Biennale Architettura 2018 – Freespace 16th International Architecture Exhibition
BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2018 - FREESPACE
16TH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION
VENICE, 26.05 - 25.11 2018
Freespace, open spaces are fashionable. It is the meeting place, where there are no secrets, everything is wide open, clear, without discretion. The walls are demolished but with the attention not to touch the bearing ones, otherwise, the only result would be the general collapse.
Is it the best solution?
This is narrated in the 16th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, held from May 26th to November 25th 2018.
The curators were Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara and the pavilions set up, as every year, at the Giardini and the Arsenale. The title chosen is Freespace with 63 nations and seven new entries including the Vatican.
For each Biennale both Architecture and Art it is necessary to tell a series of stratospheric numbers to demonstrate their success: it is one of the most successful interactions between art and mathematics.
The demonstration of the open spaces beauty happens with the creation of modern worlds, rich in human flows, always unidirectional.
A City of Comings and Goings, Crimson Architectural Historians
This is the case of the A City of Comings and Goings in the central pavilion.
The authors are the collective Crimson Architectural Historians. They have the fantasy of showing the city of the future, emancipated, without restrictions and barriers. They want total coexistence, all together, and in peace.
The result is a confusing metropolis; it is imposingand colourful, but with little hope. But the collective perhaps think for different open spaces as abandoning the capitals and return to the countryside, recalling events that occurred in South East Asia many years ago.
Speaking of South East Asia, to find an original a beautiful open space we have to go to the Thailand pavilion. It is named Blissfully Yours, it is the title of an elegant movie by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is the filmmaker of the huge Thai forests and their creatures: the spirits.
Inside there is just light. Even Blissfully Yours converts into a sign of a pub, projected into a wall with so many small men playing with it.
Another simple but ideal open space is the Hungarian pavilion. A single staircase leads to the roof where a temporary terrace was built. From there we can observe a wonderful free space: Venice and the trees of the Gardens.
Blissfully Yours
The same effect is in the Dutch pavilion. The orange colour is dominant, unique. Small niches, with mirrors inside, carry us into a large room, with a mega pillow with black and white chess and lying on coloured puppets.
But talking about walls, the best opinion can only come from the Germans. In their pavilion they produced a video installation From Death Strip to Freespace. The film contains a continuous succession of voices and persons living near a defensive system. It is not only a question of real barriers but of division between two conflicting populations: Korea, Cyprus, Israel, Mexico, Ceuta, Ireland. The images proceed quickly thanks to the side mirrors giving us the feeling of an endless row. The monologues are alternated in each video: they belong to both parts and obviously declaim a desire to move freely.
Office, Marten Kuijpers and Victor Munoz Sanz
Apart from the numbers, the study and the universality of the Biennale is in the perspicacity, grown over time and in the annual visits.
A careful visit makes more cunning and clever. The multitude of exhibited artworks obligates for a dynamic and immediate choice. The complexity of the Biennale Architettura is an incentive both for a rapid interpretation and for instantly rejecting the lies and self-referential productions.
Then there are the masterpieces but that's another story.
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#YvonneFarrell #ShelleyMcNamara #AcityOfComingsAndGoings #CrimsonArchitecturalHistorians
