- Venue
- Tesa Della Nuovissima 105 / Arsenale di Venezia
- Location
(I am not finished with this yet !!!)
.. About the, already known to be elusive, Hamsterwheel at the Venice Biennale…
When I still hadn't found this show on the 3rd day of the opening weekend I dedicated an afternoon of blister inducing canalside and allyway walks to finding it…
Of course the Arsenale staff sent me off into the wrong direction to a vaporetto stop from which it is impossible to reach the Hamsterwheel show.
But here it goes: the directions:
Take a vaporetto to Bacini – don't look anywhere near the southern side of the map of Venice for this. It is up above the Arsenale.
Don't get off at Celestia as the Arsenale people may instruct you to. You will only find yourself wandering around like a fool for 2 hours (Yes, I did that.., leading some of the locals to wonder about my sanity once they had seen me carrying my un-neccessary amount of bags past them for the 3rd, 4th time..).
From Bacini you can walk very very easily. And in fact I would say it is your only reliable way of actually getting to the show. You will almost pass by Joseph Beuys's work, too. He has been placed at the same stop.
To help with your orientation: you can actually see the "Hamsterwheel" warehouse/space, accross the water from the Arsenale, when you walk from the main Arsenale building to the Chinese and Italian Pavilions..
Anyway.
The artists seem to mostly be occupied with relaxation so don't expect too much of a welcome when you have finally found the show.
Neither will anyone rush to explain anything to you (as they do at some of the independent pavilions), but on the up side the promotional / press cotton bags are not guarded with the same verocity as they are on the other exhibition sites, so after all your trecking of Venice to get there you should be rewarded with at least the illustrated cotton bag.
Now the art:
I am not sure that I really understood a theme if there is one.. Perhaps a longer, more thorough engagement with the show, than an opening weekend of 100s of works allows, would have helped there.. To me this show was ecclectic and exciting in the way that the work was presented. I felt like in a playground, with much to explore and investigate, a small jungle of art and ideas..
Because of my time restrictions as much as my excitement of actually having found the show, I ran past many art works, straight to whichever pieces seduced my senses the most. I I worked my way around the show the way I do when I have a chance to return. In a way this is good, it is a sign of relaxation but of course I completely overlooked works which I now wish I had spent some time around.
Overall I enjoyed the Hamsterwheel exhibition a lot. I loved the wooden structure, Hamsterwheel- rollercoaster type construction. I enjoyed the 'finger having a sexual experience with the fist' video.. (Douglas Gordon, Franz West, "Fingerfuck" 2007) The strange flesh-colour-painted- cushion- lookalike sculptures, (actually on reflection I see that they are over-dimensional doughnuts… by Franz West 2007, I am not sure but I think the title is : "Wittgenstein at the Cool Books") the lovely wall with theb/w collage remninicent of Bruegel's Babeylonian tower, on the other side; which made me lightly salivate…(by Ugo Rondinone "nesting ground 2006"; he and I clearly should collaborate and make the most beautiful art work ever…)
Unfortunately some of the video boxes were out of order, which is a bit of a disappointment when you make such an effort to see them.. But the videos that are on display (the ones that I saw) are engaging, quirky and interesting, although they are not the most original or strongest works..
Marcus Coates work ("Radio Shaman" 2006) should be up and running on one of the monitors, but it must have been stuck inside one of the broken video boxes.. Shame. It is work that I have seen at the last Liverpool Biennial, and it's a shame that it isn't on view during the opening days when it could be seen by the international media and gallerists..
There were many more pieces of work to be explored, but I have a remarkable ability to overlook half of every exhibition, but whatever I didn't really take on board still formed part of an atmosphear which I enjoyed hugely.
Verdict:
Go and find the show. I really felt refreshed there. With space to enjoy the works, space outside to look over the water onto the Aresnale site where the art lovers and art wannabees scramble from door to door, lapping up the experience, eagerly…
Ah, and if you are really lucky you will get to see two naked men on a rickety float, paddling between the Arsenale and the Hamsterwheel… I am not sure to what exact purpose, but the standing-steering-artist-paddler nearly fell off the float laughting… I hear they are providing transport from the main site to the Hamsterwheel… Well, all I say is: remember that silly see through plastic bag they make you buy at the airport to stick your handcreme/ suncreme in…? Well, keep that bag and stick your camera in it… I have heard that they have cap-sized the float sveral times…
I am glad I made the effort. Which I can't say about every show I trapsed to and through…
This 'Hamsterwheel" exhibition had an enjoyable and underestimated lightness, that much of the Biennale lacked. As I got off at the Giardini Vaporetto stop on the first day of the press pre-views there was a young man handing out some forgettable A4 sized leaflets saying something along the lines of that Art should perhaps not take itself too serious. even so I forgot the exact content of his work and leaflets, I partially agree.. So much work that I saw at this year's Biennale felt somewhat stifled and suffocated under the coat of trying hard, a little too hard… The sense of play and the soul of the work has suffered under that..
List of all the main ARTISTS on show and the artists showing video works.
Curated by Veit Loers..(I try my best to not miss any out…)
Jean-Marc Bustamante
Urs Fischer
Olivier Garbay Geltin
Douglas Gordon
Rachel Harrison
Sarah Lucas
Paola Pivi
Rudolf Polansky
Ugo Rondinone
Tamuna Sirbiladze
Una Szeemann
Piotr Uklanski
Franz West
Toby Ziegler
and the film/ video artists (arranged by Veit Loers):
John Bock
Marcus Coates
Peter Fischli / David Weiss
Christian Jankowski
Georg Herold
Mark Leckey
Erik van Lieshout
Rudolf Polanszky
Jose Ruiz Gonzalez
Annika Stroem
Tamura Sirbiladze
Jonathan Monk
Hans Weigand
Thomas Zipp
Ralf Ziervogel
David Zink Yi
for all details refer to their website: www.hamsterwheel.eu and here's their flyer:http://www.hamsterwheel.eu/bigpix.html
