The first time Daniel Joseph Martinez made The House America Built, a Unabomber/Thoreau cabin painted in Martha Stewart Living’s official colors of the season, Stewart had just been sentenced to prison for insider trading, and her paint licensing deal with K-Mart ended. He’s refabricated it three times since then, using the latest color recommendations from Martha Stewart Living Magazine.
ALT
Coincidentally [or not], the most recent iterations are also the same color palette as the Martha Stewart Chill CBD Päte-de-Fruits she introduced in 2020.
Listening is everywhere in this edition of the Biennale: in the curatorial text that greets visitors at the entrance, in the opening sentence of the guidebook, and as a recurring theme across many of the national pavilions. I wrote about the rise of listening as a motif in curatorial texts in the 60th edition, and its acceleration into the organising principle of this 61st interests me. How is listening practised by the exhibiting artists? How does it manifest within the works? And how do we, as audiences, engage with the results of that listening?
Before writing about the Biennale itself, I want to acknowledge some of the circumstances of this edition. Koyo Kouoh, the first African woman to curate La Biennale di Venezia, was diagnosed with cancer and tragically died very shortly after. Before her passing she had established the title and theme for this year’s exhibition, In Minor Keys,which in light of these events, feels all the more poignant. The jury for the Golden Lion, the Biennale’s art prize, citing Kouoh’s commitment to social justice, announced that it would not consider for awards pavilions representing countries whose leaders were the subject of ICC proceedings, thereby excluding Russia and Israel from eligibility. The jury later resigned, effectively cancelling this year’s prize, and in its place the ‘Visitors Lion’ award was introduced, which many artists withdrew their participation from in solidarity with the jury. With all this in mind, if In Minor Keys asks us to listen differently, then it also raises questions about what forms of listening an institution is ultimately willing to sustain.
Larry def knew this was one of my top two Gerhard Richter Facsimile Objects, which is why he emailed me about it arriving in his shop, priced only 2x what the last edition sold for a few months ago.
Gagosian Shop Now: Richter Titian [greg.org] 📷 Gerhard Richter Facsimile Object, Annunciation After Titian (P12), 2015, Diasec mounted giclée print on aluminum, 125 x 200 cm, ed. 50 or so, this one’s actually from Koller in Zurich, because their pic is better than gagosianshop’s
so the other favorite Facsimile Object is the OG, CR 724-4 (2014), a fullscale version (92 x 126 cm) of one of Gerhard Richter’s own favorite squeegee paintings. He also made two earlier out-of-focus photo editions of CR 724-4, but at a slightly smaller size (73 x 100 cm).
my theory/question: does the change in scale map to the change in focus, presumably by Richter changing the focal length to a specific distance? Or did he just decide the degree of out-of-focus by vibes?
ALT
ALT
📷: Gerhard Richter Facsimile Object, CR 724-4 (P1) (2014), diasec mounted giclée on aluminum, 92 x 126 cm, ed. 500 [!]; Gerhard Richter, Sieben Zwei Vier (2008), diasec mounted c-print on aluminum, 73 x 100 cm, ed. 32+8AP
Larry def knew this was one of my top two Gerhard Richter Facsimile Objects, which is why he emailed me about it arriving in his shop, priced only 2x what the last edition sold for a few months ago.
Gagosian Shop Now: Richter Titian [greg.org] 📷 Gerhard Richter Facsimile Object, Annunciation After Titian (P12), 2015, Diasec mounted giclée print on aluminum, 125 x 200 cm, ed. 50 or so, this one’s actually from Koller in Zurich, because their pic is better than gagosianshop’s
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT