MADE IN MIND #10

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Francesca Pirillo

DIRETTORE RESPONSABILE Dario Carotenuto

EDITORIAL STAFF Marika Marchese | Managing Editor lisa Andreani | Contributor Guy Marshall-Brown | Contributor Sharon McMahon | Proofreader

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ISSN | 2532-1773 Registrazione della testata al Tribunale di Cosenza N°2/17 del 10.02.2017

COVER | Silvia Camporesi, Santa Maria della Salute (detail), 2011 Courtesy of Photographica Fine Art Gallery, lugano.

CONTENTS 05 | VIlMA PIMENOFF 18 | MARKUS HOFFMANN 36 | MAGGIE HAZEN 47 | AJ NAFZIGER 57 | SPECIAl | VENICE BIENNAlE

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Vilma Pimenoff _________ Marika Marchese

Tell me a bit about your cultural background.

I am Finnish and I grew up in a typical small Finnish town. I guess small Finnish towns can look quite bleak to the outside with their functional ‘80s concrete architecture and couples in matching tracksuits, but there is also a lot of nature and space, it is safe, and that I think is freedom.

Plus I am lucky to have grown up surrounded by the not so typical people in the small town, not the least my own family.

I had a great drama teacher in school, and a great arts teacher too. Both are women that I admire and who were definitely my role models. It is so important to have people you look up to especially when you are younger.

After finishing high school at 18 I went to live in Malaysia for a while, and from there went to the U.K. to study photography.

After my studies in England I went to work in Paris, and have spent a lot of time in these two countries, the U.K. and France, in the past 13 years.

I just moved back to Helsinki last year, and somehow it feels quite nice to be regrounded in Finland again. You know, the nature, couples in matching tracksuits, etc.

What were the most important influences that led you to become an artist (photographer)?

I owe a thank you to my father who took me to see art exhibitions and museums when I was growing up.

I travelled a lot with him and he made me see a lot of stuff. I remember being something like 13 maybe when I was really touched by an artwork at an exhibition, and I was like this is it, this is the WOW in the world. It was a big sculpture made of glass and had lights behind it, literally an illumination. In my teens I was into cinema, and it was through film that I also found photography. Thinking about it now, first it was the stories that I felt drawn to, characters in films and what they did and the life that was in the story and in the film/picture. Now I think it’s perhaps a little different. Especially when it comes to my own work, I am less into stories or telling stories, but I’m more into ideas, or can I say concepts without sounding too complicated. Of course it is still the same thing - I am interested in people and life and countless topics, but I like to focus on one thing at a time, and really zoom into it.

I could say I like to simplify more than decorate the story.

But I guess really I make art because I am curious, and art lets you discover new things, and I love learning new things.

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Untitled #9 21st Century Still Life series Diasec, framed 48 x 34 cm - 19 x 13,4 in 2015

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Untitled #7 21st Century Still Life series Diasec, framed 55 x 39 cm - 21,5 x 15,3 in 2015

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Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve?

There are topics that are on your mind.

Things that you feel that are personally important. And then you start finding things that have something to do with these things that are personally important to you, and you also go looking for them.

I keep a diary and I collect references. Then from time to time I go through my notes and ideas for work evolve from there. You go researching for more, you read, you try out an idea.

I don’t think I am very quick to produce, like I don’t just get ideas and -bang- go and make them into artwork. I need to put a lot of time and effort into it, otherwise it’s just not good.

What does ‘being an artist’ mean to you?

Who are your favorite artists and how have they influenced you?

I admire artists who are smart, whose work is intelligent, and who talk more about the content in their art than about themselves.

Then again, while saying this, I must add that yes, of course the artwork is in the artist and the artist is in the artwork. Kind of inseparable. I have been so impressed and in love with the artwork that I have discovered after meeting the artist, and also the other way around.

I really enjoy looking at and experiencing sculpture. While I mainly use photography as my medium, I am really excited about things that are three-dimensional, like sculpture. I am also interested in the

Untitled #5 21st Century Still Life series Diasec, framed 69 x 51 cm - 27 x 20 in 2015

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boundaries between two-dimensional and three-dimensional, and how they can blur.

This leads to explore the topic of visual perception, and how vision works - both physiologically and psychologically.

In addition to sculpture, I also enjoy watching live dance, and dance films. Dance film is an amazing genre of film.

Talking about films I have to mention a documentary that impressed me a while ago, it is called ‘THE ILLUSIONISTS’ by the director Elena Rossini. Her documentary talks about the body image and globalization of beauty, which I think is a very current topic. I strongly recommend to watch this documentary, in fact, I think it should be in every schools curriculum.

What do you think is the role of an artist in today’s society?

Someone who makes art and also seeks to show it in public has the potential to raise questions and evoke dialogue. I believe that art can really work as a catalyst for change in the individual and also on a larger scale.

What subjects do you deal with in your art?

As I said before, I am interested in countless things – life - to be very vague and broad! But a topic that seems to often be a part of the work I make is the questioning of the image itself.

This is to say, I am interested in the deceptiveness of the image. I guess you could think about it from two different perspectives; firstly, how do we understand

Untitled #1 21st Century Still Life series Diasec, framed 88 x 65 cm - 34,5 x 25,5 in 2015

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Untitled #4 The Dark Collection series Pigment print, framed 101 x 69 cm - 39,7 x 27 in 2011 10 | MADE IN MIND

Untitled #2 The Dark Collection series Pigment print, framed 101 x 69 cm - 39,7 x 27 in 2011 MADE IN MIND | 11

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Egg Thriller Diptych Pigment print 40 x 60 cm - 15,7 x 23,6 in Ed 7 + 2AP 2006

images, what is visual perception and how vision works on an individual level. Secondly, how images are never ‘innocent’. How power structures and politics are embedded in everyday images like advertising.

One can learn about things through art, think about the state of the world, contemplate oneself, politics, nature, etc. Taking time to think is important, and I think it is underrated in today’s society.

My working method is often a strategy that I could call ‘analysis of images’ or ‘making images of images’, meaning that I work from imagery that already somehow exists in the world - whether actual printed images, or stereotypes - that live in the common collective consciousness as images. Investigating how images work is not only a ‘strategy’ that I employ in my practice, but it is equally one of the themes in the work itself.

Photographing objects for me means contemplating on the meaning of things, symbols, and signs. I am very much interested in semiotics, the logic of thinking, and thinking visually.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working towards my next exhibition that will open in Helsinki this October. The works in the exhibition deal with issues such as power, the concept of love, and responsability towards one another.

The title of the exhibition, What is Love (baby don’t hurt me) is borrowed from the ‘90’s eurodance star Haddaway.

How has your work developed throughout the years?

Well I guess that my work is a reflection of myself.

I hope I have matured along the way.

I think everyone who has studied photography has been, to some extent, at some point, perhaps more excited about the aesthetics of their work, and less about the content.

I think nowadays I am perhaps calmer and more able to concentrate on the content.

For you, how important is science in art?

It is inspirational information that I can use as material for my work.

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Untitled #4 Mind and Matter series Archival pigment print, framed 15 x 21 cm - 6 x 8 in Edition of 3 + AP 2013

Untitled #6 Mind and Matter series Archival pigment print, framed 15 x 21 cm - 6 x 8 in Edition of 3 + AP 2013 MADE IN MIND | 15

Untitled #13 Mind and Matter series Archival pigment print, framed 15 x 21 cm - 6 x 8 in Edition of 3 + AP 2013 16 | MADE IN MIND

Vilma Pimenoff (1980) is a Finnish artist.

well as in galleries in France, Italy, U.K., and

Her work often deals with semiotics and

Sweden. Recently she won the EDIT - Editorial

explores the ways in which we perceive the

Photographer of the Year – prize in Finland, and

world around us through signs and symbols. She

in 2016 she received the runner-up prize in the

is equally interested in observing cultural con-

Celeste Prize Visible White competition in Italy.

ventions through her study of everyday objects,

Vilma

by placing them slightly out of their expected

photography

context or altering their scale.

Communication, and she lives and works in

Pimenoff’s

work

has

been

shown

at

the

Pimenoff

has from

a

master’s

London

degree College

www.vilmapimenoff.com

in of

Helsinki.

