The 54th Venice Biennale. I'm still recovering from three weeks of intense art seeing in Italy. And to help me process the 100+ shows I experienced in an art-induced somnambulistic state, I want to write about some of my favorite shows and events.
Karla Black. Scotland + Venice, Collateral Event.
Karla Black’s solo show of new abstract sculptures, explore energy and mass. Using materials like marble dust, Vaseline, sugar paper, eye shadow, watercolor washes, cellophane and soap, Black creates “almost objects” that spill, pile, and suspend onto the floors and into the space. She describes these works as being caught between thoughtless gestures and seriously obsessive attempts at beauty and asks, what are the consequences of these sculptures- not in meaning but in function. It is such a striking question- how is the artist responsible for the object, and how does it exist as a physical reality with its own language?
This was my favorite show in the entire Biennale. I have never had such an immediate and physical reaction to work before. I might have even gasped a little out loud as an uncontrollable grin took over my face (and trust me, I'm usually quite serious-seeming when looking at art). I cared little about what these forms meant, and was instead completely interested in how they existed and related to each other. They seemed so delicate in nature and yet sturdy, as if one minute they would be whole and another, pulverized. A wonderful smell (from the soap bombs and big block soap forms) accosted me immediately. Oh and they all have really great names like, “What to Ask Others” and “What Others Ask”. It seems like such an incredible investigation of form’s existence, and a lovingness of materials.
