Jimmie Durham. Venice: Objects, Work and Tourism

The installation at the Spazio Carlo Scarpa features new objects formed from unexpected combinations: broken glass collected over the years alongside brightly colored paint, three-hundred year old venetian bricks posed against elements from the tourist industry and everyday commerce of Venice.

This work is not intended as a monument, but rather as a vehicle for dialogue that addresses the complex melding of these ideas: tourism, the social imaginary of Venice, labor, and the man-made object.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist book conceived as integral part of a single project. In this book, Durham has compiled writings and images – of objects he has assembled, as well as images of people and scenes of Venice – as well his analysis of the underlying connections between the tourism industries,
the stories of local workers and Venice’s history.

For Durham, “Venice is the embodiment of this confluence: a place where object becomes most evident as the cornerstone of cultural and intellectual life, and a place where this seemingly static symbol of culture and intellectuality is constantly being modeled and refined through handling and everyday labor.”

Venice: Objects, Work and Tourism is a project curated by Chiara Bertola born from the collaboration between Fondazione Querini Stampalia
and Kurimanzutto, Mexico City with the support of Furla Foundation, Bologna; Dena Foundation, Paris; ZERYNTHIA Associazione per l’Arte Contemporanea, Rome.