Voice of Images

At the Palazzo Grassi, curator Caroline Bourgeois traces an in-depth and far-reaching path that is distinguished by a wealth of different applications and examples, covering the entire — albeit brief — history of video art.

It seems close to impossible to watch a moving image without a "musical accompaniment". In our daily lives, we have become accustomed to seeing images accompanied by music, words or sounds that usually have little to do with the visual nature of the subject shown and the audio-visual object. This sound ploy represents an attitude that is driving us ever more towards the video-clip and entertainment — fast, cheerful, lively and painless but that also steering us away from thought and reflection.

Despite or because of this, the Voice of Images exhibition, drawn from the François Pinault Foundation's video collection, conveys a specific and crucial message on using art to re-launch an experimental and intense reflection on moving images in conjunction with the 69th Venice Film Festival at the Venice Lido. Art offers us a space where we are not bombarded with video-jingles of various length and form. It is a niche — metaphorically speaking because the exhibition is spread over 2,000 square metres — where we can draw a sigh of relief. [1]

The exhibition is on display until 13 January 2013 and the curator, Caroline Bourgeois, traces an in-depth and far-reaching path that is distinguished by a wealth of different applications and examples, covering the entire — albeit brief — history of video art.

So, on the one hand, we have Bruce Nauman with his giant wall projection of For Beginners (all combinations of the thumb and fingers) (2010). A sort of sign alphabet created by two pairs of hands to instructions from a voice off-camera, it empties the artwork of all spontaneous and direct meaning to focus on the difficulty of making art and being an artist closed in your own studio. On the other hand, there is Johan Grimonprez 's hall installation Maybe the Sky is Really Green and We're Just Colorblind (2012), a YouTube-otheque that literally and critically assembles video clips taken from the mass media, the Internet and social networks, recreating the sense of fragmentation and zapping typical of contemporary information world.

Top: Bill Viola, <em>Hall of Whispers</em>.© Bill Viola Studio. Courtesy of ARTIUM of Alava, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Photo by Gert Voor in't Holt. Above: Cao Fei, <em>Whose Utopia</em>, 2006-2007, video installation. Photo © Palazzo Grassi, ORCH orsenigo_chemollo — Top: Bill Viola, *Hall of Whispers*.© Bill Viola Studio. Courtesy of ARTIUM of Alava, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Photo by Gert Voor in't Holt. Above: Cao Fei, *Whose Utopia*, 2006-2007, video installation. Photo © Palazzo Grassi, ORCH orsenigo_chemollo

Similarly, Javier Téllez's installation La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Rozelle Hospital, Sydney) (2004) tackles the complexity of reality with an anthropological approach, contrasting Carl Theodor Dreyer's film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) with video material of interviews in psychiatric hospitals in Sydney with patients who participated in a workshop held on the film's subject.

Bruce Nauman,<em> For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and finger),</em> 2010, video installation. © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2012. Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New York — Bruce Nauman, *For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and finger),* 2010, video installation. © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2012. Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New York

Calling these merely videos is quite reductive and, in most cases, the works on display are actually real installations that stimulate the viewers' perception and vital space, as well as their emotions and intellect: see Bureau augmenté: Projet évolutif et itinérant (1997-2012) by Michel François and Whose Utopia (2006-2007) by Cao Fei. Even in those cases where there is "only" a video such as Hassan Khan's Jewel (2010) and Hunde (2003) by Fischli&Weiss, the weight of the images in one and the sentiments in the other is crushing.

Art a niche — metaphorically speaking because the exhibition is spread over 2,000 square metres — where we can draw a sigh of relief

Michel François, <em>Bureau Augmenté – projet évolutif et itinérant</em>, 1997-2012, video installation. © Michel François by SIAE 2012. Courtesy of carlier | gebauer, Berlin. Photo by © Palazzo Grassi, ORCH orsenigo_chemollo — Michel François, *Bureau Augmenté – projet évolutif et itinérant*, 1997-2012, video installation. © Michel François by SIAE 2012. Courtesy of carlier | gebauer, Berlin. Photo by © Palazzo Grassi, ORCH orsenigo_chemollo

The works on show feature very different audio components; narrative or documentary, the nuances and prominence always differ, as in the Hall of Whispers installation (1995) by Bill Viola, in which the sound, or rather whispers, consists of suffocated cries, the meaning of which is impossible to decipher and that design space as they engulf the visitors' bodies, drawing in all the senses in a most evocative manner.

