Ireland at Venice 2010

post some photos…

(please)

Without seeing it I was of the impression it was retrospective.
If that helps them plot the future and proper tourism I’m all for it.

Not a lot online

http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/index.html

http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/photocenter/index.html?PAGEN=0&BACK=0

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0723/1224275279163.html

http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/media.aspx?article=9f3a96c7-1017-45a5-9f07-c6b84cf243e5

ONQ

The website for the Irish pavilion has the ‘make it yourself’ vibe going too – absolutely embarrassing in my professional opinion (for that is what I do).

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/venice/venice_biennale_irish_pavilion.htm

it does look like the courier just dumped it off. Not very “green” either – all that paper

I was at the Dublin Launch and they said all the paper and ink was totally recycled.

besides that green stuff the photos look really atmospheric in that space.

While I have no problem with the subject matter – DBM’s purist modernism will do fine thank you very much – the exhibition has neither shape nor make to it.
Imagine all the health and safety issues from holidaying postmen having to pick up their multiple compilations as the stacks reduce in height.

If it’s going to be a compose-your-own perhaps we should have included in exhibit the work of some Irish self-builders.
Even in the Tiger years they accounted for 35-40% of new build houses – an astonishing figure.

Ummm – not sure how many used RIAI approved architects though…
… possibly part of the problem, not the solution…

ONQ.

@stevenhiggins wrote:

I was at the Dublin Launch and they said all the paper and ink was totally recycled.

besides that green stuff the photos look really atmospheric in that space.

recycling paper requires energy. To do it needlessly is still a waste.

I’m not convinced that dumping a pallette of cvs in a room formally occupied by an irish monk does or says much for or about Ireland, or DBM for that matter

I’m concerned that it seems to amount to a poorly presented retrospective of a good firm.

Another concern is that it fails to showcase any new Irish talent – the AAI awards were better.

ONQ.

caption:

“In the future we will project circles onto plans and that will set-out the unsolicited Renaissance”

I guess you could get them framed?

once upon a time architects relied on princes and popes…

Any images or reviews of the Tom de Paor installation? I can’t find anything on any of the reviews.

@maggie wrote:

Any images or reviews of the Tom de Paor installation? I can’t find anything on any of the reviews.

Given that Tommy Power was to build “a folly of pleated linen and lavendered softwood”, called “4am”, in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the Giardini of Venice – to “explore liminal domestic space” – which, apparently would somehow “help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves” , maybe no-one knew what was happening

there’s an interview done at VB2010 here – it’s not relevant to VB2010 but a of some interest if you can get past the first 3 rather painful minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it-zypsOjLs

Okay, I confess, half the time I understand only some of your posts.

That time I understood so little of it I actually had to look that up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality

This could be where I am, Gradaute, not yet Registered.

I may be in a liminal state about to undergo a rite of passage.

Or yer maun could like stalking from behind the curtains in a room.

ONQ.

What a shit interview. At 6min in he almost got going, then at 7.30, something apparently important turns into another ramble. Talk about being overawed by the interviewer! Say what you mean, man! You’re there. You were picked by Sejma! … Sadly, too late now.

Oh my god that interview – beautifully lit and done – Is it a case of painful silences and slow thought processes make the interview seem deeper and more meaningful 😉 or am I allowed question TdeP

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Oh my god that interview – beautifully lit and done – Is it a case of painful silences and slow thought processes make the interview seem deeper and more meaningful 😉 or am I allowed question TdeP

depends what time it is on the watchtowers!
the school of shinohara… or gins the night before? bombay?

He did hint about irish translation but he didn’t seem interested in it too much..
He could of stuck his neck out but he didn’t. um ohh

@missarchi wrote:

caption:

“In the future we will project circles onto plans and that will set-out the unsolicited Renaissance”

what………

I would love someone to explain this one.

Are circles not already 2 dimensional and therefore not in need of projection. As for setting out, does this mean that the circles are construction lines, or guidelines (for building one might assume). The unsolicitied (un invited?) does this mean it is coming anyway and if so do we need to set out the circles. So does this deny any hope for architects, condemed to futile acts of drawing that will have no influence whatsoever……. Maybe is cleverly cloaked satire…

Maybe its a comment on how few architects use the primary building form – the arch – these days.

Curves are used for dramatic effect in free form buildings like Gehry’s, but then, if you look at the structural sections, you see its all set design, held up by outrageous substructures.

