If you happen to be in Venice for the Art Biennale, the Film Festival (closing today) or you just happen to be visiting the place as a tourist and you like textiles and installations employing different materials in quirky ways, check out the second part of the exhibition "The Hidden Dimension" at Marignana Arte (Rio Terà dei Catecumeni, Dorsoduro 141).
This event was indeed divided into two sections - the first of them was developed at the beginning of the year, while the second one will be on until today. Clarissa Tempestini curated the first section of the event with a selection of six artists - Vanessa Safavi, Tyra Tingleff, CCH, Laura Renna, Francesco Candeloro and Enrico Boccioletti; Ilaria Bignotti, the second curator, featured in her selection Paola Anziché, Maurizio Donzelli, Arthur Duff, Aldo Grazzi, Sophie Ko and Verónica Vázquez.
The title of the event moves from the eponymous book by American anthropologist Edward T. Hall, published in 1966. Hall described in the book the culturally specific temporal and spatial dimensions that surround each of us, such as the physical distances people maintain in different contexts.
The author also discussed in the volume the way people use space to insulate and protect themselves, identifying four distances that indicated the levels of space - intimate distance, personal distance, social distance and public distance. In The Hidden Dimension, Hall also developed the concept of proxemics defined as the interrelated observations and theories of man's use of space.
The fascinating concept behind Hall's theories with their focus on the organisation and the spatial relations of an individual in relation to the people and things that surround them, is the metaphorical engine behind the works installed in the gallery.
The works address indeed the gallery space, prompting visitors to interact with them: they hang from the ceiling or the walls, they occupy a room with their unusual shapes and sizes, pushing the visitors to avoid them or to get nearer to admire a piece from a closer distance and discover the material employed by the artist to make it.
For example Paola Anziché's knitted hemp, cellulose, white wool, cotton, yuta, mohair and Baku wool conical sculptures (that may be interpreted as womb-like cocoons or bizarre hats...) hanging from the ceiling require visitors to adopt a specific position to admire them or to alter the safety distance to discover the knitting and weaving techniques Anziché used to make her woven creations.
Knotting rather than knitting is the trick behind "Nera Luce_Dust in my eye" by Arthur Duff: the artist used a polyester rope and a series of basic knots like a painter may use ink. Duff's knots create an abstract image revolving around the shadow/light dichotomy on a circular wooden framework. By changing position visitors will get a slightly different abstract image, in the same way they will be surprised by Maurizio Donzelli's geometrical forms and shapes.
Trapped under a translucent membrane or lenticular lens, the delicate papery petals in "Mirror" become evanescent flowers blooming in imaginary gardens in the mind of the viewers.
The perception and the construction of space changes while looking at Aldo Grazzi's pieces: his "Transennae", bars covered in hand-loomed coloured beads invite the visitors to come near and touch them with their bright shades and intricate patterns, but they also physically restrain their vital movement, blocking a space and tracing new perimeters.
Grazzi's second installation consists instead of two light veils covered in light incisions and hanging from the ceiling. Displayed at different distances, the two nets present a rather diaphanous code, an alien language decipherable only to the artist.
Grazzi's nets could be interpreted as maps, in the same way as Sophie Ko employs pure pigment to create new and random geographies. Trapped in translucent showcases, the pigment drips, slides, falls and densifies altering its stability and changing its consistency and shape.
The most intriguing artist on display is Uruguayan sculptress Verónica Vázquez who mainly works with found materials, such as iron, fabric, cardboard, paper patterns and letters, threads of varying thicknesses and old looms from weaving mills. Vázquez deconstructs these pieces, folding, knotting and sewing them, forming her own narratives out of someone else's materials.
The exhibition is small and compact, but maybe the best thing about it is that it makes you think: when the visitors get out of the gallery door they will have to address the space and hidden dimensions in crowded Venice, a place with a very peculiar geographical configuration.
Walking around its narrow calli they will definitely start pondering more about the absence of vehicular traffic (Hall stated in his book "San Marco Square is exciting not only because of its size and proportions but because every inch of it can be traversed on foot") and the concepts of dimensions and space, considerations that prompted Hall to describe it is as "without a doubt one of the most wonderfully satisfying cities in the world, with an almost universal appeal."
Image credits for this post
Enviromental installation of eleven elements by artist Paola Anziché for The Hidden Dimension, Hemp, cellulose, white wool, cotton, yuta, mohair, Baku wool, irregular wool, 2017
Arthur Duff, Nera Luce_Dust in my eye, 2017, Polyester rope and wooden framework, diameter 140 cm
Maurizio Donzelli, Mirror, 2017, 73 x 97 x 7,5 cm, Mixed media
Aldo Grazzi, Singolare – Plurale, 2014, Barrier covered in glass beads
Aldo Grazzi, Pieno 1, Pieno 2, Fiber nets
Sophie Ko, Sull’infinito gorgo, polyptyc, 2017, pure pigment, glass, 150 x 70 cm / 40 x 70 cm
Verónica Vázquez, Textil I, 2016, Metallic elements and fiber, 100 x 100 cm
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