Photographers’ Gallery in London, Moscow Multimedia Art Museum, and at the Circulation(s) Photography Festival at Centquatre in Paris, as

21st Century Still Life Galerie Magasin de Jouets Arles, France October 2016 MADE IN MIND | 17

MARKUS HOFFMANN _________ Marika Marchese

Tell me a bit about your cultural background.

I am an interdisciplinary trained artist. I always had a favor for perception the perceptive apparatus and memory, its mechanisms and how these elements interact to create what we perceive as reality. I was born in Germany in Passau located near the border of Austria and the Czech Republic. Travelling and exploring remote places has always been a substantial part of my life thus of my artistic practice. My studio is located in Berlin.

When did you realize that you wanted to become an artist?

Realizing that the artistic contexts supported my contribution to reality I choose to go that path. Being trained as an artist with a scientific background I think there was a was a point when I started to realize that its not what you do, but how you do what you do that matters.

Taking in consideration its consequences, its history and its potential that brings you close to the question of how you can focus your approach to reach a state of mind that supports reflective progress as well as the implementation of a poly-perspective way of thinking to be shared and co-produced with others.

What were your most important influences that lead you to decide to be an artist?

It was the world surrounding me and that basic pounding questions of who I am and what I am going to do best to relate to those questions that where prevalently asked by my inner world and the world I considered as reality that surrounds me. And the fact that one could relate to them in a myriad of ways. So I would say that I was offered to observe the world from different perspectives and that was it. Moreover, I was lucky to be surrounded by

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books by Goethe, Jules Verne, David Foster Wallace, VilĂŠm Flusser, Robert Smithon, Emmanuel Kant, Gilles Deleuze and FĂŠlix Guattari, J. G. Ballard, Stanislav Lem and a variety of books from people of the Bauhaus and many others. That surrounding archive in combination with my experiences in nature gave me the idea that you can actually relate to reality in different ways, all beautiful, some more scientific, some more formal, some more analytic somehow descriptive and emotional but all of them containing a genuine beauty making you a responsible co-author of reality. But most important and maybe the biggest present was that I was so lucky to grow up with nature, inside nature, related to nature and its changes, phenomena and textures.

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve?

Something unknown, a touching moment, a feeling, a faint pre-concept of a thought in an ocean of possibilities, but some thoughts tend to get very strong that I cannot refuse taking them into reality finding a specific vocabulary and a syntax for them that allow me to articulate them in whatever media. So I would say there is research, a lot of experiments and the experience of specific places that enhance my perceiving - thinking - doing process. As well as all landscapes and places its different layers of sedimented history. I would say my work derives from my strong commitment to experimentally-funded knowledge and their limits; to the creation of and reflection upon new questions; to a longing for the realization of new experiences; and to gnosis as a basis for the production of new art works. I see myself as a cultural co-producer, a future fossil archaeologist with a speculative approach.

Bikini Atoll Containment II (Equilibrium) Installation 20 contaminated coconuts from the bikini atoll, wood, glass, lead Courtesy of Blok Art Space Istanbul and Studio Markus Hoffmann 2016

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What does ‘being an artist’ mean to you? Who are your favorite artists and how have they influenced you?

To take my thoughts and actions seriously. I think to me to be an Artist means to look at the world from different angles and relate to something that is appealing to you.

It means to grow during that journey of coincidences that let you rethink your ultimately limited investment of lifetime and attention. It’s a long list and I do not know if I want to judge or favor one or the other, but for sure people like Roberts Smithon, Marcell Duchamp, Michel Heizer, Steve Reich, John Cage, Marc Rothko, Pierre Huyghe and for sure my mentor and professor Olafur Eliasson were people that influenced my way of relating to the world, each of them in their own way.

The scientific element is central in your works. What usually catches your interest?

Science is a way to look at and a way to describe reality as well it implements a set of practices like experiments that oscillate quite well with my mindset. I think there is nothing that usually catches my interest, its just some things have specfic combinations of aspects that catch my interest.

Working closely with an artist like Olafur Eliasson should have been a wonderful experience for you. What was the impact of that collaboration on your artistic career?

I had an inspiring time and it was very supportive for my intellectual development to dedicate a period of my

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lifetime to study at the Institute for Spacial Experiments and to have Olafur Eliasson as a great point of reference, learning and exchanging on ideas and possibilities how to relate de- and re-construct reality.

What do you think is the role of an artist in today’s society?

There are many roles but I wish whatever specific role an artist chooses it hopefully implements research, collaborations, compassion, a responsibility for others and the environment of the planet and the awareness and the responsibility that everyone’s life is a role model for others to follow.

Maybe its still that Kantian question: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.”

Kant argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one’s reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. I agree and would as well add that nourishing kindness, friendship to support the progress of the developement of others should be an essential element of your self chosen role as well.

What subjects do you deal with in your art?

“We have reached a tipping point that does not merely consist in the fact that climate change has reached a point where it is self-reinforcing, or that fossil resources are becoming dramatically depleted. Over the last centuries, humankind has put processes in motion leading

Bikini Atoll Containment III (Transformation) Filmstill | 2 Ch HD Color Video Shot in a uranium mining area in Anatolia, Turkey Duration 37 min Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann and Dicle Naz Tohumcu 2016

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to developments for which we no longer have any standards by which to judge them. When humankind itself becomes a natural force – or that which we understood to be nature is now made by humans – then the dualism of nature/culture subject/object no longer function in the accustomed fashion.” (Bernd M Scherer Textures of the Anthropocene). In the last years, I have worked alongside and in conversation with topics relating to the Anthropocene, aiming to combine scientific methodologies and the manufacture of new realities to realize works that allow for individual projection.

This focus led me to travel to remote places like Chernobyl the Bajan Obo Mine, Fokushima ... in order to create experience and exploration driven site specific art works like the Bikini Atoll Containment series. A core of my work orbits around issues of radioactive

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materials, rare earth minerals and other industrial toxic waste and the changes and recomposition of those landscapes created by the human impact. I would call these fractals of landscapes and the waste products as the guiding fossils of the Anthropocene.

As well I also work a lot with different phenomena, questions related to normality and different forms of archives. There is always the central question of representation translation e.g. of a landscape, an experience, a touching moment into an an artwork that addresses different layers of consciousness. The beauty lies in the translation/transformation on both ends from the idea to the artwork and the viewer that makes the artwork a subjective experience. I am very interested in the specificity of that translation/transformation.

Bikini Atoll Containment III (Transformation) Filmstill | 2 Ch HD Color Video Shot in a future zuranium mining area in Anatolia, Turkey Duration 37 min Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann and Dicle Naz Tohumcudate 2016

How has your work developed throughout the years?

I realize more and more that I am working on a visual vocabulary and different perspectives that implement moments that touched me on an experiential level.

Implementing that quality, the “quality of a touching moment“ and translating/transforming it in my work allows the viewer to be part of the artwork.

This idea of creating a potential for individual projections and narratives based on the viewers individual history and experience related to a global context at that moment of time is a reocurring question that re-phrased itself in many ways. But to get a full picture I think its more honest to suggest that you have a look and experience the works.

Bikini Atoll Containment III (Transformation) Filmstill | 2 Ch HD Color Video Shot in a uranium mining area in Anatolia, Turkey Duration 37 min Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann and Dicle Naz Tohumcu 2016

Tell me about Invisible Imprint II, what’s the spark of this artwork?

Like Invisible Imprint II, inverted Invisible Imprint uses the technique of an autoradiographic process and symbolically references the sun.

However, this work leaves a blank white circular field – like a traumatic blind spot created on the retina by staring at the sun, you are invited to see the periphery but the center seems to be lost.

The green shadows were created with radioactive material from every active, major uranium mine on the planet.

Is there a connection with Zirkon Compass?

Filled with different zircon sands from all the continents of the world, the work Zircon Compass consists of sixteen hourglasses that are suspended from the ceiling.

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Memory (detail) Installation art Wood, tree cross sections from all continents on the globe, mushroom mycelium, glass 320 x 420 x 20 cm - 813 x 1067 x 51 in Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2014

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Yes, I would say both works Invisible Imprint and Zircon Compass deal with themes of time, the anthropocene, exposure and the non perceivable. They are also connected material wise because radioactive material plays its part in both work attempts. Positioned at eye level, the hourglasses are arranged in a circle, each situated at one of the directions of a 16-point compass rose. A thin steel rope is attached to the narrowest point of each hourglass, balancing them in a horizontal equilibrium.