The rectangle, square, shard, beam – all get a look it, but it seems its not hard core if there is a soft line lying around that isn’t used to make the building look like and oversized kitchen appliance inserted unlovingly into the urban form.

Libeskind goes so far from the classical design ethos as to have tried to use an assymetrical interior for his recent Grand Canal theatre, until the clients reminded him that this was what the acoustics and performers required, or so I’ve been told.

The rebellion against vernacular design is won and we’re all talking of Babel, each an island denying its context and seeking common cause internationally and not locally, a denial of culture to rival anything achieved by the Masters of the world in two world wars.

Soon culture will mean nothing to any of us in terms of blood and bone and place – it’ll be a pastiche of meanings selected by choice from a book on a coffee table.

ONQ.

I finally looked at that interview.
Never has a man looked so uncomfortable saying so much in so few words – a lot going on in his head.
He touched on so many things in very few words that its hard not to feel frustrated only seeing 9 minutes and 20 seconds of his life.
His interst in “hand-made” infrastructure, field patterns tower houses, hay barns, Houses of the Middle Size, his simple and self-effacing descriptions of his own work, the closure of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LhxWbwOpZo

One of the longest sentences or paragraphs showed hsi interest in his own area growing up.
“The quality of those things is not about high order – its more about the compromise – how the typology is adjusted into a situation and I suppose the compromise of its construction as well – that’s a big source of interest…”
And on the infrastructe project of the motorway he was involved in he spoke of a “dew of things” – lovely expression, but tempered it with what seemed to be a sad realisation of how little even the greatest of designers can bring to the table in terms of what actually gets done.

“Again that project was never completed – its only partial, as all these grande plans seem to end.”

Any more from Tom de Paor?

ONQ.

This is the thread of the Tortured Artists, with associated tortured sentences and words, representing the struggle to articulate the depth and meaning of ideas.
Note also the prevalence of meaningful “…” (dot-dot-dots) in the middle and at the end of sentences.

Strangely similar, sonically, to the experience of having a particularly heavy dump.:cool:

The philosophical implications of dumping are not to be underestimated.

Whether on the macro-scale of landfill, leaving by implication a literally negative impression of the society so “cleansed”.

Or the micro-scale of person ablution, where focussing too much on Zen discipline can see the person becoming “one with the dump” and metaphisically disappearing down the bowl in an endless communication with the selfless divine.

ONQ.

[Sorry, I forgot all the “…”‘s, heavy pauses, and head-scratching – insert (scratch, looking into middle distance) as as you may feel appropriate…]

We should rename this Pseud’s Corner.

According to F McD you’re not going to understand ‘4am’ by T deP without reference to A D’s take on melancholia – which unfortunately nobody understands – and that’s before you factor-in that the unbleached linen should have been more diaphanous.

I hope that’s transparent enough.

I think the time 4am is more to do with the time difference for the record…
The circle the rising sun? or a center point its all getting to deep…

a not with a silent k…

Maybe its more to do with extruding circles if you project them you make it a target.
Rather than connect the dots it is connect the extruded circles and that will allow you to choose your target.

But remember you have 2 different directions and two circles do you have 4 targets/choices or 1?

Soon culture will mean nothing to any of us in terms of blood and bone and place – it’ll be a pastiche of meanings selected by choice from a book on a coffee table.

sad but true or as they say “new”

I would like to see the linen…
Maybe some one has been hung out to dry…

I won’t be flying to Venice to see. I’m reliant on pictures and language that appears to pass as acceptable in Irish or international artistic circles.

The Archiseek link http://two.archiseek.com/2010/4am-at-the-biennale/ provides a description- I couldn’t follow the F McD reference.
Having read and digested the ideas and terminology a few thoughts occurred.

The drawings indicate that the installation is possibly an exercise in the reconfiguring of the plan and section of a return-type timber staircase, with some decorative touches.

“A strange shape lurks beneath a staircase, partially obscured by draped linen, it seems hardly there”.
In many domestic situations, that thing under the stairs is called the Toilet.

“The air is heavy with the smell of lavender as a light shines from atop the upholstered stairs”.
That’s the air-freshner.

“Positioned under the staircase will be a larger, stone polyhedron.
The shape of both the light and the stone represents the scarier side of domesticity. The stone, as he puts it, is “the ‘thing’ under the stairs,” the archetypal monster lurking just out of our field of vision.”
It’s definitely the Toilet.

