My dear Diane & dear shaded viewers,
When I recieved the invitation for Il Crepaccio's new exhibition in Venice from Caroline Corbetta, I was pretty excited. As I wasn't planning on going to Biennale for the preview, a short visit to Venice was not in my schedule at all. Mind you, the curator of the exhibition Caroline Corbetta is not someone I hear everyday so the reason why I took the train very early in the morning was not purely out of friendship and loyalty but more out of curiosity and respect for her refreshing vision of the contemporary art scene. I trusted my guts and thought she would surprise me once more in Venice after all these times in Milan. After all, I am talking about the creative mind who rented a school bus, got it parked in front of an old 'trattoria' and screened artistic short movies by students.
Well, I found out soon enough why this initiative was even more interesting: she had teamed up with the online retailer giant www.yoox.com where one would be able to click and buy the emerging artists' works. Il Crepaccio means crevage and Caroline knows how to carve into unexpected places to exhibit art: first an old restaurant's dusty window and now an adhoc page into an online outlet.
Serena Vestrucci's I Ritagli del Tempo
I arrived to Venice on the last day of the exhibition, May 31st and met her in person there. After taking me through the whole thing, she explained why she came up with this idea. Even though Biennnale has more than 80 padiglione where international artists exhibit, the locals of Venice have no visibility in this 'international art fair'. This is her way of creating a 'crevage' inside the Biennale to showcase 10 emerging Italian artists.
I was sad when I found out that Tim Blanks was faster than me at getting his hands on my favourite piece by Thomas Braida. Serena Vestrucci, whom I've supported right off the first day of Il Crepaccio, was present with three works: Ti lascio meta fogli da collage, Il momento in cui prima o poi si cominci a leccare and Ritagli di Tempo. There's a certain poetry to Serena's works that whatever she creates, she accomplishes to welcome me into her wonderland. The one that stuck me most is the first one where she used colorful collage papers to create an artwork that will not be revealed to our eyes and she created 'Ti lascio meta fogli da collage' with the leftovers. Mysterious? You can bet on it.
I've recently taken up on cross-stitching so Barbara Prenka's work was quite interesting for me. I'm sorry that I am not reviewing all artworks but I'm not an art critic and have no intention to offend the real professionals by going into details. I'd rather write about my personal tastes, such as that of Marco Gobbi 'From The Banks of a Thought' which is a bottle created by broken glasses found on a beach. I read in Marco's biography that he used to break everything as a child which is why he decided to put things back together as an adult. Well done, Marco.
Marco Gobbi's From The Banks of a Thought
I spent the night in Venice at a close friend's house where we had a dinner with international art collectors. I was happy to see how they were hungry for new talents and highly appreciated my 'monolog' about Il Crepaccio.
I wonder when Caroline will organize another exhibition of Il Crepaccio, and more importantly, where she will organize it. If I happen to get an invitation from her for an opening in Australia, will I go? I bet I will.
If you'd like to take a look at the artworks by these emerging talents, please check here: http://www.yoox.com/project/crepaccio_art
YT