There are some in which sound is totally absent and the installation is silent. Campo San Samuele 3231 (2012) by Zoe Leonard reconstructs a camera obscura in her room on the Grand Canal, with a small hole closed by a lens in the darkened window. The upside-down image of what is captured in outside Venice through the hole has an inner voice which envelopes those looking at it and prompts a fascination with the silent "view" that changes in two ways during the day — in content and in position.

Peter Fischli, David Weiss, <em>Hunde</em>, 2003. © Peter Fischli and David Weiss Courtesy the artists; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Sprüth Magers Berlin-London; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York-Los Angeles — Peter Fischli, David Weiss, *Hunde*, 2003. © Peter Fischli and David Weiss Courtesy the artists; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich; Sprüth Magers Berlin-London; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York-Los Angeles

This contemplation in all the time it takes for some images to settle and some narrations to unravel forces those looking to halt, pause, try to concentrate and empathise with what is beyond the screen, as the artist has decided to make it seen and heard. The evasive eyes of the woman in a burqa and those of two policemen in Peter Aerschmann's Eyes (2006) will keep you glued to the ground while Yael Bartana's A Declaration (2006) pushes to towards the promised land of the man who rows his small boat to it and plants an olive tree.

Peter Aerschmann, <em>Eyes</em>, 2006. © Peter Aerschmann. Courtesy Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris — Peter Aerschmann, *Eyes*, 2006. © Peter Aerschmann. Courtesy Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris

Campo San Samuele 3231 lasts 120 days — roughly the duration of the exhibition — whereas Mircea Cantor's looped video Vertical Attempt is the repetition of a sole second, the time it takes a child to cut the jet of water flowing out of a kitchen tap with scissors. A poetic attempt dictated by the child's naivety and the artist's obstinate desire to achieve something impossible. Mark Wallinger manages to do the same in The Magic of Things (2010), a fascinating archive masterpiece drawn from the visual archives of the TV series Bewitched in which scenes showing only moving objects and no live beings are cut and re-edited. The magic of the things moving around by themselves is a reference to that whole world of objects and things that surround us and that we cannot live without.

Mircea Cantor, <em>Vertical Attempt</em>, 2009. © 2009 Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of Mircea Cantor et Yvon Lambert, Paris — Mircea Cantor, *Vertical Attempt*, 2009. © 2009 Mircea Cantor. Courtesy of Mircea Cantor et Yvon Lambert, Paris

Those with the time should return to Palazzo Grassi three times, once a month for the showings on the mezzanine [2] to binge on videos, including Faezeh (2008) by Shirin Neshat, in anticipation of June 2013 when the Foundation opens Il Teatrino to the public, its third exhibition space in Venice after Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, which will focus on moving images.Claudia Faraone

Shirin Neshat,<em> Faezeh</em>, 2008. © Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Jerôme de Noirmont, Paris — Shirin Neshat, *Faezeh*, 2008. © Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Jerôme de Noirmont, Paris

Notes:
1.The Palazzo Grassi exhibition shows the Foundation's major focus on this medium which, as the director Martin Bethenod writes, has never failed to appear in any Palazzo Grassi-Punta della Dogana exhibition since 2006. Equally, it falls within the renewed interest in video art within the city's cultural production, which started with the Video Medium Intermedium Biennale exhibition. There are also the Foundation's itinerant exhibitions, especially Passage du Temps curated by Caroline Bourgeois which, in 2007, was held in Lille, reiterating the French city's role as a point of reference, given the presence of Le Fresnoy, the video production centre and contemporary art school, and France as a country that is highly sensitive, more so than Italy, to everything that concerns moving images.
2. Programme for the next four months of the exhibition in the two mezzanine cinema-rooms:
September: documentary films on confinement
Temps mort (2009) by Mohamed Bourouissa and Nocturnes (1999) by Anri Sala.
October: narrative film works
Liu Lan (2003) by Yang Fudong and Faezeh (2008) by Shirin Neshat. November: videos on the theme of experience
BB (1998-2000) by Cameron Jamie and Comédie (1965) by Samuel Beckett and Marin Karmitz
December: works presenting the viewpoint of young artists
T'as de beaux vieux, tu sais... (2007) by Bertille Bak and Lake (2012) by Erin Shirreff

Through 13 January 2013
Voice of Images / La Voce delle Immagini
Palazzo Grassi
Campo San Samuele, 3231, Venice, Italy

Voice of Images

At the Palazzo Grassi, curator Caroline Bourgeois traces an in-depth and far-reaching path that is distinguished by a wealth of different applications and examples, covering the entire — albeit brief — history of video art.

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