“Much debate has centred on what the polyhedron represents. Often called “Dürer’s Solid”, it has been said to signify everything from the philosopher’s stone to the golden ratio.”
Dürer’s Solid, eh?

Toilet.

“This ghostly, impossible-but-possible shape will highlight a space between comfort and discomfort.”
Hey- Tell me about it.

“Closer inspection reveals the ghostly, barely present face on its front (many say there are in fact several faces). “
I think this type of inspection was best described in the Father Ted episode where they discovered the image of the bishop on the skirting board.

As for Missarchi’s cryptic crossword puzzle clues- someone else have a go.

@Tayto wrote:

Dürer’s Solid, eh?

Toilet.

I think Durer’s “solid” might be what’s floating in the toilet.
You see a liminal space is defined as being in-between.

The toilet is a floater’s waiting room.
A place to cool down and reflect.

Before the form is dispatched.
Into where it is dissolved.

Achieving formlessness.
Finally having “arrived”.

The party wallflower.
The Artist’s Angst.

Lurking/puking.
Understairs.

ONQ.

Heh, that’s clever. The form of the language as elegant as the words.

Still, I hope you wipe your laptop afterwards, onq.

@GrahamH wrote:

Heh, that’s clever. The form of the language as elegant as the words.

Still, I hope you wipe your laptop afterwards, onq.

Post with the laptop.

Pooh only in the toilet.

Simple mantra works.

ONQ.

There’s a report from the Biennale in the Irish Times of 4.9.10-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0904/1224278167635.html

There’s an introduction to Albrecht Durer’s Melencolia I here-
http://www.andrewgrahamdixon.com/archive/readArticle/124

“The Melencolia has provoked reams of speculative interpretation but its meaning has not been definitively established. The seated figure in Durer’s print seems trapped by some kind of despair, or at least a form of tormenting creative block. Head resting heavily on one hand, sitting glumly on the step of a half-finished building (the ladder propped against it indicates that construction has been interrupted), the cloaked and winged melancholic is surrounded, almost overwhelmed even, by the tools of labour: a grindstone on which an indolent, seated putto dozes; a pair of pincers; a hammer, a plane, a saw, a ruler and some bent nails; a small crucible with a pair of tongs beside it. Evidence of now abandoned enterprises are to be found in the form of a perfectly turned sphere of wood and, above it, of a partially worked rhomboid of cut stone. The slouched and morose melancholic appears to be an agonised artist: a creative individual who, for some reason, cannot bear to create.”

See, I just knew this thread was the thread of the tortured artist.

May I betray my lack of culture again by suggesting that “the scarier side of domesticity” might have been represented more forcefully if Melencolia I’s hungry-looking greyhound was positioned under the stairs, rather than Durer’s Solid. Just a thought.

I’m seeing a skeleton in the closet and in the skeleton is a duplicate known as the origin

@Tayto wrote:

“The Melencolia has provoked reams of speculative interpretation but its meaning has not been definitively established. The seated figure in Durer’s print seems trapped by some kind of despair . . . . .”

Tayto, I think there may have been something of a breakthrough in the interpretation of this work recently.

The unexpected discovery of a larger wood-cut version of ‘Melencolia’ has set the cat amongst the pigeons. Apparently originally there was another figure to the left of the composition, a male nude figure tentatively identified as Albrecht Durer himself.

Now with the benefit of the seeing the full work for the first time, experts have noted that the seated female figure is no longer staring vacantly into the middle distance but is in fact gazing, with some apparent dismay, on the scrawny male nude figure, focussing somewhere around mid torso.

Many German art historians now believe the seated female figure [with the wings that appear to be failing to take flight] to be none other that Frau Durer and have noted that the attire worn by this female figure would be consistent with known Bavarian wedding dress design of the early 16th century.

Some German art historians [the female ones] have gone further and suggested that it is Frau Durer and not Albrecht that may in fact have been the author of this enigmatic work . . . noting that the famous A-D monogram works equally well for Agnes as it does for Albrecht.

Now all they have to work out is if there’s any possible connection between the scrawny male nude figure with the appendage of a cherub, the seemingly despondent female figure in the probable wedding dress, the fact that the female figure is holding a measurement dividers on her lap open at an expectant 10 inches approximately, and that curious title of the piece – ‘Melancholia’

Okay, okay guys. Reality check here.