Zircon minerals are the oldest known materials on Earth. Resistant to chemical changes, they offer a window in time as far back as 4.4 billion years ago. Zircon is present in every stone on the planet, and it contains the radioactive elements uranium and thorium in trace amounts – the decay of these elements forms the clock within the zircon.

With the passing of time, uranium and thorium convert to the element lead. In the work, both the semiotics of the hourglass as a metaphor for vanitas and the use of the hourglass as a scientific instrument are transformed. Here, the sand forms a seemingly stable horizon: a layer, the oldest layer we could hypothetically stand on. While the hourglass has thus lost its function, the zircon clock invisibly continues to transform; silently reminding the viewers of their precious and transient time on earth. The zircon keeps time: as the oldest material on the planet, it establishes an abstract meaning of time that is limited by our current possibilities of scientific research. It thus inherently addresses the relative stability of scientific knowledge, which depends on technological progress and the creation of measurement methods, which enable us to expand our ever-limited horizon.

Paradoxically zircon is used to create storage vessels that might be durable enough to contain the radioactive waste products of our species – the future fossils of the Anthropocene.

But the zircon is not eternally stable. Everything eventually decays.

Fume Installation, Photo Series Taxis, glass cube, connector tube Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann with the friendly support of Malte Bartsch 2012

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Ertaale Installation, Photo Series 2 Ch HD Color Video shot at the Ertaaale Vulcano in the Afar Region 20 min, Steel Sculpture Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2012

Acid rain Installation 3 Fine Art Prints 150 x 100 cm - 381 x 254 in Sulfuric acid corroded umbrella, sulfur Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann and Collection Hoffmann 2012

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Can you talk about Acid rain? Why this subject? How do the atmospheric/naturalistic aspects of the place affect your research?

I think Acidification its one of the relevant themes seriously harassing and threatening our environment on different levels. Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH).

It can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids.

Acid rain has been shown to have adverse impacts on forests, freshwaters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life forms, causing paint to peel, corrosion of steel structures such as bridges, and weathering of stone buildings and statues as well as having impacts on human health.

I guess it was the landscape of the desert itself that was calling for this artwork. It was done in a mood of passage/transience like a short rain shower because I was actually there because I was on my way to the Ertaale Vulcano to do the work Ertaale.

That makes the work a fainth site specific comment of my relatedness to the landscape. The Danakil Desert is located in the triangle of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. With its deepest point about 110 meters below sea level Danakil is one of the hottest and driest deserts in the world.

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Due to some findings of 3,2 million year old fossils the region is referred to as “The hell hole of Creation” or “The cradle of mankind”. In the work Acid rain an umbrella is set up in the middle of the desert and being poured over with acid sulfur. The gesture recall the sources and the consequences of acid rain and implies a certain fragility of the vital existence.

It’s a phenomenon reaching out for transnational responsibility effecting life around the globe. The paradox being that humankind might have had its origin in the Danakil desert and that it barely rains there implicitly tells a speculative story of a time where rain, although necessary, has become a threat instead of a blessing. This associates the work with an uncanny forecast for the future to come.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on two upcoming participations in shows: one at the Kunsthaus Wien and one at the Spengel Museum in Hannover.

Furthermore, I just finished some long time exposure series of autoradiographies that are related to my work research on the nuclear contaminated Bikini Atoll that started in 2015 (Coral memory/Nucifera Metamorphosis). As well as I finished a film project called Bikini Atoll Containment. Elephant Forrest Emergence, that was shot in Chernobyl and is on display in Kiev right now. Additionally, I am planning my next journey to China.

Inverted Invisible and Imprint Domarring Installation Multi exposure to uranium ore from all active uranium mines on the planet 179 x 179 x 8 cm - 454,6 x 454,6 x 20 in Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann and Nosbaum Reding 2016

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Encounter Installation Pdlc-Glass, Geiger-Mueller-Counters, oak wood Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2014

Bikini Atoll Containment I (Source) Installation 37 radioactively loaded coconuts from the Bikini Atoll, wood, glass, lead 500 x 300 x 150 cm - 1270 x 762 x 381 in Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2015

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Cocos Nucifera Metamorphosis II Bronze/aluminium lost mould cast of a radioactively loaded coconut 20 x 19 x 20 cm - 50,8 x 48,26 x 50,8 in Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2016

Markus Hoffmann studied fine arts at Universität der

and have been supported by awards, grants,

Künste, Berlin in the Instiut für Raumexperimente

and residencies.

founded by Prof. Olafur Eliasson.

Markus

Prior to UdK, Hoffmann studied medicine at

of Das Numen Collective and is specifcally

Hoffmann

is

a

founding

www.markushoffmann.art

Member

Charité Berlin. Addressing notions of time, place,

known for his continuos and deep 10 Year of

personal history and collective memory, Markus

ongoing research and artworks on topics

Hoffmann focuses on viewers’ capacities to

related to radioactivity, nuclear exclusion zones

relate to their surroundings and the boundaries

and antropocene realted themes.

or limits that come with this relation. His work

In the last years, he has worked alongside

encompasses a versatile spectrum of me-

and in conversation with topics relating to the

dia spanning from conceptual photography to

Anthropocene, aiming to combine scienctifc

time-based sculpures and installations.

methodologies and the manufacturing of new

Based in scientifc reference systems, his works

realities to realise works that allow for spatial or

oscillate between art, science, and architecture.

individual projection.

Hoffmann’s projects are shown internationally

Setone (detail) Installation Radiation sensors, solenoids, drum set, guitar, amplifier Courtesy of Studio Markus Hoffmann 2013

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Maggie hazen _________ Lisa Andreani

Did you attend art school?

In the spring of 2016 I graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with an MFA in sculpture. Prior to graduate school I attended a small liberal arts school in Los Angeles where I studied studio arts with a concentration in sculpture.

What influenced you as an artist growing up?

Growing up in Southern California, I was heavily influenced by Hollywood movie sets and hyperreal environments such as Disneyland and video games. As a young girl I spent considerable time backstage on the set of the ‘90’s sitcom Rosanne, my twin brothers were child actors on the show. I was always fascinated by the dichotomy of an on and off stage environment and was particularly fascinated by what the camera couldn’t see.

I was interested in how the illusion was constructed. This is the same feeling I carry with me as I walk around LA. I wonder what identities people are performing and what is really happening “off stage” or out of sight.

This is the same feeling I carry with me concerning identity as I walk through the streets of LA wondering what identities are being performed for the crowds and what is

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really happening off stage. The LA landscape is dotted with theme parks, strip malls, and entertainment complexes housing laser tag arenas, bowling alleys, and minigolf. Growing up, I would switch my perception to thinking of myself as an avatar in a land filled with homogeneous housing tracks and manicured lawns. I became a character in my own Sims world interpreting my experiences through an out-of-body lens, ultimately cultivating my own mythologies. RPG video game simulation influences how I choose to render these lands, much like Roller Coaster Tycoon or World of Warcraft, and LARPING groups, where individuals quests for power and control over territory adding to the lands history through new mythology. I was also influenced by my father who is a professor of philosophy and religion, I spent considerable time reading and pulling books from his towering bookshelf.

Many deeper spiritual questions which influence my work come from my readings growing up.

How did you get into art? Can you talk with us about what your approach is related to?

I was making art at a young age but it wasn’t until high school where I began to focus my

Hulk Single Channel Video Video Still Duration 3:23 2014

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Everyonesaghost Live Video Performance Rhode Island School of Design Performers: Maggie Hazen & Marisha Lozada Videographer: Eliza Doyle 2016 MADE IN MIND | 39

attention on pursuing fine art. I had two grandmothers who painted but not professionally. I remember my grandmother first introducing me to oil paints.

I was a horrible painter! I made really bad abstract expressionist work, way too angsty. More than any formal training in art, I think what influenced me the most was singing karaoke to Avril Lavigne, Pink and Madonna in my Jr. High bedroom in front of the full length mirror. I think I really wanted to be a pop star at the time.

The fusion of my performer artist complex began to form at this stage in my life.

Was the residency at Vermont Studio Center in 2016 a good experience?

Describe this participation to us.

