February 12, 2014 More Biennale

Posting these images from the Venice Biennale has turned into somewhat of a research project.  Though I tried to photograph labels for artist names and materials used, I apparently fell down on the job when it came to identifying individual pieces.  And I’ll try to remember to comment on sizes of the work, too.

Stefan Bertalan’s austere and cerebral sculptural piece, Maxwell’s Demon,1967-68,  was intriguing from many different angles on its waist-high white pedestal.  Composed of black and white cotton threads in a wood frame,  it cast wonderful shadows on the walls around it.  And I learned that Maxwell’s Demon refers to a thought experiment, created by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell, that appears to contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Quite opposite in feeling was the work of Jakob Julian Ziolkowski. These highly imaginative yet disturbing paintings were created in 2013 for the Biennale in response to The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorges Luis Borges.  Using oil on canvas or panel and relatively small in size but not in impact, these highly saturated and writhing forms have a presence that relates to dreams or nightmares.

One Hundred Eyes One Hundred Fingers

Continuing the theme of fantastical images, Shinichi Sawada’s clay figures, all named Untitled and dated 2000-2012,  were at the same time engaging and threatening.  Their clay spikes reminded me of African sculptures bristling with nails but these are from a mythology of the artist’s imagination.