Scroll Though This (The Venice)

Venice this year was all about the mega gesamtkunstwerk, kicking off with the heartbreaking Germania pavilion, which Christoph Schlingensief (1960-2010) turned into EGO, an out of control meta-fluxus church dedicated to his own death.

lung cancer

photos and videos cannot really decribe the simultaneous heavyness and lightness of this piece. Somehow it reminded me of The End, the 2009 Greek pavilion by Nikos Alexiou, who also passed away this year.

Moving on to the Swiss pavilion the always over the top gesamtkunstwerker Thomas Hirschhorn went over the over the top with "Crystal of Resistance"

aluminum foil car seats amongst a chaos of

monoblock chairs with empty aquariums and so much more

photodress menequin ending in crystal fringe while fingers scroll through photos on tv monitors

more broken mirrors

squirrels guarding magazines and crystals in brown tape caves was really the least of it. Again, you had to be there.

Moving on to gesamtkunstwerk number 3, Mike Nelson at the British Pavilion

who incredibly recreated a collage of Istanbul instances, a labyrynth of spatial and programmatic snapshots of everyday mayhem

complete with open air areas to just reming you that you have no idea where you are anymore: Neither Istanbul nor Venice, just inside his mind

or reaching down to grab his heart 

(Danish Pavilion curated by our very own Katerina Gregos)

or becoming scaled into space (Dominik Lang Czech pavilion)

Rotating (Dominik Lang Czech pavilion)

practicing (Elas Lassry Arsenale)

burning (Urs Fischer)

melting office chair 

Franz West showed his kitchen insideout, with all the works that hang there

Haroon Mizra got the golden lion for his "The National Apavilion of then and now"

a mountain of plinths

Gabriel Kuri upsidedown trashcans 

(see you in Basel next week, together with A LOT of the Arsenale, 

which was great, and ever so transportable, 

gallerists must be happy indeed

great Rosemarie Trockel

FOS boat party, Danish pavilion

the at the great Padigline Internet, at San Servolo island, which this year hosted BYOB Venezia featuring gnes Bolt, Alterazioni Video, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anna Franceschini, Billy Rennekamp, Britta Thie, Claudia Rossini, Cristian Bugatti, Eilis McDonald, Elisa Giardina Papa, Giallo Concialdi, Hayley Silverman, Interno3, Iocose, Jaime Martinez, Jeremy Bailey, KUNSTKAMMER, Les liens invisibles, LG Williams/Estate Of LG Williams, Luca Bolognesi, LuckyPDF, Marc Kremers, Marco Cadioli, Marisa Olson, Marlous Borm, Martin Cole, Matteo Erenbourg, Mai Ueda, Mike Ruiz, Miltos Manetas, Nazareno Crea, Nikola Tosic, Parker Ito, Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Priscilla Tea, Protey Temen, Rafaël Rozendaal, Rene Abythe, Riley Harmon, Sarah Ciraci, Sarah Hartnett, Theodoros Giannakis, UBERMORGEN.COM, Valery Grancer, Wojciech Kosma, Yuri Pattison, Constant Dullaart, Daniel Swan, Duncan Malashock, Jodi, Panos Tsagaris, Travess Smalley.

and curated by Margherita Balzerani, Gloria Maria Cappelletti, Caroline Corbetta, Silvia Ferri De Lazara, Marina Fokidis, Elena Giulia Rossi, Valentina Tanni, Mara Sartore, Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Reemen, Jan Aman, Manuel Frara, David Quiles Guilló, Miltos Manetas, Lev Manovich, Angelo Plessas, Rafaël Rozendaal, Domenico Quaranta, Francesco Urbano and Francesco Ragazzi.