I had a good time in Vermont. I made a handful of friends I am still in contact with. The program was set in a beautiful enviornment, I think its important to retreat into the woods for a time to make art, removed from your day-to-day life expectations and distractions. I spent a month just focusing on producing new work.

Can you tell us in detail about your work?

What is your goal?

In the work, the computer becomes a portal into infinite streams of information

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bridging the past, present and future morphing into metaphorical wormholes or a hypothetical stasis, distorting our perception of reality. With new technological advancements time is figuratively compressed. With just the flick of the finger I can surface ancient Sumerian texts like the “Epic of Gilgamesh” and one second later read about new technologies aimed at terraforming Mars. The strange objects I use in my sculptures form symbols, engaging a murky place between known and unknown physical realities “no places,” abstract digital universes and fantastical realism. I look into and explore the fabric of both our material reality, as evident in modern physics and cosmology, alongside notions of possible spiritual universes where myth, magic and legend combine.

As a result I find cultural connections: bridging time as it relates to ancient history and science fiction. Secondly, I have been fixated on this notion of the impossible body and in its limitation and failure. I am not talking about the impossible body as far as industry standards are concerned: model standards, size 2, have to be six-feet and walk the runway.

That’s not an impossible body, that’s a real body, though often photoshopped,

although obviously a fashion standard. An impossible body is one, given our present technologies, that is literally unattainable, for instance, augmented bodies, technologically enhanced bodies, virtually transcendent bodies aimed at achieving mythological or fictional powers. Concerning this particular subject matter, I am interested in the human drive to find power through the manipulation of the body—focusing on how the future body or the screen body lures an audience by both fear and awe. Giving rise to the possibility of power driving the human machine.

The result of this drive is something I would call the hyperbleed of human fantasies in popular culture via the video game industry, movie industry, and other fictions which market powers of escape, embodiment and a liberation from weakness. The hyperbleed is a term I have made up to describe the relationship between the images found in screen space which directly influence our physical bodies.

Anemone Live Video Installation Rollgate Studios, New York 2016

However, my dream is a version of the human that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival.

Can you describe the relation between your subject and your medium?

My relationship to my subject and medium are directly linked to the influence of technology on the body. Seduced by cinematic spaces and ever-expanding screen culture, I can morph into Bowie, shave a beard, shoot lasers out of my eyes, pop like Britney and run through virtual Los Angeles. This play, while still a fantasy, allows for a brief encounter with the liminality between futility and transcendence.

MADE IN MIND | 41

42 | MADE IN MIND

No Man’s Sky Live Video Performance Documentation 2’ Performance loop 6’ 40” Performed in 30 min cycles 2015

MADE IN MIND | 43

It also allows me to negotiate the combination of body, self, and space in order to investigate the estrangement of gender—seizing alienation as an impetus to generate new worlds. Using identity, it stresses how affinity comes as a result of otherness, difference, and through the perpetual process of becoming.

Merging reality and fiction, the work suggests a world coloured by desire. In a screen space, I can construct different versions of myself in a multitude of fragmented fields. I can fabricate a role and play it. I can shield myself and communicate as the other. I can compress, rip, render, filter, fade and splice myself. I can become invisible.

I can build any setting for me to become anything but only a representation of that thing, perhaps only a slight likeness. As such, the image is — to use a phrase by Walter Benjamin — without expression.

It doesn’t represent reality. It is a fragment of the real world. My work has moved into an exploration, confrontation and an embodiment of speculation within the framework of identity, technological bodies and image culture.

What about the live video performance Everyonesaghost?

Everyonesaghost was a project that explored the notion of “empathetic otherness.” I pre-produced a series of faces of YouTube personalities and inserted my face into theirs through a device I built which allowed me to insert myself into the video in real-time. This generated a glitch effect where my face never fully fit with their faces causing a distortion or mis-step. I wanted to visually depict a form of empathy and what it felt like to wear the mask of someone else. The performance was a deeply personal experience and I do think the impressions of becoming another has left a deep impact on me.

And what about the other live video performance No Man’s Sky? The digital performance No Man’s Sky was influenced by a series of questions I generated, questioning fantasies

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about transcendence. It was constructed to investigate the human desire to surpass the body. It questions what it means to be liberated from the self. I was interested in why humans construct fantasies promoted by curiosities such as the desire to fly or to become invisible. This desire could be rooted in playful escape but it also directly influences our reality. Just look at the worlds growing national military industrial complexes, thriving entertainment industries, and technological mega-empires.

What is the work D-Lab inspired by?

D-Lab stands for “Daedalus’ Labyrinth”. In Greek mythology, the labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur eventually killed by the hero Theseus.

The work is partly influenced by the labyrinth and partly influenced by the mechanics of an orrery design. An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, usually according to the heliocentric model.

At the time of its making I was influenced by the spiritual and contemplative nature of spiritual labyrinths where getting lost is part of the journey of discovery, typically causing the wandering body and mind to think about questions that cannot be answered.

For me, looking upwards and contemplating the fabric of space and time draw me closer to forms of power that are way bigger than me. I am both scared and exhilarated by that power.

What are you working on now?

I am currently working on a series of sculptures and videos called “Infinity Goddess.”

This ongoing series of work features the triumphs and failures of iconic or mythological female figures in hyper-masculine cinematic spaces. Its likely this body of work will have no end.

Transmimic 6-Channel Video Video Stills 2015

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Maggie Hazen is a New York-based artist born

for the 20th anniversary of the 1992 LA Riots.

Pasadena

and raised in Fern, California and works be-

She was also featured in the 3rd International

Hazen

Side

tween installation, video and performance. She

New Media Art Exhibition at the CICA Museum

department of studio arts and experimental

holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of

in South Korea and her past exhibits include

humanities.

Design and has done collaborative research at

OBO at Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

CERN, MIT and Brown University. Through an

(2016); and The Boston Young Contemporaries,

empathetic approach, her work considers and

Boston, MA (2014). She studied at the European

critiques the representation of women within the

Graduate Studies in Switzerland to research art

structures of power encompassing our physical

and estrangement where she also exhibited her

and digital worlds. Her solo exhibitions include

work. Her residencies have included I:O at the

Brown University’s Granoff Center (2016); and

Helikon Art Center in Turkey (2017), Vermont

the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance (2012)

Studio Center (2016) and a collaboration with

teaches

Street at

Bard

Projects College

(2014). in

the

www.maggiehazen.com

Anemone Live Video Installation Rollgate Studios, New York 2016 46 | MADE IN MIND

AJ NAFZIGER _________ Guy Marshall-Brown

Where did your interest in art production originate?

With a father who was an art teacher, I became interested in drawing very early. While almost all kids like to draw for fun, I remember taking it very seriously even at a young age. I loved using drawing as a way to depict scenes from my imagination, so I have always valued realistic detail and clear depiction. It was not until college that I began to paint in oils and I have actually only recently branched out into experimental and mixed mediums. Although the materials I choose to use have transformed drastically over the years, the concept is still the same: to create and depict scenes that I hope convey the types of ideas that I enjoy thinking about or struggle to understand.

Your work has a very distinct signature to it. How has this signature developed over time?

The most consistent thing I have always tried to do is to just keep challenging myself, picking imagery that I feel is difficult to draw or paint, continue bringing new elements into my scheme of work, and depicting them as accurately as possible. In college, I made my first serious attempts at the challenge of depicting people accurately through drawing and painting the figure. As fabric is often included in figure studies, this led into a kind of obsession with fabric and folds, which I found could be almost endlessly complicated and fascinating to understand and render. You can see this in nearly everything I have done in the past five or six years, so I guess fabric forms would probably be the most definitive characteristic of my art. If you see my work from around 2011 to 2013, it is mostly made up of

mysterious floating forms of fabric in front of blank backgrounds, with a few other elements in different pieces. In the past few years since then, I have been focusing on bringing these same types of ominous forms into more complete environments with real depth and space that truly feel like windows into another world or reality rather than just an empty space or a void.

The drawings I am currently working on blend the folds and wrinkles of fabric into the endlessly intricate natural elements of landscapes, transforming one into the other.

Dense foliage and rock formations gradually become wrinkled fabric, floating up into the air. The details of these two elements actually resemble one another in many ways, especially when colour is removed. The drawings are kind of surreal landscapes that mix natural formations we think of as permanent with the unpredictable movement of fabric forms, showing how easily the world around us can change.

