Edgar Heap of Birds
dal 5/6/2007 al 29/9/2007
Segnalato da
5/6/2007
Edgar Heap of Birds
Giardini Reali e Aeroporto Marco Polo, Venezia
Most Serene Republics: in un contesto costituito da segnaletica multilingue (italiano/inglese/cheyenne), un dialogo sui luoghi, sulla storia e sulla creazione degli stati-nazione attraverso atti di aggressione, trasferimento o sostituzione di popolazioni e culture. L'installazione, articolata in due parti, riesamina il passato e la nostra complicita' negli eventi attuali.
Most Serene Republics
Edgar Heap of Birds for the 52nd International Art Exhibition
The exhibit will be organized by National Museum of the American Indian curators Truman T. Lowe (Ho-Chunk) and Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo).
The 2007 Venice Biennale has selected conceptual artist Edgar Heap of Birds to participate in
the 52nd International Art Exhibition as part of the collateral events. The Smithsonian’s National
Museum of the American Indian is sponsoring Heap of Birds at the Biennale as part of its
contemporary Native American arts initiative. “Most Serene Republics,” a two-part public art
installation, will be presented from June 6 to Sept. 30.
“The National Museum of the American Indian is pleased to participate in another Venice
Biennale, as part of the museum’s ongoing commitment to presenting contemporary Native art to a
world audience,” said W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne), founding director of the museum.
“Most Serene Republics” by Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne/Arapaho) uses the framework of
multilingual signage in Italian, English and Cheyenne to engender a dialogue about place, history and
the creation of nation-states through acts of aggression, displacement or replacement of populations
and cultures. This installation re-examines the past while questioning one’s complicity in present-day
events.
The first installation will be located in the Giardini Reali (Royal Gardens) near Piazza San
Marco and will consist of eight text panels that examine and deconstruct elements of Venetian history,
including the Fourth Crusade at the beginning of the 13th century, plunder, and Venetian artistic and
nautical achievements. The second installation will be comprised of 16 text panels and will be located
between the Giardini Napoleonici and Via Garibaldi, along the Viale Garibaldi. Through the second
installation, Heap of Birds pays homage to the Native actors and warriors who traveled to Venice and
other European cities as part of Wild West shows in the 1880s (such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
shows)— many of whom suffered and perished through illness, mistreatment or accidental death as a
result of these European encounters.
To complement the two public art installations that are part of “Most Serene Republics,”
Heap of Birds also has created a series of individual text panels that will be posted throughout Venice
during the 52nd International Art Exhibition. Heap of Birds’s thought-provoking words will appear on
a billboard at Marco Polo International Airport at the customs checkpoint for international arrivals
from outside the European Union, as well as on posters throughout the city and notices in the
vaporettos (water buses) that travel the canals.
Heap of Birds’s work frequently draws upon language in form and content, history, and
memory and engages audiences in a conversation about forgotten or subversive relationships. His
seminal work in the 1980s in the New York art scene helped define the pluralistic and sophisticated
direction of Native art that continues to this day.
Giardini Reali, San Marco
Viale Garibaldi, Castello
dal 6 giugno al 30 settembre
Aeroporto “Marco Polo”, arrivi internazionali
dal 6 giugno al 31 agosto