rather crass

Whilst we fully respect your artistic intention, we don't feel these photographs project a positive image about your work or that of a fellow practitioner.
I look forward to you response.
Kidnest,
Eamonn Maxwell
Curator
Irish Pavilion @ Venice Biennale

WE REPLY:

Dearest Mr. Maxwell:

First and foremost, let us say how deeply honored we are to have received this notice from you. Finally, The Art World is paying attention to us.

Secondly, we would point out that putting one's work in the rather public forum of the Venice Biennale unfortunately does open one up to the possibility of being responded to by others in a less than a "positive image".

Thirdly, upon reflection, the "little person" reference was perhaps not our very finest moment. The artists of The Biennial Project are passionately committed to complete and total human and political rights for all of society's oppressed minorities, and this of course includes the height-challenged. Our comment was made in the context of praising Mr Corbin's work, and we thought that it was clear that we were poking fun at a stereotype rather than reinforcing it.

Which brings us to Fourthly - taking offense to the "Irish Slaves" reference. Really? Have you no sense of humor whatsoever?

We're from BOSTON for Christ's sake - we get the history of the Irish.
We arethe history of the Irish, a part of that history anyway."Irish Slaves"  built this town, swim deep in our personal gene pools, and have given Boston so very much of what we hold near and dear about our little seaside village. 

We're the ones after all who were insulted when Jack Nicholson did his usual crazy shtick while wearing a "kiss me I'm Irish" t-shirt in The Departed.

And way back when there were politics in the world, we're the ones who went to fundraisers in Dorchester for Noraid. (When the U.S. government bombed Afghanistan on the pretext of wanting to root out support for al-Qaeda, Noam Chomsky said it that was like the English government bombing Boston to defeat the IRA.) Hey there FBI agents reading this - finally something you can nail us with!

Not to mention that The Biennial Project usually plays well in Ireland - our website gets more hits from Irish users of the internet than any other country per capita. We have always attributed that to the Irish having a more developed ability to comprehend irony than most. 

Apparently there are exceptions to every rule. And because we know that manners apply even to those one believes to be misguided, we will take down the offending pics of Corbin.

More's the pity, we really do like his work.
XXOO,

The Biennial Project

A CURATOR FRIEND OF OURS ALSO REPLIES:

Dear Sirs,
I am writing as a fan and supporter of the conceptual artist group known as “The Biennial Project.” As attendees at the opening reception for the Venice Biennial (with legitimate press credentials I might add) they took photos and published an edgy and satirical entry on the Biennial Project blog aptly titled “Shit we like…”

As luck would have it, The Biennial Project  had stumbled upon the Irish Pavilion. They really enjoyed the work presented there and loved chatting with the exceptionally friendly staff. When it came time for them to write a witty and sarcastic blog entry, they couldn’t help but to express sympathy and solidarity for these lovely ladies (and all behind-the-scenes art worker bees) by referring to them as Irish slaves. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say (as they usually do in their writing) “gallery slaves”, but they were so excited to share with the world what they had seen that they couldn’t resist hitting the send button before the editor arrived.

And yes of course, they couldn’t let well enough alone and decided to have a bit of fun with Corban Walker by referring to him as a “little person” in their post. I will admit it: they and I love his work and are extremely jealous. We may be physically taller, but he is “culturally” taller than we’ll ever be.

In light of the above, The Biennial Project artists and their fan base were quite surprised to receive a “friendly” note from the curator of the Irish Pavilion which essentially represented a “cease and desist” order r/t the blog post referred to above. Apparently, as press-pass carrying visitors to the Biennial, they are not allowed to take pictures of the Irish Pavilion and present them in a way which didn’t show the artist and his work in a pre-approved light.

But wait a minute!  Aren’t we talking about Corban, the self-same artist who consistently references his bodily dimensions in sculptural work? Aren’t we talking about the fun-loving Corban who posed with Shaq in a picture which is readily available on the internet?

Yes all supporters of The Biennial Project were tickled. Yes we felt very important. Believe it or not, they don’t hear from upper-echelon international curators every day!  But ultimately we were sad. If freedom of speech and expression didn’t exist, Corban would not be having his 15 minutes…and neither would anyone interesting.

Truly in Art,
Cleah Saraholi,

WE ARE SAD:

 BUT  AFTER A SUITABLE MOURNING PERIOD WE GET OVER IT:

TEXT AND PHOTOS FROM THE CORBAN WALKER LIMITED EDITION ARTIST TRADING CARD THAT WE PRODUCED FOR THE 2011 VENICE BIENNALE:

Ireland Corban Walker

Born, June 23 1967 Cancer in Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath) (IE)

Lives and Works In New York

Parents were architect Robin Walker and the art critic Dorothy Walker,

Mr. Walker, 43 years old, is a minimalist sculptor and installation artist known for layering and stacking industrial materials like glass, steel and LED lights into precarious arrangements.

Mr. Walker's work plays with mathematical rules of order and scale, yet he occasionally adds a distinctive twist by making pieces that stand around his own height of 1.2 meters.

He has his own App for The Venice Biennale

BIENNIAL PROJECT TO DO LIST TO MAKE

2013 VENICE TOUR A FABULOUS SUCCESS

1.  Organize logistics for The Biennial Project Assault on Venice 2013 Tour with Stunning Germanic Precision.

2.  Publish our limited edition Venice Biennale 2013 Artist Trading Cards earlier than last time and give the art public the chance to snap them up.

3.  Get our press credentials in order so that we can see the show early and hang out with other important art world figures.

4.  Redouble our dedication to The Patented Biennial Project Less Of Us Program so as to lose at least 30 lbs between now and Venice to maximize our photogenic capabilities during the trip.

5.  Fly over the pond to Venice with a minimum of fuss, arriving at our Fabulous Vacation Villa Palazzo Angeli rested and ready to take the city by storm.

6.  Organize The Live Biennial Project Video Feed from Palazzo Angeli that eluded us last time.

7.  Have a fantastic time, soak up art, hang with friends.

8.  Get out on the streets (and canals) - meeting cool artists and movers and shakers while furthering international name recognition of The Biennial Project Brand.

9.  Organize the best Venice Biennale Art Exhibit And Party ever:

The Palazzo Angeli Biennale 2013.

10. Clean up afterwards.

11. Produce lively and ever more technically sophisticated video work/photography/writing on a variety of subjects including but not limited to: us/our friends/people we meet/art we like/art we don't like/parties, parties, parties/whatever Important Themes the Biennialist folk are discussing this time/anything involving nudity or questionable taste/butt running/Justin Getting Arrested/etc.

12. Get back to states without losing above video/photography/writing.

13. Spend rest of summer editing and publishing and following up on new contacts and projects. Do some of this from Maine. Use summer as a verb whenever possible.

OK, there you have it.

Let's get this party started!

XXOO,

The Biennial Project