Venice Photography Exhibition, Ivorypress Project, 54th Biennale Event
Venice Biennale Conference: Photography Project
Biennale Photos – Ivorypress Exhibition, Italy
5 Oct 2011
Real Venice Exhibition
VENETIAN ARCHITECTURE REIMAGINED BY LEADING PHOTOGRAPHERS IN MAJOR EXHIBITION AT SOMERSET HOUSE
Venice Biennale Conference news: A major exhibition of photographs of Venice by fourteen internationally renowned photographers will be held at Somerset House from 11 October – 11 December 2011. The artists are: Lynne Cohen, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Antonio Girbés, Nan Goldin, Pierre Gonnord, Dionisio Gonzalez, Candida Höfer, Tiina Itkonen, Mimmo Jodice, Tim Parchikov, Matthias Schaller, Jules Spinatsch, Robert Walker and Hiroshi Watanabe. The exhibition, Real Venice, is mounted by the Venice in Peril Fund and curated by Elena Foster, founder of Ivorypress.
Dionisio González
Venice Hospital. Le Corbusier, 1965 from the series The Light Hours, Venice 2011
C‐Print diasec mounted
39.4 x 206.7 in / 100 x 525 cm
picture © Dionisio González, courtesy of ProjectB Contemporary Art, Milan
For the project, the artists were challenged to create a series of original photographs of Venice, documenting its iconic and modern architecture, the everyday life of the city’s inhabitants and the ravages on the city fabric wrought by mass tourism and the rise of the lagoon water level.
Highlights include:
– Works by Dionisio González fusing the existing urban landscape with images of once-promised, but never realised, buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Aldo Rossi.
– Antonio Girbés series Delirious City, kaleidoscopic images of Venetian buildings including Palladio’s theatre.
– Candida Höfer portraits of the iconic La Fenice theatre, forming part of her series on ‘spaces built for performance’
All of the works in Real Venice have been donated by the artists to be sold in aid of Venice in Peril. Selected works from the artists’ portfolios will be sold at auction as part of the Phillips de Pury Photographs Sale on 3 November 2011.
The Venice in Peril Fund was created after the great flood in 1966, when the city’s waters rose to nearly two metres above mean water level. Since then it has distributed millions of pounds for the restoration of Venetian monuments, buildings and works of art. The Fund is committed to ensuring the sustainability of Venice, acting as a lobby group, informing the international media and working with outside bodies such as the University of Cambridge to broker agreement on how to deal with some of the critical ecological, demographic and socio-economic issues facing the city.
Real Venice – Visitor information
Venue: Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
Exhibition dates: 11 Oct – 11 Dec 2011
Exhibition opening hours: 10am – 6pm daily
Admission: £5, £4 Concessions
31 May 2011
Real Venice
Ivorypress presents Real Venice, a monographic photography project, curated by Elena Ochoa Foster, founder and CEO of Ivorypress. The initiative is included in the exhibition programme for the 54th Venice Biennale and is the subject for the upcoming issue of the publication C Photo.
Exhibition: 31 May – 30 Sep 2011
Venue: Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore (San Giorgio Maggiore Island, Venice)
Official Opening: 31 May 2011
Dionisio González ‘Gardella Restated: The House of the Zattere, 1953-2011’, from the series The Light Hours, Venice, 2011:
photo courtesy Ivorypress
This entirely charitable project has been produced jointly with the Venice in Peril Fund with the goal of raising funds for the city of Venice. Fourteen internationally renowned photographers were invited to create a portfolio on Venice with absolute freedom. Lynne Cohen, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Antonio Girbés, Nan Goldin, Pierre Gonnord, Dionisio González, Candida Höfer, Tiina Itkonen, Mimmo Jodice, Tim Parchikov, Matthias Schaller, Jules Spinatsch, Hiroshi Watanabe and Robert Walker portrayed the Italian city through their lens, showing it in all its beauty, but also in all its paradoxes and contrasts.
The ravages wrought by mass tourism and the rise of the water level is captured in the portfolios created by these artists for the project. ‘Without good science, wise decision-making and a long-term, well planned budget (the last two are conspicuously lacking), Venice has no future’, explained thw chairperson of the Venice in Peril Fund, during the presentation of the project.
The selected photographers also address the everyday life of the city’s inhabitants, its classic monuments and modern architecture, among other issues. This is ‘a necessary initiative that harnesses the creativity, the vigour, the internationalism – and the financial power – of contemporary art to saving Venice, an exquisite city where art has always been of the essence’, according to the Venice in Peril Fund chairwoman.
Candida Höfer | ‘Theatre La Fenice of Venice III’, 2011:
photo from Ivorypress
Published by Ivorypress, the latest issue of C Photo reproduces the portfolios of the chosen photographers in two bilingual editions (Spanish-English and Italian-English). The publication will also include essays by Maria Antonella Pelizzari, professor of History of Photography at Hunter College; Claudio Piersanti, writer and playwright; and William A. Ewing, former director of Musée de l’Elysée (Lausanne, Switzerland).
The photos in Real Venice will be on exhibit from 31 May in the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, after which it will then travel to London. One edition of each portfolio will be auctioned on 3 November 2011 at Phillips de Pury with funds going to the Venice in Peril Fund.
It is anticipated that the exhibition will also become a touring exhibition from January 2012, showing at many of the world’s major international art institutions. The tour will be organised by the International Enterprises department of the Barbican Centre in London.
Tiina Itkonen | ‘Teatro Goldoni, Venice’, 2011:
photo courtesy Ivorypress
The advisory board behind the project comprises: chairperson of the Venice in Peril Fund and group editorial director of The Art Newspaper; David Landau, collector, businessman and scholar; Elena Ochoa Foster, curator, founder and CEO of Ivorypress; and Erica Bolton from the Bolton & Quinn cultural communication consultancy.
Venice Biennale – main building:
photo : Neale Smith Photography
Location: Venice, Italy, southern Europe
Venice Architecture
Contemporary Architecture in Venice
Venice Biennale
photo © Adrian Welch
Photos of the majority of the pavilions in Venice, 31 Aug 2010
Venice Architecture Biennale Arsenale Pavilions
Venice Architecture Biennale Arsenale Pavilions
Venice Architecture Biennale Giardini Pavilions
Venice Architecture Biennale Giardini Pavilions
Ivorypress – Architectural Selection
Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth exhibition
Venue: Ivorypress Art + Books, Madrid, Spain
Ivorypress Exhibition
How Much Does Your Building Weigh Mr Foster?
Ivorypress Book
Venice Architecture Biennale Pavilion : Gustafson Porter
Comments / photos for the Venice Biennale Conference Photography page welcome
Website: La Biennale di Venezia