giants among beautiful micro worlds…

Tortona graffiti above still in the macro world, but i’m on my way to the Triennale to see more of the Salone…

Now i really love a good architectural maquette me, so i spent a lot of time in the Triennale at the Repower (swiss power company) and Italo Rota (milanese architect) exhibition. In the following photos you see models relating to our relationship with energy, conveyed via architecture, technology and the environment… and they are brilliant!!!

…of course there is an Italian element here, so there are an inordinate number of tiny female models in even tinier bathing suits…but isn’t the plastic water good??

Did i mention i love these things?…these quiet, intimate little spaces…obviously am missing the whole point of the exhibition…too busy obsessing over these models…oh well…off to read something more…

GIANTS among the microworlds!!, more maquette photos in my flickr here

Other posts from this and previous Salones

in the courtyard of the university

serendipitous interacting children

fuorisalone and potholes

les danseuses

burning down the house

reflections

top notch people watching

bring on the dancing horses

salone spaces

japanese

future artist

salone di milano

salone5

salone4

salone3

salones past2

salones past

local tourism and undavalli caves…

So there is pretty much zero tourism in this corner of Andhra Pradesh other than Indian religious tourism around the Krishna River and here nearby in the Undavalli cave temple in the Guntur district near Vijayawada. A Hindu temple excavated from the rocks around 5th Century AD, it is a spot for locals and schools to spend a Sunday.

Not many western visitors…am asked for my autograph several times…!!!

my “duran duran” moment – giant prone god carved out of the rocks

FYI, The caves are associated with the Vishnukundina kings of 420 to 620 A.D and  are dedicated to Anantapadmanabha Swamy and Narisimha Swamy.

It’s also a great place for monkey spotting, you just need to climb a little into the surrounding hills…

deconstructing constructions…

Beautiful work by Chinese artist Song Dong…Four artists were invited by curator Bice Curiger to create ‘para-pavilions.’ These large site-specific structures are designed to host works by other artists, in order to break up the expansive ‘illuminations’ exhibition. The artist de-constructed his family home in order to create this work…

This made me smile…Artist Lateefa Bint Maktoum at the United Arab Emirates pavilion – think she might be their answer to Jack Vettriano!

Installations by Monica Bonvicini

Yang Maoyuan’s ‘all things are visible‘

China always seems to show in this space… When i asked a Chinese artist friend about his opinion on the work by Yang Maoyuan, he was hugely dismissive saying it was government art by a government artist…so there you go!

other posts on the venice biennale 2011 in this blog

giardini – catch that pigeon

pavilions inside gardens inside the biennale

my “i imposter”

stars of track and field we are

biennale supermarket

l’arte non è cosa nostra

biennale supermarket…

So time to jump back a little bit, back to the Venice Biennale and the Arsenale venue in particular which i never posted about…Impossible to show here really…the vast and beautiful complex of buildings always wins over what is inside (except for the Architecture Biennale from 2010), and worse still “controversial” curator Vittorio Sgarbi (Italian art historian, television personality and former under-secretary of culture) is showing his “art knickers” to us all in the vast Italian Pavilion and it ain’t  pretty…However Sgarbi is not everywhere and for sure as ever it is fascinating and there is much to see and debate…

Sheffield based Haroon Mirza’s The National Apavilion of Then and Now. He is the recipient of the Silver Lion for a promising young artist.

I loved this!! and i got here just in time i think… things were already (purposely) starting to drop off!) it’s Untitled by Urs Fischer – It entailed three 1:1 scale wax sculptures – giant candles actually, which gradually disintegrated as the Biennale months wore on – I took this picture in early July…i guess by now there is just a giant puddle of wax on the floor…

other posts on the venice biennale 2011 in this blog

giardini – catch that pigeon

pavilions inside gardens inside the biennale

my “i imposter”

stars of track and field we are

deconstructing constructions

l’arte non è cosa nostra

evento #2

…So the very next day i tried again with the submarine base (see previous post) and this time i found it open.

Inside was a sound installation by David Sheppard (again part of the Evento programme)…the space inside is highly atmospheric;  a huge, monumental concrete cavern with channels for water and acoustics to match,

…built in 1943 to withstand heavy bombing…today it is used for occasional concerts and events…i am completely in love with it…I filmed a little and you can hear some of the David Sheppard sound installation in the background:

other EVENTO posts on this blog:

firemen and le corbusier

evento

bordeaux and submarines

evento out, about and beyond