All that may be relevant, but to me, here, now its meaning is abundantly clear.

This is a self portrait of the artist suffering a mid-life crisis, surrounded by the paraphernalia of his profession that once he longed for and now seems to trammel him.

Perhaps the creative fire is gone, perhaps he’s between clients like most of the architectural profession here at the moment.

The figure to the right is his youthful self, idealised in his minds eye, and he is measuring what he has achieved to date against his aspirations and success so long ago.

He came to success early – in his twenties and he is looking back on his career measuring himself now against his abilities then and finding it hard to face.

There may be a reference to his sexual performance and his girth at the moment, the one failing, the other growing.

He has descended from his manic phase in which all his tools of the trade bow to his will, to his depressive phase, where they all seem to jeer at him for having done no work, or not having the the will or physical ability to do good creative work.

The youthful figure also represents the new generation of artists following him, the people who, while he admores them greatly, he knows will supplant him one day and threaten not only his livelihood, but also challenge his place in Art History.

The sword could be the sword of righteousness, which all artists wield in the execution of their work, or it could be the sword of justice, the imagined retribution for past wrongs committed – or he could be contemplating suicide.

Durer’s solid could well be a kidney stone or some gout he’s suffering from, giving him gyp and causing his depressed state in the first place.

This stuff isn’t brain science, y’know – can’t believe some guy milked enough out of it to write two volumes.

That’s a lot more than a 1,000 words, innit?

:rolleyes:

ONQ.

will seek Q&A from mr 4am?

http://www.archdaily.com/76736/4am-by-depaor-architects-at-venice-biennale/

Everything about this just goes to show why so many people find architecture so insufferably insufferable. Those of us mere mortals are constantly embarrassed by the sheer arrogance of those “above”

IS this an exercise in irony??????

The artist formally known as Tommy Power and his gang

present a folly in pleated linen and lavendered softwood, called “4am”, in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the Giardini of Venice. The project constructs a liminal space, between two bespoke subject objects, as a domestic shadowplay

4am is staged between hylo and hedra, a shade and a stone after Dürer’s Melancholia I of 1514.
At 4am the air duct fouls the upholstered dogleg staircase, which ascends to descend at the fire escape of the Palace

NOW LET’S LOOK AT THE BRIEF: the installation is to:

“help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves”

Why do we bother wasting money on this guff?

Do we even know that Adam had a house in paradise?

I thought the whole idea of paradise was that you didn’t need possessions, you slept on a bed of rushes, fending off the constant attentions of Eve.

That they lived in a feckin house puts a whole new complexion on things. Is Durer depicting the melancholic consequences of domesticity, Do the discarded nails and carpentry paraphernalia in ‘Melencolia I’ symbolize nothing more than the marital strife associated with the inability to put up a simple set of shelves? Is Durer’s ‘solid’ an abortive attempt at a coffee table? These are questions we probably wouldn’t even have asked if it wasn’t for the dePaor installation.

hats, you’re not engaging with this at the appropriate depth.

Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. We the people, affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.

The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires…

or perhaps a better quote from the great vandal – and one that sums up pretentious wastes of time such as the VB:

Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else

Here we go again. natter natter.

Why cant things be simple and obvious to everyone? lowest common denominator bull-shit.

the most important architectural exhibition in the world should not be about Barratt homes and stuff normal people find easy and comfortable. thats like saying the olympics should be reserved for the most average athletes.VB it is about provocative ideas and architecture of the highest quality being put out there in an international context.

As i understand it there is an open call for biennale submissions every two years. if you lot think you can do something better/ more relevant than these guys perhaps your time might be better spent submitting proposals?

how, exactly, is dumping a pile of paper in someone else’s bedroom or wrapping a wendy house in linen provocative? Because someone writes about it and tells you so or sits in silence for 6 minutes looking baleful? How are either of these installations “architecture”, let alone anything of high quality? Personally I think that the importance is not in how a bunch of architectects get together and rub each others’ personal regions but how it can be conveyed as important or interesting to the “lowest common denominator”, as you so (k)nobly put it . Architecture isn’t “elite”, it just thinks it should be.

Just because no-one understands you doesn’t make you an artist. It is more of a challenge to meet a brief than to wrap it up in gobbledygook just to make your peers think your whacky.

Jackson Pollock? sure i could do that.

