Category: Cultural Travel

Venice Art Biennial 2024 – 01

Yinka Shonibare’s sculpture, “Refugee Astronaut II” (2016), is a contemporary artwork in the exhibition curated by Pedrosa.Credit…via Yinka Shonibare and James Cohan Gallery, New York

Venice Biennial 2024 – 01

Today, April 20, 2024 (Non English the date would read 20-04-2024), the Venice Art Biennial opens to the public. It is the 60ieth.

I will be visiting it half June and look forward to it. I visited it in 2005 and in 2015, with almost 10 year intervals.

Straniere Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere

Adriano Pedrosa

Is the title this year under which Adriano Pedrosa, from Brazil, curates not only the exhibitions in the Arsenale and the Giardini, but also in various venues in the city.

The Board of La Biennale di Venezia met today on Thursday, December 15th and, upon the recommendation of President Roberto Cicutto, appointed Adriano Pedrosa as Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with the specific task of curating the 60th International Art Exhibition to be held in 2024.

Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil) is currently the artistic director of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP.

Prior to that he was adjunct curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998), curator in charge of exhibitions and collections at Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2000-2003), co-curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), curator of InSite_05 (San Diego Museum of Art, Centro Cultural Tijuana, 2005), artistic director of the 2nd Trienal de San Juan (2009), curator of 31st Panorama da Arte Brasileira-Mamõyaguara opá mamõ pupé (Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 2009), co-curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, and curator of the São Paulo pavilion at the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012).

At MASP Pedrosa has curated many exhibitions, including solo shows dedicated to the work of Tarsila do Amaral, Anna Bella Geiger, Ione Saldanha, Maria Auxiliadora, Gertrudes Altschul, Beatriz Milhazes, Wanda Pimentel, and Hélio Oiticia, as well as the ongoing series devoted to different Histories: Histories of Childhood (2016), Histories of Sexuality (2017), Afro Atlantic Histories (2018), Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories (2019), Histories of Dance (2020), Brazilian Histories (2022).

He has recently been appointed 2023 recipient of the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence, given by the Central for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.

Pedrosa has a degree is Law from the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro and masters’ degree in Art and Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. He has published in Arte y Parte (Santander), Artforum (New York), Art Nexus (Bogotá), Bomb (New York), Exit (Madri), Flash Art (Milan), Frieze (Londres), Lapiz (Madri), Manifesta Journal (Amsterdam), Mousse (Milan), Parkett (Zurich), The Exhibitionist (Berlin), among others.

STATEMENT FROM PRESIDENT ROBERTO CICUTTO
“The choice of Adriano Pedrosa as curator of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is the result of a process that grew out of our experience of working with Cecilia Alemani. I believe it is essential to build on what emerged from the previous Exhibition (this was also the case with the appointment of Lesley Lokko, following the International Architecture Exhibition curated by Hashim Sarkis) to direct our next choice.
Pedrosa, an esteemed curator and the director of the important Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil (designed by Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi), is known for the competence and originality he has shown in conceiving his exhibitions with a vision open to the contemporary, working from an observation point of the world that cannot disregard the nature of its place of origin. Rather than restricting his vision, this has extended it to an indispensable debate so that now more than ever La Biennale might address contemporary art not to provide a catalogue of the existing, but to give form to the contradictions, dialogues and kinships without which art would remain an enclave devoid of vital sap.
I would like to thank the Board of Directors of La Biennale for having accompanied me in this choice”.

STATEMENT FROM ADRIANO PEDROSA
“I am honored and humbled by this prestigious appointment, especially as the first Latin American to curate the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, and in fact the first one based in the Southern Hemisphere. The Biennale is certainly the most important platform for contemporary art in the world, and it is an exciting challenge and a responsibility to embark on this project. I look forward to bringing artists to Venice and realizing their projects, as well as to working with the Biennale’s great team. For this unique opportunity, I am grateful to the Biennale President, Roberto Cicutto, as well as to the Institution’s Board

Cited from the official Biennial site.

We make Soupe and Music

We make Soupe and Music at the Porc Festival in Italy.

Porc Festival in Italy

Porc Festival in Italy

Italian Porc Festival or La Festa del Nino in the contrada Sant Adrea di Suasa.

