A dive into boating but also into art. The fifth edition of the Venice Boat Show, which opens on May 29, will also be an opportunity to discover the many art installations that liven up the spaces of the Arsenale. Among them are also two tributes to Marco Polo, on the 700th anniversary of his death.
Daniele Massaro brings to Tesa 91 his "Sospiro d’Eterno’" which represents the Casada pole of the noble palaces in Venice. The work is made of a "bricola", originally an oak tree, grown for 100-150 years in a forest. Today, with its cracks and erosions, it tells the story of its existence and, like a modern Cinderella, is transformed from an ugly and dirty thing into an elegant and refined artefact.
In the gardens of Spazio Thetis, visitors can admire "Marco Polo's Trail" by Simone Meneghello and Robert Phillips. This new artwork is an addition to the already vast permanent collection of Spazio Thetis, a tribute to the explorer on the 700th anniversary of his death. The work is to be interpreted as a conceptual journey through the traces of the past, an exploration of memory and absence. Through a series of volumes without any identifying title, it traces an ideal path which starts from the Venetian Arsenale, like a trail that ‘unrolls’ from West to East for 30 meters, and made of 50 white encyclopedic volumes, overwritten with an extract from Marco Polo’s ‘Il Milione’.
Inside Tesa 99, visitors can discover "Looking for the Ark" by Koen Vanmechelen, a contemporary interpretation of the iconic ‘Vaporetto’, transformed into a floating gallery, carrying within itself a microcosm of our world, reflecting the human condition. This ark carries historical figures, from Frida Kahlo to Albert Einstein, from Mahatma Gandhi to Mother Teresa, who are emblems of human genius and philosophical thought. Each carries a message that transcends the limits of time and geography. The canopy of the ark houses a coven of nearly extinct species, a poignant reminder of the Anthropocene.
The contemporary art project dialogues with the MUVE Yacht Projects 2024 exhibition, also in Tesa 99. This is the fifth edition of the initiative created by Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, together with the City of Venice and Vela Spa and coordinated by Carlo Nuvolari. The exposition, curated by Muve Academy and sponsored by Adi (Italian Association for Industrial Design), brings to the Arsenale some works chosen through a call for entries that focused on sustainable navigation, an essential element for the promotion of innovative creativity, declined in complete boats or parts of them. On display are the best projects coming from three Italian Universities, selected by a scientific committee.
Standing out in Area Scali is "Diadema", the majestic sculpture of the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, made of monumental volutes framing the stylized face placed in the centre of the composition, which is the focus of the whole work. Valdés is a Spanish artist who lives in New York and throughout his career has expressed himself by using a variety of media. His are also the "Meninas" exhibited in St. Mark’s Square until June 15.
In the Bacino di Carenaggio Medio area, Switzerland’s Klaus Littmann’s "Arena for a Tree", a floating platform with a circular wooden structure, has gone ashore. Viewed from afar, the permeable shell looks like an inverted dome or a nut with young shoots inside. Viewed closely, it looks like architecture, a sculpture and a stage simultaneously. The horizontal structure on three levels, inspired by the growth rings of a tree, provides seating for about fifty people, offering an ideal view of the central part where there are three trees.
Instead, sustainability is the focus of Francesca Busca’s work, as she holds an artist residency in Tesa 102 CNR-ISMAR for the whole time of the Boat Show. "ArtforTrash" is a partnership between art and science: it uses waste produced within the facilities of ISMAR, the Acqua Alta platform and CNR’s oceanographic ship Gaia Blu, to give life to a work of art that will be premiered during the Venice Boat Show.
Always photographed and admired are Lorenzo Quinn’s so-called "Hands", formerly known as "Building Bridges", made of six pairs of hands that extend from the two banks of the Carenaggio Piccolo basin to intertwine and form bridges 15 meters high and 20 meters long. Each represents the fundamental values of human beings: friendship, wisdom, help, faith, hope, and love.
On May 30, the exhibition "Waterproof Venice" will be inaugurated inside the renewed space at Tesa 66. The installation, a project of Fondazione Venezia Worldwide Capital of Sustainability (by Jacopo Galli and Marco Marino), is a shared project through which participants can present their projects and express their views on the city of Venice and its Metropolitan area. So, the visitor will face a trail that shows the difficulties of reality by using texts, images, rendering and prospects made by AI and that will pose some hypotheses related to the Venice of the future, based on the activities and projects of the Foundation’s members for the sustainable and integrated development of the Venetian territory.
