2013 Biennale di Venezia review

‘Curatorial style and art historical thinking: exhibitions as objects of knowledge’, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 147 (2014) 446-452. , 2014

The paper explores methodological conditions for the recasting of exhibitions as objects of knowledge. Martin Kemp's curatorial projects and exhibitions are examined in this light and in the context of Ken Arnold's formulation of 'ideas-laid curating'. Arnold's notion sets a number of parameters, which are explored in this paper in the example of Martin Kemp's curatorial projects. Curatorial practices are not contingent almost exclusively on questions of display, or museological theory, but as the paper shows on considerations of 'art historical style'. In the example of Martin Kemp's curatorial projects, 'ideaslaid' curating, and indeed theorizations about curatorial style, emerge as questions contingent on art historical style. The centrality of historical thinking, as a consistent theme underlying the narratives which Kemp's exhibition projects but also art historical writing undertake, is evidence to the above. While Arnold describes Kemp's curatorial style as interdisciplinary, interdisciplinarity and Kemp's 'ideas-laid' curating describes an object, rather than simply a form of practice and museological practice, of art history; given Kemp's strong reliance on art historical tropes of thinking characteristic of his own methodology applied in his writing and teaching. The paper explores connections between art historical styles of thinking and curatorial style proposing that in order to reconsider exhibitions as objects of knowledge we have to take into consideration in attempts to theorize about them 'local' aspects of knowledge; here the perspectives in the writing of art history which have influenced Kemp's curatorial work.

MODERN ART IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION: SCIENCE, EDUCATION, ART MARKET, 2018

Historiography of the Venice Biennale. One of the latest trends is to represent the history of 20th century art as a process of artistic events. Interest on the problem of biennalisation of culture among researchers appeared almost simultaneously with the comprehension of the processes of globalization and of formation of nations - in the middle of the twentieth century. By the 2000s, interest in these problems had not abated, and now we have the opportunity to be acquainted with the extensive literary heritage, especially for the Venice Biennale. The authors of the monographs on the history of the exhibition Enzo di Martino and Lawrence Alloway unanimously declared in both 1969 and 2005 that "the history of the Biennale does not exist" [4, p.10], and that the studies devoted to this international exhibition "are almost completely absent "[1, p.180]. Nevertheless, the authors offer readers two point of views on the exhibition. In the first case the point of view of the organizers of the event, (Enzo di Martino presents the history of Biennale as a series of director’s projects). And a point of view of curator of a national pavilion (Lawrence Alloway, curator of the American pavilion, speaks about “a vivid set of national identities "[1, p.17]). The exhibition is thus viewed like a nation’s competition, or an upcoming display system. Later, Oleg Sidor-Gibelinda used the principle of Lawrence Alloway in a monograph dedicated to the presence of Ukraine at the Venice Biennale. In the introductory article, the author notes, "with the advent of national pavilions, the principles of a" high feast "are formed." The gourmet spectator does not wander the labyrinth from now on, but selectively inspects national artifacts "[9, p. 100]. Finally, the Russian composers of the monograph "Russian Artists at the Venice Biennale, 1895-2013" do the same. We see the personal stories of the curators of the Soviet pavilions and the history of the approval of the USSR and beyond the post-Soviet Russia on the territory of Venice. "For Russian artists, in turn, reading their art through the prism of national stereotypes ensured success" [8, p.35]. National pavilions of the Venice Biennale, as an object of research, appear for the first time in dissertational scientific works. Pascal Budillon Puma in 1989 examined the international influence of the Venice Biennale on Italian art criticism in 1948-1968. Describing Soviet participation, the author often referred to his "sluggishness" and "piling up" [2, p.88]. Marilène Malbert agreed with her in 2006 in her thesis "International artistic relations at the Venice Biennale, 1948-1968", a historical essay based on the materials of the Archives of the Venice Biennale ASAC. The researcher noted the "retrograde" nature of Soviet exhibitions and the "inflexible" exhibition policy [6, p.150]. Finally, Maria Vittoria Martini, writing about the structural changes in the Biennale, said, "the Soviet Union alone did not take the innovation of the leadership of the Biennale" [5, p.95], about the events of the 1970s, when the Biennale turned from a conservative structure into a "modern art laboratory ". In the works of these authors, the Biennale is analyzed as a simple sequence of events without an actual analysis of the production and perception processes of the public of various national pavilions. Eastern Europe at the Venice Biennale, including the newly formed states, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is perceived by researchers as "unchanging", "devoid of evolution" [6, p.171], the case of "resistance to progress" and "stagnation" [5, p.101]. The conferences of recent years are devoted to the study of the Venice Biennale. The collection of scientific articles "Where Art Worlds Meet: Multiple Modernities and The Global Salon: la Biennale di Venezia International Symposium", which is attended by such important figures in the international art arena as Carolyn Jones, theorist of "Biennial Culture" or Robert Storr, critic, art historian and curator of the Venice Biennale of 2007; is a reflection of heated debates in curatorial circles, on painful issues for the Venice exhibition. Among other things, the commercialization of the venue and its academic character. Later in 2007, the conference "Starting from Venice: studies on the Biennale" offers various approaches to the study of the venue. Therefore, the Swiss researcher Beat Wiss offers an interesting method. The author emphasizes that the artistic biennale can be regarded as a place of continuous formation of modernity: national participation in the structure of the Venice Biennale can be regarded as a modernized cultural identity of the country [7, p.120]. Concluding the review of the literature, it can be stated that a full theoretical study of the definition of the role and the place of the Biennale in modern art practice was not conducted. The analysis of the art of individual states has generally not enough attention, the understanding of the role of Eastern Europe in the context of the exhibition is debatable, and finally the question of the artistic and political aspects of the presence of the former Soviet republics at the Venice Biennale and the problem of designing their identity is not analyzed. Literature 1. ALLOWAY, Lawrence the Venice Biennale, 1895-1968: from salon to goldfish bowl. London: Faber Physical Description, 1969 2. BUDILLON PUMA, Pascale L’analyse d'art italienne devant les apports étrangers à la Biennale de Venise des arts figuratifs (1948-1968). Paris: Université Paris VIII, 1989. 3. BIENNALE di Venezia International Symposium, Where art worlds meet: multiple modernities and the global salon: la Biennale di Venezia International Symposium. Venezia: Marsilio, 2005. 4. DI MARTINO, Enzo, The history of the Venice Biennale: 1895-2005. Venezia: Papiro Arte, 2005. 5. MARTINI, Maria Vittoria La Biennale di Venezia 1968-1978: la rivoluzione incompiuta. Venezia: Università Ca 'Foscari, 2011. 6. MALBERT, Marylène Les relations artistiques internationales à la Biennale de Venise 1948-1968. Paris: Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2006. 7. RICCI, Clarissa (dir.) Starting from Venice: studies on the Biennale. Milano: ET. Al., 2010 8. MOLOK N. ed. Russian artists at the Venice Biennale, 1895-2013. Moscow: Stella Art Foundation, 2013 9. Sidor-Gibelinda, O. Українці на венеційськііі бієнале: сто років присутності. - Kiev: Our Hour, 2008