Often your work seems to portray futuristic landscapes.

Do you consider these to be utopian or dystopian environments?

In the series of three drawings titled The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, I mostly want to show landscapes that are shifting from the present into the future or into a currently unrecognizable state. The drawings in this series depict the runaway growth of mysterious, abstract forms within a reality that shift between ideally planned fictional futures, the illusion of logical governing patterns, and the detailed, actual landscape of real life. I don’t really think of them in terms of dystopian or utopian. Thinking of the future in this way means attempting

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The Future Is Not What It Used To Be #2 Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 87,63 x 55,88 cm - 34,5 x 22 in 2015 48 | MADE IN MIND

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be #3 Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 87,6 x 55,8 cm - 34,5 x 22 in 2015 MADE IN MIND | 49

to predict it, taking elements of our present state and projecting them along a linear path. I try to avoid this type of prediction and instead attempt to represent the errors of prediction itself. I read a lot of science fiction and am, more than anything, just entertained by how these visionary authors of the past viewed the future we are currently experiencing and how it rarely progresses along such foreseeable routes.

In a similar series of eight smaller drawings titled First Variety, Second Variety, Third Variety, etc., I imagined similar forms being grown in zoo-like enclosures decorated with childish outer space and futuristic illustrations and patterns.

These were meant to show the error in trying to plan for an unpredictable future based on our own naive imaginings of what that future would hold. The forms eventually grow beyond our predictions as the surrounding environment decays and becomes dated, while the future moves forward on its own.

Your painting Golden Path is built up through the use of numerous small panels. Could you please explain to us your choice to do this?

The grid of panels is referencing an old computer game called Pipe Dream. The point of the game was to piece together a series of pipe sections to contain the flow of some kind of ooze. The ooze would continuously flow through the sections of pipe as you placed them and if you couldn’t keep up, it would spill out and you would lose. You could lay the pipe down in straight or curved sections, similar to the golden pipe-like form in the painting. The idea of trying to keep up with the growth of a substance that is expanding beyond control is the same concept I was trying to represent in my recent science fiction series of work, so I thought referencing the aesthetic found in this game would be an interesting way to tie in something recognizable to hopefully hint at this theme.

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Surrealism seems to be the most prevalent theme within both your paintings and your drawings.

Please discuss the relationship that you have with this theme.

Surrealism is definitely a movement I have learned a lot from. Because of the way the surrealists developed their imagery using processes of unconscious thought, there is never any obvious theme or message being conveyed in their work, which I think gives surrealism an endless appeal and allows viewers to project their own thoughts.

I think imagery meant to convey a concrete concept often becomes boring once the concept is understood. But above all, I admire these artists for being able to create work with such a rich philosophy, based on principles of psychology and the unconscious, while at the same time not being afraid to appear absurd. I feel like they created deeply serious artwork yet somehow managed to not take themselves too seriously, which I think is a problem many artists have.

Rene Magritte is my favourite surrealist artist and I think his work is probably the best example of what I love about surrealism. His art is so playful and full of humour, but in the end I think it challenges us to question aspects of our lives and realities that we take for granted as ordinary, familiar, or predictable.

Visually your paintings are reminiscent of the Vanitas movement. Is this something that is heavily considered?

I really do like symbolic still life paintings and the Vanitas movement, but I actually had not considered it as a direct influence before. I always find it interesting how objects take on different meanings when paired with other objects, which is something I have explored in the past. A while ago I did a series of charcoal and carbon pencil drawings based on ink blot images, like those used in Rorschach tests. I would just look at the images, record my perceptions, and then try to

Sixth Variety Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 34 x 26,6 cm - 13,5 x 10,5 in 2016

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realistically draw the results. I did twelve of these drawings and the imagery varied widely from piece to piece, but there were some similar objects found throughout. There were a lot of skulls and flowers. I’m not sure what that says about me as a subject in a Rorschach test, but it definitely is reminiscent of the Vanitas movement, so perhaps it is a subconscious influence.

actually capture reality more easily and effectively, so when an artist does it, I am truly amazed. As the environments in my work have become more realistic, I have really worked to employ linear perspective, as Escher often did, to establish and accentuate depth to draw the viewer in and hopefully help immerse them in this fictional world. So I have been revisiting Escher a lot and am still as completely blown away as I was when I was a kid.

What other artistic movements and which significant artists have inspired the development of your artistic practice?

Surrealism is definitely number one, but I have also always been tremendously inspired by MC Escher, whose work, for me, stands on its own. I really love looking at a picture and wondering, “how is that possible?” Obviously, a drawing or painting isn’t real, so the answer should be easy enough. But there is believability about great artwork, like the work of MC Escher, that makes you accept them as real while you are viewing them, like watching a movie or reading a novel. Rarely when you are immersed in a movie would you constantly remind yourself that it’s fake, at least not without ruining the experience.

I think this has become more and more difficult to accomplish with painting and drawing now that other art forms

Your Self-Portrait in oil is an interesting contemporary take on a Renaissance portrait. Tell us more about this painting.

This painting was meant to show me as an artist experiencing inspiration in the form of unconscious or undefined thoughts and ideas. The light bulb is a symbol used in cartoons to express the spark of an idea. The light comes on over the character’s head when a new concept or thought has just dawned on them. For me, in the initial stages of planning a picture, I rarely know for sure what the imagery is exactly going to be and usually have no clue about its meaning to me. These are things I discover and refine as I work. But in this portrait, I tried to create a twist on the classic cartoon light bulb symbol by showing thought as a scattered mess of different elements, some of which are dissolving into space.

Eighth Variety Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 34 x 26,6 cm - 13,5 x 10,5 in 2016

First Variety Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 34 x 26,6 cm - 13,5 x 10,5 in 2016

52 | MADE IN MIND

Your education was quite strongly rooted in painting and drawing. Have you ever experimented with other media and how do you feel about painting and drawing in the expanded field?

Drawing has always been my favourite since I was a kid, although when I studied art at college I began painting and was educated in both. For quite a while, I just stuck strictly to painting in oils and drawing in charcoal or graphite. I wanted my pictures to act as windows to fictional worlds, so they needed to be unified and seamless. I think this is difficult to do with mixed media approaches as it is hard to be immersed in a picture when you can clearly see the seams in the materials used to create it. So for a long time I always had a tendency to steer away from mixed media altogether. This has changed somewhat in the past few years after I took a mono-printing course while earning my MFA. I draw and paint in a very controlled way, so it was liberating to play with the element of chance that mono-printing introduces. I experimented with some different techniques and tried to introduce spontaneity through mono-printing into my drawings and paintings. This is actually what ended up resulting in this whole science fiction themed body of work. I was thinking about how the element of chance makes the future unpredictable.

Relating this to futuristic fiction, I ended up doing this series

of work showing what happens when we attempt to enforce control on something uncontrollable.

I have continued to experiment with mixed media and recently have tried to figure out a new approach to purposefully acknowledge the seams between mediums within a picture as a way to depict the split between two different, competing senses of reality. I’m not sure what will come of it, but I’m having fun right now at least.

What does the future have in store for you?

Like my recent science fiction themed work, the pieces I am currently working on reflect the relationship of the present and future, but in a much more personal way. Last year, I moved from Phoenix, Arizona to London, England and have been working on landscape drawings focusing on my travels through the American Southwest, reflecting on the pictures and memories I have of this scenery and how these important experiences have shifted from present to past.

I think that when I am ready to be done with this series of work, I will get back into painting. Recently, I haven’t had the space to pursue many of the ideas I am having for large paintings, but when I do, I plan on revisiting some other previously unexplored themes from science fiction that I find fascinating.

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be (detail) Drawing Pencil and liquid graphite monotype on Yupo paper 87,6 x 55,8 cm - 34,5 x 22 in 2015 MADE IN MIND | 53

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Duplication Painting Oil on panel 34 x 42 cm - 13,5 x 16,5 in 2012

Golden Path Painting Oil, acrylic and image transfer on panel grid 162,5 x 284,4 cm - 64 x 112 in 2014

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Ghost Constellations Painting Oil on panel 91,4 x 152,4 cm - 36 x 60 in 2012

Originally from Indiana, AJ Nafziger received his BFA

Southwest and serve as a reflection on his memo-

from the University of Indianapolis and MFA from

ries exploring this scenery and how the personal

Arizona State University.

significance of these experiences in his life has shifted

His recent work draws inspiration from a variety of

from the present to the past.

sources, most notably science fiction, surrealism, and

Nafziger’s artwork has been exhibited widely across

the scenic landscapes surrounding Arizona, where he

the United States and recently in the UK and

lived for three years while completing his MFA.

featured in publications such as Direct Art, Artist

After a recent move from Phoenix, Arizona to

Portfolio Magazine, Studio Visit, and Artmaze.

