Surfing through the National Pavilions in Venice has never been an easy exercise considering time constraints and socialite fatigues . We normally get to check the usual suspects and the ones we are somehow personally linked. Leaving aside the ViceVersa show @Padiglione Italia for which I will write my impressions elsewhere I try and attempt a hierarchy of my own:
1. Greece 2. Romania 3. UK 4. Poland 5. Chile.
History Zero
The argument at the Greek Pavilion " History Zero" by Stefanos Tsivopoulos is quite relevant for our contemporary crisis scenario and it is its relevance that made me think this is the most accomplished pavilion at Venice 2013.
Money is not the beginning or the end of all things. Society as such could survive by adopting other non monetary exchange systems. It did so it the past and so it might have to consider it an option for a brighter future. The exhibition central piece is a 3 plots video that poetically brings together an elderly and suffering woman whose hobby is to make origami money, an artist seeking inspiration for an artwork and an immigrant who is surviving by collecting scrap metal. The woman will throw her origami money in the rubbish that will be found by the wandering immigrant that will abandon his trolley full of metal which will be used by the artist as a real ready made. a circle of uplifting, endless possibilities are here on display. Tsivopoulos had also edited a fantastic book compendium where all the alternatives to money are mentioned. An excellent publication and not a bad sign for a country like Greece..
1. Greece 2. Romania 3. UK 4. Poland 5. Chile.
History Zero
The argument at the Greek Pavilion " History Zero" by Stefanos Tsivopoulos is quite relevant for our contemporary crisis scenario and it is its relevance that made me think this is the most accomplished pavilion at Venice 2013.
Money is not the beginning or the end of all things. Society as such could survive by adopting other non monetary exchange systems. It did so it the past and so it might have to consider it an option for a brighter future. The exhibition central piece is a 3 plots video that poetically brings together an elderly and suffering woman whose hobby is to make origami money, an artist seeking inspiration for an artwork and an immigrant who is surviving by collecting scrap metal. The woman will throw her origami money in the rubbish that will be found by the wandering immigrant that will abandon his trolley full of metal which will be used by the artist as a real ready made. a circle of uplifting, endless possibilities are here on display. Tsivopoulos had also edited a fantastic book compendium where all the alternatives to money are mentioned. An excellent publication and not a bad sign for a country like Greece..
