Waterbones
by Loris Cecchini
Venice Biennale 2017
at the Fondaco die Tedeschi
During the Venice Biennale there are art installations all over Venice. You just can't see everything. You'd have to spend a month! So, sometimes you have to go off of a photo and other times you just happen upon a space that has a sign out front and pop in for a look. In this case it was the former.
I'd seen an intriguing photo advertising this site specific installation by Italian artist Loris Cecchini and curated by Hervé Mikaeloff. It was made from thousands of movable thin steel modules. "A nod to algorithms found in nature and industrial design materials."
To me it felt like being in some kind of space age organism ...
"The title, “Waterbones,” underlines the morphological lightness and freeness and appears as a biological metaphor: The cells open and bloom, releasing molecular components in interaction with the space, developing autonomous and self-sufficient ways."
~Loris Cecchini
The shapes and materials were reflective and beautiful! Though they were not moving, they seemed to dance through space. I wish I could have laid on the floor under them and listened to Bach. They felt somehow musical to me.
It's funny because I read the following quote after writing the above.
"The installation is composed of eight thousand identical elements in shiny steel linked together. The structure is continually varying thanks to the element’s hookup system. The particularity stands in the geometry of each element and in the fact that they are internally empty: This creates a great lightness in the overall structure that gives me the possibility to expand and contract the form in an organic way, almost as if it were becoming a biological element. The final result is a great “dancing” form in the space that is offered in continuity with the architectural structure."
~Loris Cecchini
As modern as the space looks, the actual building opened in 1228 and is a historic building right on the Grand Canal in Venice. It was rebuilt after a fire in the 1500s in the Italian Renaissance style. It's right near the Rialto Bridge and used to be the headquarters and restricted living quarters of Venice's German merchants.
In the 20th century it was used by Venice for the "Poste Italiane" and in 2008 it was bought by the Benetton Group. Rem Koolhaas was hired to incorporate a huge shopping area inside. There were a lot of beautiful things but I was on an art mission and didn't stop to shop!
“I have devised my creative language around the ideas of the object, the model and architecture. Often the work refers in different ways to the idea of inhabiting space. Currently, I am exploring the space of sculpture and of the environmental installation according to a notion of the parcelization of material, almost a sort of molecular deflagration of sculpture, in which scientific phenomenology becomes an intimate structure and go-between for vision ..."
~Loris Cecchini
View from the roof of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi
I love how seeing various kinds of artists broaden you perspective of what art can be and also how it impacts your immediate mood or state of mind. This experience has happened to me over and over visiting many art exhibitions. On this occasion, I did leave with a sense of lightness and a burst of positive energy that still took me by surprise!
For more of the interview with Loris Cecchini click here
More Links
Loris Cecchini (official site more works and a slide show)
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