My Art Guides Venice Meeting Point: An Ocean Archive
My Art Guides Venice Meeting Point takes place during the four days of the Venice Biennale openings May 9-12 at the Navy Officer’s Club, just around the corner from the Arsenale entrance. This year, for the first time, Mara Sartore, Lightbox director and My Art Guides editor-in-chief, has worked in collaboration with MAP Office (Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix), an artist duo based in Hong Kong, for the selection of artists on display.
The theme of the ocean has contaminated the whole Meeting Point which has become: “An Ocean Archive”, affecting and influencing the selection of artists. All were invited because of their work connected to the sea or the oceans: the video by Patty Chang “Invocation for a Wandering Lake” where the artist washes the corpse of a dead sperm whale in an act of ablution and mourning; Heman Chong presents two paintings “The Coral Island” and “Don Sturdy in the Port of Lost Ships”, part of his ongoing series of canvases using graphical interfaces as invented book covers; a wax painting Liquid Land | Solid Sea by MAP Office is a visual exploration of the current island dispute in the South China Sea; Mariana Hahn presents a textile site-specific installation titled “Kolpus, and then She Makes Threads”; Benedetto Pietromarchi displays a couple of sculptures from the series “Of Saints and Sailors” which the artist produced touring his long trip on a cargo boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean; “Land XIII [Lampedusa]” and “Okeanos” are two beautiful iron plates presented by Ignazio Mortellaro and a video still from the commissioned video “from many sides” by Olivia McGilchrist created for the second Davidoff Limited Art Edition. The art works inside the Venice Meeting Point are meant to create the right atmosphere in order to stimulate reflection and dialogue on an ocean theme; the daily programme is also enriched by two performances: “Escuela de Oficios: Antilles para los Antillanos” by Jorge González and Monica Rodríguez; and “Inferno” by Romina de Novellis, curated by Kreëmart in collaboration with Galleria Alberta Pane, Venice.
The opening reception on the 9th of May, co-hosted by the VMP cultural partner Davidoff Art Initiative, will also be the occasion for the official launch of “Our Ocean Guide”. The programme will end on the afternoon of the 12th with “An Ocean Archive” Symposium and cocktail, which will be the perfect occasion to discuss many of the themes presented in “Our Ocean Guide” and to invite dialogue between guest artists and curators.
For more information and the detail program please visit the website https://myartguides.com/venicemeetingpoint/