a night of mega projections in a garden on an island 

inspiring Luigi Ontani at Peggy Guggenheim, which showed the collection of Ileanna Sonnabend

great Wilhelm von Gloeden

the over at the super weird Dogana, which I had visited before, and had not idea what a little over manicured ruin it was. I think the Tadao Ando renovation almost beats the fake ruins of Knossos in it's Disneyfied decadence. Why? Anyway I only post things that I like in this blog, so its not that I dont like it, its just that I was taken aback by the extreme fakery provided by endless coats of Euros.

inside the space is equally weird, and I'm not just saying this because they didnt give me the cute yellow bag for free. Still Marcel Broodthaers' piece seemed to resist the space

I think I would prefer these amazing Chen Zhen candle houses against a proper white cube

maybe my favourite video of all time, Bruce Nauman Clown

Adel Abdessemed

over at Palazzo Grassi further akwardness, though Urs Fischer's Raymond Pettibon exhibition wallpaper still rocks

Angelo did a Robot Poetry Reading from his just published Automatic Book

who also put together the fantastic Book Affair ay MetriCubi

we finished the Venice Rounds with 

The Mediterranean Approach at Palazzo Zenobio, 

curated by Adelina von Furstenberg and Thierry Ollat 

and featuring Ghada Amer, Ziad Antar, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Marie Bovo, David Casini, Hüseyin Karabey, Ange Leccia, Adrian Paci, Maria Papadimitriou, Khalil Rabah, Zineb Sedira, Gal Weinstein, Peter Wuethrich (image David Casini)

OLGIATI XXL

 Just got sent the megabook on Valerio Olgiati, edited by Laurent Stadler and others

 the book is made by somehow gluing double pages against each other, resulting in an eminently openable series of perfect spreads

 quirky pet shop minimalism

 brilliant wedding cake extravaganzas

 a white building I almost identical to my "Mavala" project, only 5 years earlier

and a delirious stack of 3 ground floor buildings to make a 3 floor building

Two videos: METASCREEN

Here's the two works I'm currently showing at the METASCREEN exhibition at Gloria Maria Gallery in Milan, featuring your truly, Travess Smalley and Priscilla Tea

Building an Electronic Ruin, 2011

Moonlight, 2011

The Networked Ruin of Mont Parnes

 Recently we went up to visit the about-to-be-demolished Mont Parnes Casino.

 Absurdly enough, amidst the current economic crisis, online and offline casinos are flourishing in Greece. The mountain of Parnes (ancient name for Parnitha) fell victim to arson resulting in an enormous fire in the summer of 2007, losing most of it's forest, and somewhat destroying the notable modernist casino  (P. Mylonas architect). Apparently there is an urgent need for a casino on this mountain, so it will be rebuilt in the spirit of the modernist era (count the number of wrongs in just one sentence).

 approaching the building today, you dont know exactly what you are looking at. Through the barren landscape you see a kind of messy collage of weird volumes.













on closer inspection it looks more like a factory, or some unplanned infrastructural decision, floating between being constructed or demolished


A random haywire network of tubing seem to have engulfed the modernist remains of the casino like some kind of ruin overgrown with mechanical ivy, all the while sprouting ISObox modules and scaffolding.

The mechanical ivy disappears inside a beige isobox tunnel, and eventually hooks up to the cable car that used to bring well dressed visitors up. Now, does it just bring ruble down? One cant help thinking of this wreck of a casino still chugging along, hooked up to a network of debts and despair, a constant exchange of all kinds of debris and leftovers. What used to be a glamorous ascent is now just a dismal descent.



the clean cut casino is barely visible amongst the folklore village of additions

the whole place seems deserted, and one wonders how it still functions. On  the web I find an ad for the recently inaugurated poker room.

Walking around, it seems like no such poker room would be possible

peeking inside reveals a hot mess

 but the back of the building is laid out with a perfectly manicured lawn!? Of course it makes sence, this is the only part of the surroundings that is visible when you are inside losing your money. It is not a landscape but a set design, a simple foreground for the view of the endless sprawl that is Athens below

I guess at night, both the casino and the city below look like there's nothing to worry about