Venice Pavilion

La Biennale di Venezia presents the exhibition to be held in the Venice Pavilion within the context of the 56th International Art Exhibition, titled Looking ahead. The evolution of the art of making. 9 stories from Veneto: digital – not only digital and curated by Aldo Cibic.

“This year, la Biennale di Venezia has chosen to become directly involved in the Venice Pavilion – stated President Paolo Baratta – in an initiative that is time-honoured yet looks to the future. The Pavilion, which was once dedicated to the Applied Arts as well, relies on this new initiative to pick up that thread, though in a different, up-to-date, direction: the most recent applications of advanced technology”.

The exhibition will therefore cross-breed artistic creativity and new technology, presenting 9 emblematic stories from the Veneto region.

“We wonder – states Baratta – whether the progress of technology, and in particular the spread of digital technology, is leading us towards horizons of standardization and uniformity, or whether on the contrary it offers new opportunities for development, for creative diversification and hence for experimentation with new forms”.

“La Biennale wishes to explore this phenomenon – explains Baratta – and in the research-exhibition digital – not only digital it intends to look at examples in which the two Muses, the Muse of technology and the Muse of experiential knowledge, together generate significant phenomena in the evolution of forms. La Biennale is taking its first step in this direction. This is a field of research to which it intends to dedicate part of its energies in the future.”

“We will start by observing the reality that surrounds us, clarifies Baratta. We have chosen, in fact, to explore the phenomena that have developed most recently in the Veneto region. We intend to broaden our outlook in the future. We are in the process of establishing relationships with important international institutions”.

“Though in a certain sense this may be seen as a return to the past of the Venice Pavilion – concludes the President – in other ways and in view of its contents, this choice must be understood as the cornerstone of a building that we will begin constructing, of an area of research we intend to develop, certain that this initiative responds to the demands and stimuli that come to us from society and industry, which are grappling with inevitable and radical changes, and that the Biennale, whose mission is to explore the “form” given to the creations of man in many different sectors, for which the issues being raised here may well be pertinent, cannot ignore.”

“Using various media, the exhibition illustrates the modes in which these processes have developed, explains the curator Aldo Cibic. To mention only a few examples, they range from how state-of-the-art products have been made using techniques from the past; the design of life-saving equipment; the possibility of combining social networks and production, or of being the sole producers of everyday functional objects.”

Cibic describes the exhibition underlining that it “is also enhanced by the views of people from various parts of the world. These mainly leading designers, top-level researchers and sophisticated customers have found the best producers here. They have chosen to work with our local creatives and producers, acknowledging the special nature of their ‘art of making’.”

9 different stories are illustrated in the exhibition, bearing witness to the evolution of the ‘art of making’ in the Veneto:

1. Tailor-Made Safety
2. From Los Angeles to the Dolomites
3. A Design Editor and his Designers
4. Redesigning Heat
5. Maestros of Plastic
6. Sewing a Dream
7. Producers on the Net for Young Creatives
8. The Sophistication of Iron
9. The Slow Factory

The exhibition has been made possible thanks to the technical support of Eco Contract + Eco Design, Cleaf SpA, and Fondazione Bisazza.