Yesterday we previewed the works of Zhanna Kadyrova in the Giardini section of the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice (from tomorrow till November 24th, 2019). Yet this year there is a suprise as the Biennale curator Ralph Rugoff decided to present the same artists in both the Arsenale and the Giardini's Central Pavilion. The 79 selected artists appear therefore in the two venues, but with different types of work.
Rugoff selected artists who often present works that could be interpreted in different, almost ambiguous ways, but this dichotomic approach may also come from the curator's will to mirror divisions in today's contemporary society and social discourse.
Zhanna Kadyrova's "Second Hand" revolved around recycling or upcycling materials from old factories, but in her practice the artist experiments a lot with different media, such as photography, video, sculpture and performance.
Kadyrova is also very interested in geometrical shapes as proved by her installation "Market" (2017 - ongoing) in the Arsenale section of the Venice Biennale where she recreated different types of food you can find in a market using cheap tiling and heavyweight concrete and cement.
Sausages and salami were made using a terrazzo flooring texture; flower bouquets were made with concrete and broken mirrors, (maybe a hint at ephemeral vanity); watermelons, bananas, oranges and aubergines assumed new geometrical configurations, their softness replaced by an unpleasant artificial rigidity.
In this case, rather than being suspended between art and fashion, Kadyrova looked at Russian Constructivism and Pop Art, almost reinterpreting Claes Oldenburg through geometrical lenses and adding to the process a touch of Surrealism.
Last but not least, the stall is a great excuse for social interaction: while the clothes in the Giardini represent a sort of private wardrobe with some strong historical connections, this stall invites people to take part in a market game.
In Venice the stall becomes both a reference to local markets too often used by tourists as cool backdrops for hip selfies, but also to art fairs, where works end up being sold at inflated prices. Fear not, though the fruit and vegetable pieces on display here can be bought by weight, at the rate of 1 gram per unit of local currency.
And if you want to bite into something real, just leave behind concrete food and head to the real fruit and veg stalls - some of them on boats - around the Arsenale (probably the main place where Kadyrova sourced the wooden and cardboard crates included in this installation). Early morning is the best of times to see these stalls coming alive, so write it down in your diary.
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