@what? wrote:

Jackson Pollock? sure i could do that.

with me micky. – have a lash yourself at http://jacksonpollock.org/

what’s he got to do with architecture anyway?

are you serious? its an analogy of your tediously parochial attitude to architectural ideas that cant be quantified by a spreadsheet or a BER rating.

@what? wrote:

are you serious? its an analogy of your tediously parochial attitude to architectural ideas that cant be quantified by a spreadsheet or a BER rating.

ironically that post is an analogy of my point

you people bore the shit out of me.
if i wanted to read the above predictable reviews I could have asked the daily sport or my next door neighbour to tell me what they think of the Venice Biennale. have you no interest in architecture. have you no aspiration beyond the standard? it must be too comfortable in your box to bother getting out. go back to sleep.

@what? wrote:

you people bore the shit out of me.
if i wanted to read the above predictable reviews I could have asked the daily sport or my next door neighbour to tell me what they think of the Venice Biennale. have you no interest in architecture. have you no aspiration beyond the standard? it must be too comfortable in your box to bother getting out. go back to sleep.

Just to reiterate: TP’s brief was to “help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves”.

That would be people like your next door neighbour. Or the daily sport reader. Not condescending pseuds like yourself. Their reviews are actually what real people think. Whether you like it or not architecture must engage normal people. Art can be a load of old wank but architecture cannot

A predictably simplistic understanding of things.

Normal people love the convention centre. Does that mean its the pinnacle of contemporary Irish architecture?
Normal people love suburban semi-Ds. does that make them the most appropriate housing type for every family in Ireland?

Why do we need architects if normal people already know what they like? why bother.

Before this gets ugly . . . . or after it gets ugly, but before it gets out of control . . .

Personally I would place T. dePaor on a higher level than most of the practitioners what? usually jumps in to defend.

As far as I know, dePaor is widely respected, and is by no means part of that clique that believe they know it all and have the medals to prove it.

Was it not dePaor who pointed out that the Grandees, in plundering the back catalogue of the Modern Movement, were hell bent on – ”giving us the 1930s we never had” – or excellently chozen words to that effect?

Of course an installation at the Venice Biennial is going to be a tad pretentious, that’s what they’re looking for, but at least a bit of thought seems to have gone into it and, in return, I rather thought we were getting something out of it.

@what? wrote:

…….

Why cant things be simple and obvious to everyone? lowest common denominator bull-shit.

the most important architectural exhibition in the world should not be about Barratt homes and stuff normal people find easy and comfortable. thats like saying the olympics should be reserved for the most average athletes.VB it is about provocative ideas and architecture of the highest quality being put out there in an international context.

As i understand it there is an open call for biennale submissions every two years. if you lot think you can do something better/ more relevant than these guys perhaps your time might be better spent submitting proposals?

Reading http://www.archdaily.com/76736/4am-by-depaor-architects-at-venice-biennale/ as a philistine, I appreciated the construction specification:
“The planed and lavendered 2” x 4” softwood cribbage is glued and screwed at 400 mm centres.”
There’s an idea-
Aromatic scratch ‘n sniff domestic stud partitions.

Anyway, the response to the exhibit here is primarily a response to the language selected to describe the ideas. An associated poem entitled “4am” might have helped. Vagueness intrigue, allusion and reference might have suited that format better than the descriptions communicated through the critiques.

What purpose does this serve:
“A square plan is an economical speculation beyond the vernacular, which is difficult to extend.
The approach is either oblique or flat and dictates the site.”

This is not economical. This is completely superfluous, designed and included to represent depth.

@what? wrote:

if you lot think you can do something better/ more relevant than these guys perhaps your time might be better spent submitting proposals?

It’s a waste of time… whats wrong with tag team?

Calvin: “This is my snow sculpture, ‘Bourgeois Buffoon.’ Can you believe mom rejected my grant application to continue making these?”

Hobbes: “Why do you need a grant?”

Calvin: “I’m on the cutting edge of art! My work deserves public support!

Hobbes: “What if the public doesn’t like your work?”

Calvin: “They’re not supposed to like it! This is avant-garde stuff! I’m criticizing the lowbrows who can’t appreciate great art like this!”

Hobbes: “But you’ll take their money.”

Calvin: “What do you want me to do, suffer?!”

He made a clever game playing with the plan and section like that.

ONQ.

skating on thin ice!

This exhibition has bowled me over.

http://www.planonline.ie/page/414