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2019

Jacopo Bellini, the astute founder of a family workshop, collaborated first with his two sons, Gentile, the eldest, and Giovanni (born out of wedlock), and then arranged the marriage of his daughter Nicolosia to Andrea Mantegna in 1453. Thus, Jacopo brought into the family a brilliant young parvenu, almost an autodidact who had attracted the attention of humanist patronage in Padua. The exhibition at the National Gallery London, until late January 2019, explores the relationship of the brothers in law in surprising ways. It will open in a slightly different form at the Gem€ adegalerie, Berlin, on 1 March 2019. At the beginning, Jacopo's altarpieces are contrasted with his radically innovative book of drawings from the British Museum, known as the Bible of Venetian art, with compositions predictive of later Venetian painting by his workshop. Unlike any other exhibition, this one is about artistic collaboration between Bellini and Mantegna created by curatorial cooperation between the National Gallery in London and the Gem€ adegalerie, Berlin, with spectacular loans from other museums, and extensive research over many years. This kind of close analysis of how the Renaissance occurred in Northern Italy is unprecedented in the early modern field. In art historiography a similar approach was taken when showing how Picasso and Braque competitively created Cubism. The exhibition often uses data from conservation, interrogating well-known pictures with the latest scientific means to reveal new insights about how they were made. In the exhibition Mantegna emerges as the strategic artist, deciding on a style that he consistently develops, while Bellini is always surprising, unpredictable, questioning, deeply religious and competitive. Some of these paintings originated in close proximity, but for the first time are placed in meaningful confrontations 500 years after they were created. One of the most surprising revelations concerns the two versions of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, one by Mantegna in Berlin from the mid-1450s, the other by Bellini in Venice from the mid-1470s (Figure 1). Mantegna's version may include a self-portrait on the right side, with his wife Nicolosia, with whom he had seven children, on the left. Conservators have revealed that Bellini traced the composition from Mantegna's [1]

STARTING FROM VENICE. Studies on the Biennale., 2010