London, the surreal landscape drawings he is currently developing focus on his travels through the American

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www.ajnafziger.com

57TH VENICE BIENNALE

_________ Marika Marchese

THE ARTIST. A MAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Special | 57th Venice Biennale

THE ARTIST. A MAN OF CONSCIOUSNESS

_________ Marika Marchese

The 21st century has begun, but already the foundations laid by the recent past are affecting the future. Moreover, we live in a time when everything is subject to rapid transformation. What today appears modern, tomorrow may already be obsolete.

Nature in this sense is exemplary.

The person best able to describe his time is the artist, precisely because he is the interpreter and the guide of this difficult era of transition, he is always committed to recounting a meticulous story of the future, because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present.

As the Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan said, “the artist is the man who in any field, scientific or humanistic, seizes the implications of his actions and of the science of his time. He is the man of integral awareness.” McLuhan continues, “in a culture like ours, accustomed to dividing in order to control, it is sometimes disturbing to remember that from an operational and practical point of view, the medium is the message.”

(Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1964 / Gli strumenti del comunicare, il Saggiatore, Milano, 2008).

The message given by a medium or of a technology, argues McLuhan, is the change in proportions, rhythms, and patterns that it introduces in human relationships, while its contents or uses may be different, they have no effect on human forms of association. While technology, mediates our relationship with the world. In a world dominated by technology, most people consider technology a mere tool, but people themselves are often reduced to mere tools, dominated in their perceptions of the world: each medium has the power to impose its conditions on the careless or thoughtless user.

Driving McLuhan to conclude that “only an authentic artist is able to deal freely with technology, because he possesses the expert awareness of how changes affect sensory perception”.

So it’s the artist, the sole interpreter of the time in which he

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lives, because he is aware of the full potential his tools possess and uses them as an extension of his thinking and of his way of life.

However, what an artist produces is not always understood by his audience, as often happens with contemporary art, which is termed ‘difficult’, in the words of Angela Vettese “because this century holds the absolute record of beginnings and equally sudden eclipses of avant-garde artistic productions, innumerable trends and movements, with a decisive surge in the last fifty years” (Capire l’arte contemporanea, La guida più imitata all’arte del nostro tempo, Allemandi, 2010).

Two or three points explain precisely what’s going on. As we have said earlier with the words of McLuhan, the artist is a busy researcher, an interpreter of his time, leaving the making of beauty to other, sensational figures such as designers, graphic designers, photographers and advertisers.

The first reason for this is globalization, in which fast developing technology and the ‘rich’ history of the European continent, have given birth to new professionalisms which use certain aesthetic and functional values, as is the case with design.

That’s why the artist seeks out ‘the other’ and goes beyond sensational and exciting aesthetics, in his work he prefers to analyse underlying themes more carefully, without the need for beauty, but rather with depth and consistency.

The extreme and banal narrative of Kitsch works prevented a different level of interpretation, perhaps an even higher one.

The concepts described do not hide anything, they exhaust themselves, and even in a deeper analysis they do not appear to be particularly telling. In this way all ambiguities are deleted, the message is conveyed by the producer to the viewer without any possibility of error or misunderstanding; The one who creates Kitsch already inserts the final interpretation into the act of production.

Kitsch brings with it a strongly sentimental connotation. In this

Special | 57th Venice Biennale

regard, the Czech writer and multifaceted figure, Milan Kundera writes: “In the kingdom of Kitsch, there emanates the dictatorship of the heart.” (Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan, Adelphi, 1989, p. 256). Aroused feelings must of course be shared by a large number of people, which insures that the fundamental images of Kitsch are inculcated in people’s memory.

Despite technological advances and the rapid propagation in all corners of the world of iphones and PCs, which have reached the most remote spots on the planet, spreading information faster, this technological progress especially associated with experimental contemporary art has not made it any easier for people to understand art.

It is mainly art insiders such as people working in galleries, foundations, museums and public or private spaces, as well as some artists, art students or simple admirers, gathering together in their small Eden, a privileged place for great collectors and the ‘most famous’ artists.

The artist. Introverted creator.

We all know how in the past the artist used to recount, to document what was happening in society, initially in the aristocratic courts, then in popular life situations. This role has not changed, only the epochs have changed.

Nowadays, the artist still uses nature to best represent his ideas.

The Venice Bienniale 2017 Spain Who has never at least once in their life desired to take a symbolic photo of a city? We all wanted to take away the memory of that place, which lives on forever. And what if we had the opportunity to see a palace in miniature, what’s more while running? What links this to a Bienniale artist? Jordi Colomer, a Spanish artist, who represents Spain, welcomes us to the Venice Bienniale 2017.

The Spanish pavilion, the first one we visited, immediately leads us to be citizens of an ideal place of which we want to be part of, whose motto is ¡Únete! Join Us! We are united in a collective action of nomadism. We sat on the stairs as if we were in an ancient theater and let ourselves go to the video stories. With this project the artist wants to deal with a current theme, that of transhumance, a movement which re-elaborates the social imagination. Video narratives, as Jordi Colomer calls them, tell of how a community transforms an urban space, one observes suburbs, council housing, deserted places, living areas clearly short of resources but where the very instability creates a territory where it is still possible to build. In Colomer’s works, there is often a wandering figure, probably a key to describing the role of the artist or of the curious artist, restless, never stable, but in constant pursuit of his happiness. This artist is strongly linked to the places he visits, makes the landscape

¡Únete! Join Us! Jordi Colomer | Spanish Pavilion, curated by Manuel Segade 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Francesco Galli Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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Special | 57th Venice Biennale

his, makes the stories which inhabit that place, his. It drags you to run behind his characters or raise the weight of a palace as happened with the 2011 work ‘L’Avenir / De toekomst.’

Between 2002 and 2004, Jordi Colomer presented Anarchitekton, a series of four videos simultaneously projected, in which an artist runs on the streets of four big cities: Barcelona, Bucharest, Osaka and Brasilia, carrying cardboard and wooden models representing the real buildings surrounding him. The title is inspired by Anarchitecture, a group founded by American artist Gordon Matta-Clark, and alludes to the works of Kazimir Malevič, the ‘Architekton’. Keep in mind this work that we will discuss later.

Continuing our walk suggestions on the gure of the artist come to mind. We wondered why art fascinates us and involves us so, the answer we have found is in the role the artist has in society. In fact, as Marshall McLuhan argues, the artist is the only figure capable of recounting his time, precisely because he is the interpreter and leader of this difficult era of transition, as he is always committed to writing a minute story of the future and is the ‘only’ person aware of the nature of the present.

At the Biennale, ‘Viva Arte Viva’, curated by Christine Macel, today’s art, in the face of the conflicts and surprises of the world, to use the words of the curator, testifies to the most precious part of humanity, because looking at the past, we can build a new future.

This Biennial is a yes to life, more than ever, the role, the voice and the responsibility of the artist appear crucial in all contemporary debates.

Tunisia Several pavilions have looked at identity as the central theme of works by artists they have chosen to represent. Tunisia is a new presence at the 2017 Venice Bienniale which with Lina Lazaar’s ‘The Absence of Paths’ has highlighted the absurdities of global systems where our presence is defined by legal documents.

We all know that we are unique thanks to our fingerprints, but not everyone knows that to escape a difficult destiny, many immigrants erase their identities, deleting their fingerprints by burning their fingertips in hot oil. Ink in these kiosks becomes a symbol and emblem of the exhibition project.

The Absence of Paths Tunisian Pavilion, curated by Lina Lazaar 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

60 | MADE IN MIND

Special | 57th Venice Biennale

The kiosk is on the corner of Via Garibaldi and Riva dei Sette Martiri; The navy checkpoint, Arsenale, Campo della Tana; Sale D’Armi, Arsenal, Campo della Tana.

Freesas, as passports are called, are distributed to anyone who wants to be a citizen of the world.

