Venice 2011: Hany Armanious, Australian Pavilion

our photos of the Australian Pavilion

The Australian Pavilion created quite some buzz for its tote bags, which were all gone after 2 days. But although we missed the bags, we discovered an artist who's worth at least the same amount of buzz.

Agreed, at first glance Hany Armanious didn't put up a super production. As an uninformed viewer, you even risk to see an almost random selection of found objects. At closer look however - and thanks to the explanations of Adam Jasper who we met at the pavilion - a whole new world opens: what looks like wood is actually cast in iron, resin, or another rare and expensive material; what seems to be found in the street is carefully produced in artist studio. And the longer you walk through the pavilion the more the objects start interfering with each other.
Yet one of the works on display completely inverts this logic: the Burger King crown. This gold-colored paper party toy becomes a genuine gold-plated crown decorated with precious stones. What you see is what you get, quite unexpectedly.
A truly great show, worth every buzz possible!

Venice 2011: Thomas Hirschhorn, Swiss Pavilion

Photos of the Swiss Pavilion

Entering the Swiss pavilion in Giardini is surrendering to the world of Thomas Hirschhorn. With "Crystal Of Resistance" the artist has created a world apart, filled with amazing installations and funny details - you'll either love it or you'll hate it (most likely the first!).
Judging from a recent quote from Hirschhorn this was also the goal:
"I have never produced an artwork especially for a context. I am not interested in contexts, since I believe in the autonomy of Art. Art is autonomous and such autonomy is what gives it beauty and makes it absolute".

Venice 2011: "Total Transformations" of national pavilions @ Giardini

Several national pavilions in Giardini are this year unrecognizable from their usual look & feel. Artists commissioned to mount a show within these buildings opted for a total transformation of the given space (interior and often also exterior), rather than for presentation of an individual work within. All the results are quite spectacular and the effect of estrangement works really well.
For the U.K. Pavilion, Mike Nelson reconstructed a 17th century caravanserai situated in the Mercan area of Istanbul. Thomas Hirschhorn's Swiss Pavilion is a universe created from aluminium foil, cotton stubs, glass fragments, magazines, barbies, cell phones, tape etc - seeing is believing ;-).
The all-immersing, dark and reflecting interior with full-wall video projections of the Japanese Pavilion will quickly swallow you in and so will the church-like transformation of the Padiglione Germania, alias Egomania.
The minimal conversion of the usually architecturally uninteresting Greek building is so beautiful, that we vote for its preservation for the coming years!

Venice 2011: our favs in Giardini

Our photos from Giardini are now online :-)

In brief:
The spectacular U.S. Pavilion by Allora & Calzadilla is definitely stealing the show and so is the parallel universe created by Thomas Hirschhorn inside the Swiss Pavilion.
The group show "Speech Matters" in Danish Pavilion is fresh, funny & has some of our all-time favorites in it, such as Mr Hoogerbrugge's video animations.
Christopher Schlingensief's installation at the German Pavilion (the artist died last year of lung cancer before he could complete his project) justly won the prestigious Golden Lion award for best national pavilion.
Not-to-miss is Christian Boltanski's "Chance" (French Pavilion) and Sigalit Landau's "One man's floor is another man's feelings" (Israeli Pavilion), both for its impressive visual impact & its interesting concept. Finally, great surprises were the intimate work of Hany Armanious in the Australian Pavilion (especially with the private tour given to us by Mr Adam Jasper) and the punky look & feel of the Romanian Pavilion, presenting the female duo Anetta Mona Chisa & Slovak-born Lucia Tkacova.

Further info:
U.S.A. Allora & Calzadilla: Gloria / Commissioned by Lisa D. Freiman
Switzerland Thomas Hirschhorn: Crystal of Resistance / Commissioned by Urs Staub
Denmark Speech Matters, various artists / Commissioned by The Danish Arts Council Committee for International Visual Arts, curated by Katerina Gregos
Germany Christoph Schlingensief: A Church of Fear vs. the Alien Within / Commissioned by Susanne Gaensheimer
France Christian Boltanski: Chance / Commissioned by Institut Français, curated by Jean-Hubert Martin
Israel Sigalit Landau: One man's floor is another man's feelings / Commissioned by Michael Gov and Arad Turgeman, curated by Jean de Loisy and Ilan Wizgan
Australia Hany Armanious: The Golden Thread / Commissioned by Doug Hall, curated by Anne Ellegood
Romania Ion Grigorescu, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova: Performing History / Commissioned by Monica Morariu, curated by Maria Rus Bojan and Ami Barak

White Power Milk by Nate Hill

White Power Milk is a new project by NY enfant terrible Nate Hill. On the website whitepowermilk.com you can order milk that is purified by beautiful rich, white girls especially selected for this project. White Power Milk promises that the girls will gargle your milk to absolute perfection...

There is few documentation about the project but if you want to know more, check out this video interview with one of the girls or just order a 1/2 oz, 10 sec gargled!