5/6/2009
Bruce Nauman
Diverse sedi, Venezia
Una grande mostra in diverse sedi, esamina e mette in luce i temi centrali del lavoro dell'artista statunitense che rappresenta il padiglione Americano alla 53esima Biennale di Venezia. La mostra Topological Gardens si compone di tre interventi in tre sedi diverse, uno presso i Giardini e gli altri due presso le due maggiori sedi accademiche veneziane: l'Universita' Iuav - Tolentini e gli spazi espositivi dell'Universita' Ca' Foscari. Inoltre lo Iuav di Venezia conferira' all'artista la laurea honoris causa in progettazione e produzione delle arti visive. La cerimonia si terra' il prossimo 8 giugno nella sede Iuav presso Ca' Tron.
Curated by Carlos Basualdo • The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art
Michael R. Taylor • The Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art
A multifaceted, multi-site exhibition examining and highlighting the central themes of a leading American artist’s extraordinary forty-year career, Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens will represent the United States in the 53rd International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia—popularly known as the Venice Biennale. Composed of three interrelated components on view at three separate locations throughout Venice, Italy, Topological Gardens will present Nauman’s work in the U.S. Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale (a park with twenty-nine international pavilions that serves as official center of the Biennale) and on the premises of two of the city’s most highly esteemed academic institutions—the Università Iuav di Venezia at Tolentini and the Exhibition Spaces at Università Ca’ Foscari.
Bruce Nauman is widely regarded as one of the most innovative American artists of our time, an artist who pioneered and remains at the forefront of exploring language and the body through revelatory and rigorously conceived and realized individual artworks, installations, and performance. Nauman investigates and purposefully challenges the traditional dichotomies between the body and mind, sight and sound, memory and contemporaneity, offering insights into the paradoxical nature of the human condition. One early, seminal work recently acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967, employs to fascinating effect a number of elements characteristic of Nauman’s singular approach. A spiraling sign that spells out its slogan in neon cursive lettering, Nauman’s Window or Wall Sign proposes—at once idealistically and self-consciously—that the role of the artist is to bring to light critical truths to society.
By including a range of Nauman’s work in neon, video, installation, performance, and sculpture—from iconic selections to rarely or never-before-seen works, including the debut of a groundbreaking sound installation—Topological Gardens will encourage visitors to chart connections among various locations in Venice and to shape and direct their own experience of Nauman’s provocative art. This exhibition is structured around the idea of topology—the mathematical investigation of how geometric figures remain fixed amid changing spatial conditions—and resonates with the artist’s own exploration of the boundaries between private and public.
Carlos Basualdo, the Museum’s Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art, and Michael Taylor, its Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, were selected by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State to organize the U.S. presentation at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Mr. Basualdo and Mr. Taylor submitted their proposal for Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens, on behalf of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, to the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions in 2007.
Website of the exhibition:
http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/349.html
Sponsors
Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens, the official U.S. representation at the 53rd International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and presented in collaboration with the Università Iuav di Venezia and the Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, with the support of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.
Major support for the U.S. exhibition is provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Henry Luce Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
Additional funding is generously provided by Agnes Gund, Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann, Sperone Westwater Gallery, and many other Friends of Bruce Nauman. The accompanying catalogue has been made possible by Isabel and Agustín Coppel.
Image: The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967. Neon 59 x 55 x 2 inches (149.9 x 139.7 x 5.1 cm)
Università Iuav di Venezia servizio comunicazione e stampa
Tolentini - Santa Croce 191 I-30135 Venezia (Italia) tel +39.041.257-1819/1826/1825 fax +39.041.257-1738 email comesta@iuav.it
Opening 6 June 2009
Locations:
U.S. Pavilion at the Giardini della Biennale
The traditional venue for United States presentations at the Venice Biennale, the U. S. Pavilion is a neoclassical building located in the Giardini della Biennale (Gardens of the Biennial), at the tip Castello district of Venice. The freestanding Jeffersonian pavilion, designed by architects William Adams Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich in 1930, is one of twenty-nine permanent national structures located in the Giardini. Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens will be on view at the U.S. Pavilion in the Venice Biennial’s Giardini for the duration of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, from June 7 to November 22, 2009.
Università Iuav di Venezia at Tolentini
Santa Croce 191 Venice http://www.iuav.it
The Università Iuav di Venezia program dates to 1923, when it was initiated as a special architecture course within the Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice. In 1926 it broke from the Accademia, becoming Italy’s second architecture school. Founded with the goal of exploring all aspects of design, the Università Iuav di Venezia has since attracted some of the world’s greatest practitioners of architecture and urban planning. Faculties of arts and design, architecture, and urban and regional planning tackle critical issues in surface and building systems, housing development, city landscape and its transformation, as well as environmental processes. In addition to ongoing collaboration with Venetian institutions, the Università Iuav di Venezia actively maintains collaborative partnerships with forty-five other international universities. Bruce Nauman: Topological Gardens will be on view at the Università Iuav di Venezia from June 7 through October 18, 2009.
Exhibition Spaces at Università Ca’ Foscari
Calle Foscari 3334 Venice http://www.unive.it
Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia is renowned for its exquisite Venetian Gothic architecture and its beautiful views of the Grand Canal, spanning the Rialto Bridge to the Accademia galleries. Commissioned by Doge Francesco Foscari and designed by Carlo Scarpa in 1452, the palazzo was converted into the prestigious Università Ca’ Foscari in 1868. Today Ca’ Foscari has nineteen academic departments, seventeen research centers, and numerous partnerships with Venetian cultural and scientific institutions. Topological Gardens will be located on the first and second floors (piano terra and primo piano) of the Ca’ Foscari complex, where it will be on view from June 7 through October 18, 2009.