They were issued by the institution that produces passports at an international level, with the same materials as official ones. They reduce the travel document to something absurd and easily available. The project wants to discuss the major migration and political acceptance issues in the countries where asylum is requested.

NSK State Pavilion Another pavilion that dealt with the strong theme of migration is the NSK State Pavilion. It is imperative to go back for those who do not know anything and explain what NSK is.

In 1984, at a time of tumultuous historical change for Europe, when Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia, NSK was born, controversial because it remembers the Nazi annexation of the Slovenian state during World War II. In 1991, NSK became a sovereign state and in 2017 participated in

the Venice Biennale, claiming to be a “state without state”.

In fact, this pavilion poses the most pressing issues in today’s states: migration, citizenship, history and identity. At a time when Europe, and more generally the world, looks at news events, such as terrorism, where fragmentation and antagonism seem to be the only possible prospects, this pavilion is the only one capable of imagining a new community.

A hard, as well as contemporary topic today. It will test you and challenge you intellectually.

Precisely because the pavilion is free and borderless, the organisers have asked visitors to fill in a questionnaire to understand the vision of the present Europe, asking the following questions: What do you want to bring with you from Europe’s heritage (as you conceive it) to help build a new and better world? What do you want to forget or erase from Europe’s heritage (as you conceive it) to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? What do you want to bring with you from your nation’s heritage (as you conceive it) to help build a new and better world? What do you want to forget or erase from your nation’s heritage (as you conceive it) to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?

The Absence of Paths Tunisian Pavilion, curated by Lina Lazaar 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

MADE IN MIND | 61

Special | 57th Venice Biennale

Inside the pavilion, the space is divided into a ‘global disorder’ room in which the artist and citizen Ahmet Öğüt, invited to shape the pavilion’s installation through the conceptual and physical experience of gravity, starts with the notion of status, and the definition of citizenship and bureaucracy connected to it.

The NSK delegates are: Bisan Abu Eisheh, Azra Akshamija, Djordje Balzamović, Safia Dickersbach, Claudio Donadel, Michael Fehr, Roza El-Hassan, Kendell Geers, Sarah Lunaček, Sohrab Mohebbi, Victor Mutelekesha, Ahmet Öğüt and Malina Suliman.

Commissioned by the artistic group IRWIN (Dusan Mandic, Miran Mohar, Andrej Savski, Roman Uranjek and Borut Vogelnik), the project is curated by Zdenka Badovinac and Charles Esche, and is directed by Mara Ambrozic, with contributions from NSK citizens, artists, philosophers, students and young professionals from the world of art, cultural institutions, social cooperatives and international universities.

New Zealand We move from one pavilion to another, without stopping to wonder. It’s a continuous discovery, we are amazed at how the great variety of topics differ by technique but they come together in a multiplicity of artistic practices. In this journey, we wondered how identity is something tremendously strong for each of us, how the artists have dealt with this theme by making the audience participate, involving them in the narrative, as Lisa Reihana has done for the New Zealand Pavilion.

A 23 meter long, 3,3 meter high video story, a work which took ten years to create.

The personal art project named ‘Emissaries’, part of a cycle of works called In Pursuit of Venus [infected], seems like an old painting, but instead it is a monumental video installation. Characters are not the run of the mill figures, but performers

62 | MADE IN MIND

that move on the lush background of the video work. Inspired by the French cycle of panels painted on paper ‘Les Sauvages de la Mer’ (1804-05), also known as ‘The Captain Cook’s Trips’ (produced by Joseph Dufour & Cie and illustrated by Jean-Gabriel Charvet).

The latter refers to the legendary expeditions of Jean-François de La Pérouse, Louis Antoine de Bougainville and Captain James Cook, who was the first to circumnavigate New Zealand.

Of course, the great neoclassical scenery is reinvented by the New Zealand artist. Native culture emerges overwhelmingly, the point of view of the colonisers is reduced to the minimum, confrontation between the two ethnic groups becomes an infection that attacks the unreal patina of the original representation. Cook was killed in Hawaii in a violent clash with Indians during his third exploratory trip to the Pacific.

The title of the video wants to conjure up the term ‘point of view’ and at the same time allude through the word ‘Venus’ to the international scientific mission to measure the heavens documenting the transit of Venus in 1769 (in order to determine the distance between the Earth and the Sun).

On a technical level there are 1500 individual digital layers for a total of 33 million pixels in each single shot of ‘In pursuit of Venus [infected].’

The work is projected with multiple DLP laser projectors and has a resolution of 15K. This pavilion is a must-see.

South Africa Moving from identity to conquest, we enter the South African Pavilion. This year, Candice Breitz, class of 1972, and Mohau Modisakeng, class of 1986, were invited to represent South Africa.

The latter produced, Passage, a video project in which the aesthetic power lies in the composition of the scene and in the dark tones of the photography, which make it elegant and evocative.

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Beauty contrasts with the significant strength of the work. In fact Passage, is the story of slavery and the exploitation of the coloured populations of Africa. The figures in the boat represent metaphors of the oppressive destiny experienced by these populations. Candice Breitz works differently, but equally powerful, calling on Hollywood actors, Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin, to tell us stories, in the belief that we, the viewer, respond better to ‘stars’ than to common people narrating stories. Inequality, continues in this way too, reminding us of the sad truth, that we need to gossip to maintain our interest in human affairs. This is ‘Love Story.’

Finland We leave Africa and cross Europe until we arrive at the Finnish Pavilion, which with irony and irreverence shows us political and moral issues that revolve around the history of Finland.

The two artists working on ‘The Aalto Natives’ are Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen. When we enter the pavilion, we are stunned in front of a giant egg that moves and talks with a box, in the words of a famous saying, “Which came first, the

chicken or the egg?” Here the egg came first, it moves and talks continuously in a mirrored narrative, in which a pair of messianic characters pose questions and reveal Jung and his archetypes, a computer and its user, as well as a lost guru, all of which possess a projector on top of their bodies to narrate these stories. Aalto’s natives face the complexity of today’s globalized world, races and class struggle. The duo is famous for creating playful works with contemporary themes, in fact the narrative structure created in the work is based on the concept of culture as feedback and reality as an idol. These characters that make up the installation and are also found in videos, are guided by eschatological and violent impulses trying to make sense of what it needs to shape communities and develop cultural life. The work combines the intuitive attitude towards image production and the inclination of Nissinen’s naive musicality with that of Mellors’ sculpture.

Turkey Another pavilion that interprets the identity of its people is Turkey’s. A sound piece, ÇIN gives voice to the collective

South African Pavilion Mohau Modisakeng, Passage Curated by Lucy MacGarry, Musha Neluheni 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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ÇIN Cevdet Erek Turkish Pavilion, curated by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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Theatrum Orbis Project by Grisha Bruskin, the collective Recycle and Sasha Pirogova Russian Pavilion, curated by Semen Mikhajlovski 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Francesco Galli Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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discomfort created by the current political situation. The name of the installation, ‘ÇIN’ is also a Turkish onomatopoeic word, which mimics a persuasive sound, and is also the root of two words that indicate reverb and tinnitus, two terms that have to do with sound and the ear. Cevdet Erek’s work is powerful and at the same time sensitive, inviting you to listen as though you were a judge that looks at the community from above, but instead as you walk around the installation he puts you into the listeners’ dimension. In order to understand, one must listen and open one’s self to a community, this makes Erek’s work malleable and lends itself to transformation.

Two wings are connected by a side corridor, from the outside the work resembles a kind of cage, as one approaches the sound grows, at times being imperceptible, to getting stronger as one walks up the platform, leading us to an understanding of the complete work.

A highly structured program puts the work at the center of the performance, debates, interventions, in order not to give a static and a very defined form to the installation. In its simple architecture, the Turkish Pavilion is the most complex space

all detail and artistic form, including the square brochure which accompanies the work.

Theatrum Orbis Project by Grisha Bruskin, the collective Recycle and Sasha Pirogova Russian Pavilion, curated by Semen Mikhajlovski 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Francesco Galli Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Lost and Found Sislej Xhafa Kosovo Pavilion, curated by Arta Agani 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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Russia We walk in a northerly direction beyond the Turkish Pavilion, through the Giardini, to reach another pavilion that each edition leaves its viewers quite literally open-mouthed with wonder, it’s the pavilion of Russia.

