PAVILION OF ANDORRA
at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.
Inner Landscapes | Confrontations
The installation of painter Joan Xandri invites us to reflect on and comprehend the limits that we must all now assume to protect our privacy, or even our souls. The work of sculptor Agustí Roqué should be viewed like a fine landscape, tending to the horizontal, with no focal point or centre of symmetry, intended to make its spectators receptive to an encounter with themselves, and a space with which they can play mental games.
PAVILION OF ANDORRA
at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia
Inner Landscapes | Confrontations
Artists: Roqué, Joan Xandri
Organiser: Govern d'Andorra, Ministry of Culture | www.andorra-biennal.ad
Curators: Paolo De Grandis, Josep M. Ubach
Commissioner: Henry Périer
Deputy Commissioners: Joana Baygual, Sebastià Petit, Francesc Rodríguez
Coordinator in Venice: Carlotta Scarpa, PDG Arte Communications
Running period: 9th May 2015 – 22nd November 2015 | 10 am – 6 pm (closed on Mondays)
Preview period: 6th – 8th May 2015 | 10 am – 8 pm
Venue: Spiazzi, (Arsenale | Campo S. Martin) Castello 3865
In the face of the tyranny of a gigantic numerical memory imposed by the vertical soft power of the big internet firms, or where amnesia is totally impossible because all data are stored, the privacy perimeter of a billion individuals has disappeared. The installation of painter Joan Xandri, some twenty pictures presented as the long prow of a ship, placed upright on the ground and in disorder, often back to font, also concealing parts of adjacent works, invites us to reflect on and comprehend the limits that we must all now assume to protect our privacy, or even our souls. By doing this, he also leads us to an unusual space where the observer is drawn by his or her imagination into a second visualisation, where the flow takes its inspiration from a work which deliberately blurs the traditional codes of painting.
The work of sculptor Agustí Roqué should be viewed like a fine landscape, tending to the horizontal, with no real focal point or centre of symmetry, the basis of post-modern still-lives, intended to make its spectators receptive to an encounter with the unknown through a confrontation with themselves, and a space with which they can play mental games. A sculpture that, as often with this painter, does not invite touch but a physical exploration of its space. Agustí Roqué moves with ease in a postmodernism in which he has erected a work with total autonomy, which while fully identifying with the diverse potentialities of a precise system of production, manages to preserve its freedom. He puts before the visitor three sculptures specially created for the Venice Biennale. Three works grouped under the evocative label Inside-Inside, which clarifies, if clarification were needed, the marvellous work on space to which he has long dedicated the whole of his creative energy, giving the sculpture the additional object of a space-time event.
Dr. Henry Périer