Venice 2020 – To mark the 125th anniversary of its foundation, La Biennale di Veneziainaugurates Le Muse Inquiete– a.k.a. “The disquieted muses” –the first exhibition curated by all the Artistic Directors of La Biennale’s six departments: Cecilia Alemani (Art), Alberto Barbera (Cinema), Marie Chouinard (Dance), Ivan Fedele (Music), Antonio Latella (Theatre), and Hashim Sarkis (Architecture). Designed by Formafantasma,THE DISQUIETED MUSES exhibition is held in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini della Biennale until December 8, 2020.
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Visitors are invited to a journey through the archive of the Biennale. Harnessing the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts, the 6 Biennale directors have selected rare footage, first-hand accounts, and a range of artworks, overlapping with the history of the world and Venice.
The exhibition weaves its way through all six disciplines across history from Fascisms to the Cold War from the unrest of ’68 to postmodernism and globalisation.
“The THE DISQUIETED MUSES exhibition design is conceived based on the possibility of demounting, repairing and to eventually recomposing the structures in different arrangements for future archival Biennale exhibitions.” Explains Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma.
Formafantasma has re-imagined the pavilion facade as a patchwork of old and new images of the building showing how it has been modified to adapt to the styles and politics of the different eras. The ITAnnale front lettering merges ITA-, for when the building used to be the ITALIA Pavilion, and -nnale , ‘La Biennale’ is the venue current name and it hosts the curators’ main exhibition.
Inside, Formafantasma has organized the spaces creating a modular exhibition system made from unpainted frames and tables in plywood composed together with colored textile and out of scale black and white prints of photos and documents sourced from the archives of ‘La Biennale’.
“Such modular system adds a three-dimensional quality to the bi-dimensional works on show. The modules are connected with the use of brass inches, allowing to create also small booths for the display of sound pieces and video projections.”
“To add more diversity to the otherwise uniform dimensions of the documents on display, black and white blown up pictures and documents also work as architectural elements subdividing the space and providing a more intuitive understanding of the curatorial themes.”
This year, Venice Architecture Biennale has been canceled and postponed to 2021 due to Covid-19, the Venice Cinema Biennale is currently in full swing while the Dance and Theatre biennials are scheduled later on in September. Biennale Arte has been postponed to 2022.
All photos by Marco Cappelletti – Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.