Semen Mikhajlovskij, curator of the pavilion, invited three artists (Grisha Bruskin, the collective Recycle and Sasha Pirogova) and three composers (Dmitrij Kurljandskij, Petr Ajdu and Konstantin Dudakov-Kashuro), authors of the music for the Theatrum Orbis exhibition project.

At the beginning of our journey we were reminded to keep in mind Kazimir Malevich’s Architekton. Well, this year, Russia brings us to a Suprematist vision of society, at least at first glance, because Mikhajlovskij’s project in three acts narrates the fears of the contemporary world, the rebellion against absolute power, our current dictatorships, the violent predominance of one human on the other, and the depiction

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of a hungry god of death, in a personification of terrorism.

Theatrum Orbis or world theater, from the point of view of these Russian artists can be considered the atlas that collects our modernity.

What opens up before us as we enter are three rooms. The first welcomes us with visions of a terrifying dream, where planes, silhouettes of men and women roam, symbols of power swing, sculptures arranged on the sides of the room are illuminated thereby revealing their identity, bringing to the surface a fake cheerfulness. We continue our visit, with the artist Bruskin we find a series of hybrid sculptures, platoons of men who form archaic symbols and idols, while airplanes fly over the static white scene in black, darkened background. We hear and see the anguish of an ever-present past, one of war, where there’s destruction, where evil is an echo of something that has never gone away and the artist Grisha Bruskin unveils Maya to reveal reality. Sasha Pirogova’s video treats the binomial of life and death. Going downstairs, we find the collective ‘Recycle’ that invites us to download an application to engage us to find out what really makes up the white resin clusters in front of us.

Even here harsh reality is shown to us, as men torture a third man, as we aim our cellphone towards the installation we can also read about the victim’s guilt. I decided to wake up from the nightmare and go back to watching stars.

Kosovo A pavilion that every two years interprets in a wise and contemporary manner, Kosovo. In this edition, Sislej Xhafa’s project Lost and Found, consists of pallet pedestals which form an office for lost properties, lined with nylon, the only object out of place in this composition is a black phone that never rings.

It’s a minimalist work, dedicated to those people gone missing after the Kosovo war. The conflict ended in 1999, with thousands killed and still today 1,664 people are still unaccounted for, missing. For Sisley Xhafa, art serves to put reality under discussion. In this work, he asks questions about conflicts and what they involve, but the project has an even deeper level of reading, an intimistic level. Sometimes, we happen to find ourselves, due to life’s difficulties, lost and would like to be found by someone. We feel that we are living in

Future Fossil Spaces Julian Charrière Earth Pavilion, curated by Christine Macel 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Andrea Avezzù Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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Il Mondo Magico Roberto Cuoghi, Imitatio Christi Italian Pavilion, curated by Cecilia Alemani 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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a limbo, not knowing how to get out of it unless for a reason, for a friend or for an affection, so we live waiting to be reclaimed thanks to a ‘Lost and Found’ office.

Earth Pavilion The curator of the 2017 Venice Bienniale, Christine Macel, has divided the pavilion into nine spaces, two set up inside the Giardini area and the other seven in the Arsenale. Each pavilion has been devoted to a theme: Artists and Books, Joy and Fears, Common Space Pavilion, Traditions, Shamans, Dionysis, Colours, Time to Infinity, Earth.

As one walks through the Earth Pavilion, I noticed the particularly active participation of the young Franco-Swiss artist, Julian Charrière. Class of 1987, he is a former student of Olafur Eliasson, who three editions ago was present at the Bienniale in a memorable performance ‘Some pigeons are more equal than others’ in which he coloured some pigeons in St. Mark’s Square. While his mentor Eliasson dedicated a show at the Bienniale to the ‘Green Light Workshop’, where he created green lamps for migrants, giving new hope and passing on knowledge. The pupil Charrière, got involved in an ambitious project, overtaking the master and introducing us to the anthropocene era, a term first used by the Nobel Prize for Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Crutzen, to define the geological era in which the earth’s environment, understood as the set of physical, chemical and biological characteristics of life and evolution, is strongly influenced by local and global events caused by the effects of human action.

Human impact on ecosystems has progressively increased, leading to substantial alterations in nature’s balances (tropical forests disappear and biodiversity declines, employment of nearly 50% of available land, overuse of freshwater and overfishing in the sea, use of natural resources, of nitrogen fertilizers in quantities greater than those naturally set in all terrestrial ecosystems, the introduction of large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, etc.). Julian Charrière in the Future Fossil Space project presented at the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne shows us towers of salt which reveal the temporal layers of eras, salt blocks taken in Bolivia at Salar de Uyuni, one of the largest unused lithium deposits, an important element for our current technology. ‘The fossils mentioned in the title refer to the Latin etymology of the word, which literally translates as ‘obtained from digging’.

The artist proposes in the exhibition space, works that are in dialectical tension between the two arrows of time, one pointing to the past and the other towards the future.’ (Julian Charrière, Future Fossil Space, Mousse publishing, 2014). As with the Tower of Babel, erected to contain all human knowledge, in these towers is the story of man, from the first traces of life to the present mineral history, as well as the denunciation of how earth was brought to being scarce, with dwindling future resources, torn by pollution. We should reflect on the importance of the existence of things, as Shakespeare reminds us when Hamlet reflects on his past friend the jester, Yorick.

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Il Mondo Magico Roberto Cuoghi, Imitatio Christi Italian Pavilion, curated by Cecilia Alemani 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Italo Rondinella Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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Italy From the Earth Pavilion to the Italian Pavilion, we are catapulted into the magical world, curated by Cecilia Alemani, where ancient knowledge joins tradition, between myths and rituals, engaging a very emotional and sensual journey. The works of Roberto Cuoghi, Imitation of Christ, in which the artist explores how material properties flow into the definition of identity, this being the key term which underlies our present interpretation-cum-travelogue through this edition of the 2017 Bienniale. The artist transforms the space, he leads us into a double dimension, between the burning chamber and a sacred place, in which the waxed bodies of many Christs are lying down.

They derive from the transformation of matter following through thermal and physical changes. They appear torn, tortured, even enriched with mould, we experience the sculpture as a process which is alive and reflect on the power of the images, on the energy of repetition and on the iconography of memory. Roberto Cuoghi is an artist whom we could compare, in a moment of optimism, to gold, a precious and malleable matter. This polyhedral artist has over the years presented a great variety of works. Memorable is his performance in 1998 in which he assumes the features of his father, seriously ill, fattening 140 kilograms and for 7 years taking up all his habits of a parent, he being a 29 year old imitating a 60 years old parent, leaving an indelible mark of emotion in us, the viewers. Another colossal, unforgettable work by Cuoghi is Belinda, exhibited at the Venice Bienniale in 2013. The work is a sculpture made in 3D print and retouched with ash taken

from a pizza oven to give it the effect of heaviness and rock.

In fact, the work has a very light structure which has given the artist the special mention by the jury for the important contribution to the Venice International Art Exhibition. “A revelation that takes you unprepared, which forces you to rethink everything,” according to the artist’s words, “in a structure that sabotages all real, material references.”

Another, powerful, performative work by Cuoghi is Putiferio, on the island of Hydra in Greece at the Deste Foundation. With the help of ceramic experts, the artist designed and created ovens to make sculptures. Ovens like a chrysalis, which use archaic cooking techniques, create materials which grow and shine with the power of fire, leaving viewers astonished by what they saw. The performance Putiferio, a dialectical term of a speech, was of such portentous impact raising a stink and talk of hellish inspiration, was also of great scenic impact, as well as progenitor of the birth of many crabs. “Why crabs?” you are probably asking yourself. Because Carcino, the Greek mythological crab figure during the battle between Hercules and the Hydra of Lerna came to the aid of the latter. The crab pinched Hercules who crushed him under his heel, but for pity’s sake took the crab up to the heavenly vault where he became the constellation of Cancer. In short, Roberto Cuoghi never ceases to amaze us in his work and to make us reflect, trying to give a face to art, an identity. We leave you with this question, how much does art, when it captures the medium and the message, revive the foundation of our fundamentals and subverts them?

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Il Mondo Magico Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Untitled (La fine del mondo) Italian Pavilion, curated by Cecilia Alemani 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva Photo by Jacopo Salvi Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

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