Biennale: Arsenale

Arsenale was nice because it was very easy to navigate it was a long strip with very few seperate buildings to explore, but still had a few invididual countries representing along side the overall gallery of artist from everywhere. Though I have to admit I was wasn't nearly as impressed with the art at Arsenale as I was at the Biennale. My particular disappointment was with the United Arab Emirates. I had seen the tote bag around and thought they were really cool which was a motivator to go, but once I saw the exhibit I thought there is no way I would cough up 5 euro to these pretentious bastards. The whole exhibit was essentially "look at the money we have and all the cool shit we can do with it." They called it a exhibition in accomplishments in art, culture and architechture. There was a museum model of a museum they wish to build and by the looks of the scale it took up so much space I can't imagine anyone just havign the laying around. Eminent domain to the max. Plus the so-called video art seemed to be more series of interviews of rich person and influential religious and political figures of the country. Not much an art of the culture if you ask me. I was appalled. So the charming totes saying "It's not you it's me" in over lapping english and Arabic became a boasting symbol of a seemingly oppresive society.

Well Now that I got that off of my chest here's some art I did like: Unfortuantely here is about the time my camera broke. So I'll do what I can.

I'll start with an interesting piece that can't be discribed by photo. This exhibit actually existed at both parts of the biennale, but the lady's full exhibit was at the Arsenale itself. He most fun piece which I hope to use to the best of my ability. She made millions of postcards that say Venezia on them or Venice and any of the sort you'd see on postcards here, but the images themselves were never actually of Venice. As a way of saying we all are a part of Venice. And it's being the city of water and lights, mostly water, each picture depicted a scene totally not venitian, but still included water. These postcards were also free for the taking. So if you would like one comment or email me: abalog@umail(dot)iu(dot)edu. period go where the (dot) is.

This piece was kind of strange until I read the artist statement. It was a room full of broken mirrors, all borken differently. The pieces themselves are a series of self-portraiture since that is commonly what the artist does, but the mirror itself is an every existing portrait device, the breaks act as the portraiture and an expression of self-loathing.

I loved this paitnign when I first saw it in the room it's so simple in execution and charming in form, but what made this piece really special is how this is not the only one. At the exhibit there were three. All the same subject, all a little different, but stil lthe same subject matter. There are many more and I learned this from the video art made of these paintings. Each painting became a frame by frame animation of this little girl figiting in her chair.

This piece was very unusual in nature and I think I'm still deciding how I feel about it, but conceptually it's an interesting idea. The artist wanted to forcefully intigrate new customs into an existing culture. So the artist created this made up tradition of blimps that fly over San Marco. It was advertised and executed fooling some tourists into believing it. (how I'll never know) These pictured are the models as a representation of the whole project. There was also a video of the acutal event playing.

This was a great interaction piece and I really enjoyed seeing it play forth. It was a small room contructed for a "make your own composition piece" where you could step in and re-arrange the pieces how ever you see fit. Along with it was a bench for you to sit and view your creation where there clues on how to evaluate the work you made.

What I love about this piece is how the subconcious is made immediately apparent making it less subconcious. Sitting and pondering that as people interact with it really made this piece fun. Especially watching tourist pick pieces to pick up and get a photo with. What does it really say about them?

You know me and interactive pieces. I would have taken more pictures. There were many of these, all different, but as I said, my camer died so I did the best I could. The whole of this board said "This is not the first hole my finger has been in (hole) Nor will it be the last."

There was another piece in a shed full of what seems like gymnast rings of varying hieghts (some foot from the ground some 7 feet) and there was one objective if you choose to accept: travel from one side to the other without touching the ground. It's difficult I made it like 7/8 of the way.