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ARTEXT : La Biennale di Venezia
OPERA APERTA / LOOSE WORK
For the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, the Dutch Pavilion has been temporarily transformed into the model of a theater. As suggested by its title Opera Aperta / Loose Work, this is an open and collective project, in which Barbara Visser, Herman Verkerk, Johannes Schwartz, Joke Robaard, Maureen Mooren and Paul Kuipers have been invited by curator Guus Beumer to collaborate. This collaboration has led to additional contributions by Sanneke van Hassel, Yannis Kyriakides, Ernst van der Hoeven, and an opening performance by Alexander van Slobbe. By translating the notion of cultural infrastructure into 'community', the foundations are laid for a collective approach and resulting exhibition model, which has become the framework for several new works by individual participants. The realized exhibition model can best be described as a 1:1 model in which the pavilion built by architect Rietveld has been completely incorporated. Opera Aperta / Loose Work has its origins in a linking of the notions ‘national identity’ and ‘community’. In the Netherlands, the concept of community has been uniquely embodied in its cultural infrastructure. This intricate infrastructure has been developed by the Dutch government since the 1960s. The result is a public system of production, distribution and reflection on art and culture in which the position of the artist in society is firmly embedded. However, this cultural infrastructure has begun to lose public support and has become a subject of major debate. Consequently the public space, the social position of art and the artist, as well as the notion ‘community’, need to be redefined in the Netherlands. Opera Aperta / Loose Work implicitly reveals the potential of this cultural infrastructure. From the outset, a decision was made to use a multidisciplinary group of participants: visual artists Johannes Schwartz, Joke Robaard and Barbara Visser, graphic designer Maureen Mooren and architects Herman Verkerk and Paul Kuipers. Despite their backgrounds in various disciplines, they share a fascination with the issue of representation. In addition, the Mondriaan Foundation and the curator have forged alliances with the Dutch Foundation for Literature and the Performing Arts Fund. These have resulted in commissions for the author Sanneke van Hassel and the composer Yannis Kyriakides. In addition to this collaborative working methodology, Opera Aperta / Loose Work also refers to the opera model and the idea of a succession in time involving different scenes, an intermission, a powerful composition, an accompanying libretto, voices, a stage set, lighting and costumes. This model offers both a conflicting and seductive point of departure for the blending of different disciplines and commissions. The title refers to a 1962 publication by Umberto Eco. That ambiguity of Opera Aperta / Loose Work is expressed in the complex status of the art object or the author within this model, which has been spatially interpreted by EventArchitectuur (Paul Kuipers and Herman Verkerk) on the basis of countless discussions among members of the group. The model can be interpreted as a succession of walls, whose front and back sides can have opposite meanings. Ambiguity can also be sensed in the work ‘Rembrandt’ by Johannes Schwartz, which occupies a central place within the perspective of the wing-stage theater. That 'backdrop' is a wall painting: a new manifestation of Schwartz's photograph taken at the Rijksmuseum when the Dutch icon of national self-confidence—‘The Night Watch’— was removed, thus revealing an abstract blotch....
Curatore : Guus Beumer
Web site: http://www.venicebiennale.nl |
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Artext © 2011 |