Mille Miglia – Stirling Moss

I’ve been taking photo’s of the 2017 and the 2018 Mille Miglia editions without publishing anything yet. As an intro to what I will publish the story of Stirling Moss with some Mercedes participants.

But before all I would like to share a very good video by a big smile Dane who participated in 2012 with his vintage Alfa and will give you a good impression of what this is all about:

In 1955 Moss won Italy’s thousand-mile Mille Miglia road race, an achievement Doug Nye described as the “most iconic single day’s drive in motor racing history.” Motor Trend headlined it as “The Most Epic Drive. Ever.”

Moss, then 25 years old, drove one of four factory-entered Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sports-racing cars. Based on the W196 Grand Prix car They had spaceframe chassis and magnesium-alloy bodies, and their modified W196 engines ran on a mixture of petrol, benzene, and alcohol. The team’s main race rivals were the factory-entered Ferraris of Piero Taruffi, Eugenio Castellotti, Umberto Maglioli, and Paolo Marzotto.

Journalist Denis Jenkinson was Moss’s navigator. He had intended to go with John Fitch, whose idea it had been to take a navigator, but when Mercedes assigned a 300 SL to Fitch, the American agreed to Jenkinson riding with Moss in the faster SLR. Jenkinson had come up with the idea of pace notes in the form of a roller map of the route on which he had noted its hazards—an innovation that helped Moss compete against drivers with greater local knowledge. Jenkinson used hand signals to tell him about the road ahead. Radio communication had proved ineffective when they tried it, because when Moss was fully concentrated on his driving he was oblivious to Jenkinson’s voice.

Fangio, who regarded the race as too dangerous for passengers, drove his SLR alone, as did Karl Kling. Hans Herrmann drove the fourth car with mechanic Herman Eger as passenger.

The race was a timed event, and competitors started singly at one-minute intervals. Moss’s Mercedes left the starting ramp in Brescia at 7:22 a.m. (hence the car’s race number 722). Castellotti’s Ferrari left one minute later, and Taruffi’s at 7:27.

After about 90 miles, as Moss approached Padua at 175 mph (282 km/h) he saw in his mirror that Castellotti was closing fast. When Moss misjudged a corner and collided with some straw bales Castellotti went past and built an increasing lead. After 188 miles of racing the Italian had to stop in Ravenna to replace the Ferrari’s tyres, and fell behind again. Marzotto’s Ferrari started well but the tread separated from a tyre at over 170 mph (274 km/h) and he had to withdraw from the race because the spare turned out to be the wrong size.

The petrol tank filler came adrift as they neared the Adriatic coast and drenched them both. Jenkinson’s spectacles were blown off by the slipstream when he vomited over the side of the Mercedes; he carried a replacement pair. Arriving in Rome, he and Moss were told they were leading from Taruffi, Herrmann, Kling and Fangio, but from then on they had no way of knowing whether any of their rivals had gone ahead on elapsed time. Soon after Rome, Kling’s race ended when he went off the road avoiding spectators and crashed into a tree.

When Moss and Jenkinson finally arrived at the finish in Brescia they learned that Castellotti’s Ferrari had retired with transmission trouble and they had won. Fangio took second place, nearly 33 minutes slower, his Mercedes delayed by engine trouble and running on only seven cylinders by the end. Maglioli, in the sole surviving factory-entered Ferrari, took 45 minutes longer than Moss and finished 3rd.

Moss’s time of 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds, and his average speed of 98.53 mph (159 km/h) for the 1000 miles, set course records that still stand. The race was discontinued two years later.

Before the race, he had taken a “magic pill” given to him by Fangio, and he has commented that although he did not know what was in it, “Dexedrine and Benzedrine were commonly used in rallies. The object was simply to keep awake, like wartime bomber crews.” After the win, he spent the night and the following day driving his girlfriend to Cologne, stopping for breakfast in Munich and lunch in Stuttgart.[7]

Via Wikipedia Stirling Moss

I’m a Fat House by Erwin Wurm

I'm a Fat House

I’m posting this for various reasons today:

  1. It is well past an anniversary of Happy Hotelier.
  2. I must learn again to post more and lighter stuff. Stay tuned!