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Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi announced its intention to bring the Vatican Pavilion at the Venice Biennale a few years ago. Scheduled for the edition of 2011, it was postponed until a later date. Maybe in 2013. When I asked him (it was the fall of 2010) he said that there were no technical time to get ready in 2011. But as he spoke, it seemed that there was the idea, but it was difficult to achieve. The real truth is that, in February 2012, there seems to be not even the idea. For now it seems that last December the cardinal had gathered a hypothetical scientific committee that could deal with the project. It would be part Sandro Barbagallo, art critic of the Osservatore Romano, Micol Forti, director of contemporary art collection of the Vatican Museums, Francesco Buranelli, former director of the Vatican Museums, and now secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage and father David Dall’Asta, Director of Collection Lercaro of Bologna. The committee, leaked by voices in the corridors of the Vatican, in theory should take care to make the guidelines recommended by Ravasi. But it seems that at this moment there are no directives. The working group would have to meet again in January. But the four summonses have not arrived. As things stand, therefore, in addition to Ravasi’s statements in the press, there would be nothing concrete. And the Vatican Pavilion at the Biennale remains a mirage.

In the cardinal’s mind, we hope, are taking shape three possible scenarios to achieve what will be known as the Ravasi Pavilion:

1) Clerical version of the Sgarbi pavilion

It has already been tested last summer on the occasion of the exhibition for the birthday of Benedict XVI. A list of a hundred artists who alternated big names, illustrious unknown, people under any suspicion. Each artist donates a work of his choice. No worries of organicity.

PROS:

Easy to achieve. Inexpensive. Satisfied much of the roman art undergrowth related to cardinals of the Curia and monsignors. Some controversy in Catholic circles.

CONS: Basso profilo mediatico. Critiche degli esperti di arte.

2) Art-chic version of the arcade of the Gentiles

It’s the idea announced in several interviews by the same Ravasi who would be the true curator. Names of worldwide importance such as Bill Viola, Anish Kapoor, Yanis Kounellis. A nice wide biblical theme (the book of Genesis). Total freedom for artists. Few works, but impact.

PROS:

Global media coverage. Praise of art experts, big collectors and six pages of Vogue. To say that the Church is once again a partner for great art.

CONS: Difficult to achieve (to convince the artists to participate). Expensive. Ensuredthe wave of criticism of the Catholic world. Need for a bulletproof vest to run in the Vatican.

3) Cur(i)atorial version

Choose a true curator but Catholic. Entrust the task of selecting a small group of leading artists (one to five, not necessarily ultra-cool) can get involved in a project in which the curator can really have a say. So artistic freedom and freedom of the curator. As a model could be taken the Evengeliario ambrosiano.

PROS: Opportunity to say that the Church is back to do commission in high levels. Poor media coverage.

CONS: Difficulty in finding a true curator but Catholic without triggering feuds. Criticism both from Catholics by art experts. Poor media coverage.

Matèria en forma de peu, 1965, Mixed media on canvas, 130 x 162 cm.

Antoni Tapies is dead today in Barcellona. He was 89. Count Giuseppe Panza wrote these beautiful lines on him:

«Never in human history there were many dead in half a century (between 1914 and 1945, ed). The Reason, having lost her subjection to a higher law, could justify every crime. If the Russian intelligentsia were not consenting to a rigid ideological obedience was right to remove it, if the middle class could not be collectivist had to be destroyed, if the Jews could not be of sincere nationalists were to be burned in a furnace. When there is no longer the expectation of another world, and there is only this world, the goal justifies the means, if happiness is on earth, must be made ​​at any cost.
Tàpies expressed the crisis, the loss of this way of thinking. It was more intense than ever the need to get out of this destructive spiral to find other certainties, other hopes.
His paintings had the colors of the desert, where there is no life, a land oftangled long gone by convulsions, with some rare sign of a remote human presence, as if they had given up living there while waiting for an imminent apocalypse. The expectation of something extraordinary, who was to come, perhaps terrible, even salvation».

Giuseppe Panza, Ricordi di un collezionista, Jaka Book, 2006 (pp 58-59)

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Marlene Dumas, Amy – Pink, 2011 (particolare)

An exhibition of new works, amazing. It is difficult that foreign artists, such as Marlene Dumas, exhibit new works in Italy. But the Stelline Foundation has succeeded. So they will arrivein Milan fifteen works by the southafrican-born lady living in Amsterdam. The subjects are unsettling: Emi Winehouse, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Anna Magnani, the Crucifix … I say it can be a great show. We will see.

MARLENE DUMAS
Milano, Fondazione Stelline (corso Magenta 61)
13 marzo – 17 giugno 2012

Marlene Dumas, Ecce Homo, 2011 olio su tela, 200x100 cm courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, Londra

Marlene Dumas, Tree of Life, 2011 olio su tela, 200x100 cm courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, Londra

Marlene Dumas, Solo, 2011 olio su tela, 175x87 cm courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, Londra

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italiano.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italiano.

I wrote about the crazy exhibition of Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings in the 11 galleriesof Larry Gagosian last August here. In my opinion among all the bad ideas that Hirst has had, this is the best. After all these paintings are quite harmless, a tribute to art for art’s sake. If I had the money, I were happy to hang one of these pictures in my living room. It is really easy to match them with a IKEA sofa. I say this because it seems obvious that the real Hirst is not here, but elsewhere. The Jerry Saltz explained it in a smart essay published on Art in America. I think that he goes to the heart of the matter, especially when he writes:

There’s a moment in the movie Blade Runner when Roy, the Nexus-6 replicant (a beautiful, nearly human android), finally finds the scientist-inventor who created him.  Roy asks what any of us might ask, could we confront our make:  why, after giving us life, do you have to take it away?  The slightly bemused scientist listens and then asks, “What seems to be the problem, Roy?” – to which Roy emphatically answers, “Death seems to be the problem! I want more life… fucker!”  In a nutshell, that’s what Damien Hirst’s work is all about – “more life.”

In 2012 marks, among other things, centenary of the birth of William Congdon, the young protégé of Betty Parsons and Peggy Guggenheim, who decided to leave a promising career as action painter  (Parson in the 50s sells him at higher prices compared to Jackson Pollock) and retired to Italy, spending the last thirty years of life, occupying an apartment next to the Monastery of Cascinazza in Gudo Gambaredo in the countryside around Milan.

Recalling perhaps too much for his conversion to Catholicism, and certainly too little for his extraordinary creative energy and artistic ability, Congdon will be devoted to an exhibition at the Knights of Columbus Museum in NewHaven (Connecticut) entitled “The Sabbath of History: William Congdon” (from 22 February to 16 September 2012). The most famous works of American painter will put together five of the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s Meditations on the Holy Week. Nothing you can say now about the quality of the exhibition, however perplexing the choice of venue. Is it possible that any large museum that houses works from those of Congdon was willing to promote a retrospective on him? Pity, then, that no more interest in Venice about what Peggy Guggenheim said about him: “William Congdon is the only painter, after Turner, who understood Venice, its mystery, its poetry, his passion“.

William Congdon, Piazza Venice 12, 1952

I always thought that the best works were the pictures of Venice. Yet in recent years, by attending the places where he lived, I realized, in spite of appearances, even the charge of hyper-realism in works about the countryside. Just compare some Congdon’s paintings and the colors of the satellite imagery of the area of Gudo.

Gudo Gambaredo from Satellite

William Congdon, Primavera 3, 1981