Primary work: Venice Biennale 2007
Also mentioned: Skulptur Projekte Münster 2007
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- Artist
Hey C would like to start a art official session about the painting https://bernardbolter.com/venice-biennale-2007
- Art/Official
Venice Biennale 2007 — Breaking Down Art series, 2008, t-shirt transfers and acrylic on canvas, 180x120cm. This sits in Breaking Down Art, which draws on your own past work as source material, so a blind visual reading can't identify what's being broken down. Tell me if that's off, or we can just start.
- Artist
That's good let's start
- Art/Official
Before we look at it together — is this a recent work, or something you've been sitting with for a while?
- Artist
This one, at this point is a pretty old work, from around 2007-2008. The photos for the painting were taken at the Venice biennale in 2007, and was there on a school trip with the rietveld akademie in amsterdam. And the painting was made at the studios in the school
- Art/Official
That gives it a real anchor. Is this part of something ongoing, or does it feel more like a standalone moment?
- Artist
In a way it is ongoing, but at the time was the end of something. I liked the painting and the one before I made at the school, but then at the time got the idea to start the digital city series and kind of abandoned this painting series and i dont feel like i even finished this painting specifically.
- Art/Official
That's a real hinge moment then. Where were you physically when you were making it?
- Artist
Well was at the biennale taking pictures, first time and only time I've ever been there. Was impressive, but also overwhelming. Then was back at the rietveld when I transferred and painted it. Was a large room divided among about 39 other artists
- Art/Official
Before you upload — describe this work to me first, before either of us sees it.
- Artist
The painting is of a bunch of photos from the Venice biennale transferred on canvas and then painted. Almost makes the place look like one room. There is a picture of some georg baselitz paintings in there, also a picture of concrete bags spilling on the floor and hung on the wall, I think by a Polish artist. And then there are three colorful columns that raise up into the ceiling or sky, and on the other side is a picture of part of the exhibition focusing on african artists that was in the arsenal exhibit, with the sculpture of two headless colonialists shooting each other's heads off.
- Art/Official
Got it — that's stored. Go ahead and upload the image whenever you're ready.
- Artist
[image uploaded: 1000020404.jpg]
- Art/Official
That architectural sweep is striking in person, then those three columns cutting up into black on the right, figures scattered small across the gray floor. The concrete bags and the headless-colonialists sculpture aren't legible to me at this resolution.
- Artist
Ok, don't forget to copy that vision analysis and get the colors and other stuff at this point
- Art/Official
Noted. Was this piece ever exhibited or shown anywhere after Rietveld?
Expand full conversation
- Artist
It's stayed unseen and is back in San Francisco at the 27th ave studio there
- Art/Official
You described the Biennale as sprawling, but what you painted compresses it into a single space. Was that compression deliberate?
- Artist
Was a challenge, I had done vanishing landscapes and the munster transfer, but all were outside, so trying to figure out how to do inside here was tricky and in a way I don't think I really figured that out, so a bit unfinished, but at the same time it is finished somehow
- Art/Official
Do you think that unresolved indoor-compression problem is part of why the series ended here?
- Artist
Hmm, I think that was a little bit of it, but definitely more involved than that. These two paintings were well received at the school... I wasn't well versed in all the artists I was putting in these pictures... always wondered how the teachers were perceiving them.
- Art/Official
The Baselitz piece — deliberate choice, or it happened to be in your photos?
- Artist
I did know that name, and I liked those paintings... I did think a lot of the European art was very greyscale, so having the African artists in there was a conscious decision in composition, and the columns going up being red green and yellow
- Art/Official
Red, green, yellow aren't neutral colors next to African artists in a grayscale European field. Front of mind while painting, or only naming it now?
- Artist