Venice Biennale: Mice and Words

Posted on November 29, 2013 by McPhedran

From the Serbian Pavilion, Vladimir Veric’s Nothing Between Us, conveying a loss of innocence. And from the Australian Pavilion, Simryn Gill’s scattered words.

Ragnar Kjartansson’s S.S. Hangover

Posted on November 26, 2013 by McPhedran

Ragnar Kjartansson’s latest work, S.S. Hangover, offers peaceful music and quiet, a journey that goes nowhere, yet never ends. Six musicians play a 5-minute piece (composed by Kjartan Sveinsson) in a mini-Viking ship that circulates two large slips at the back of the Venice Biennale Arsenale complex.

Click image to see a 7-minute clip of S.S. Hangover by Ragnar Kjartansson

There is humor in the piece – the name of the ship, the seemingly pointlessness of the journey – but it is a contemplative work, offering the viewer a moment to think, to drift, to consider where we might be next.

Ragnar Kjarrtansson watches over the S.S. Hangover

I watched on the final day, a chill in the air, as everyone smoked – musicians, composer and artist alike – and the moment to disembark arrived and they set sail on the last tour of a six-month journey.The captain pushed off, pipe in hand, and steered the miniature vessel on its tiny course, and the musicians played, paused and played again, left a lone trumpeter on a dock, returned for him again, played and drifted on in silence, played again. Happily, it is an almost endless thing, something to remember as we look forward to Kjartansson’s next work, more time to think, at The New Museum in 2014.

Venice Biennale 2013: “You’re Going the Wrong Way!”

Posted on November 25, 2013 by McPhedran

We had to catch the final sailing of Ragnar Kjartansson’s S.S. Hangover at the far end of the Venice Biennale 2013 and returned a couple of hours later against the crowds…

Through the Bahamas Pavillion.. Through South Africa…Past the Giant Woman…Winding our way through all the perversions…My partner telling me that this year’s Biennale was more about the artists’ stories rather than the art…Under the Swinging LatvianTree…Around the Representation of Symbiosis…Back to the open air…All of which gave me that distinct Poseidon Adventure feeling: You’re Going the Wrong Way!