Bleu Acier pre­sented Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey’s work on June 8th and 9th at the invi­ta­tional V|07 Venice Videoart Fair on San Ser­volo Island. Fea­tur­ing 16 gal­leries from Europe and the US and curated by Raf­faele Gavarro, it was the sec­ond edi­tion of Italy’s only fair ded­i­cated to video art. With grow­ing recog­ni­tion from cura­tors, press and col­lec­tors, and plans to expand in 2008, this event has proven to be an impor­tant venue for inter­na­tional video art.

Think twice before toss­ing aside that Venice Bien­nale post­card or pam­phlet vying for your atten­tion. In ear­lier times, you’d have been exe­cuted for lit­ter­ing in Venice. Seems like a fit­ting pun­ish­ment for the crime. What a shame we can’t re-institute this on a global level and extend it to apply to mis­man­age­ment and mis­use of resources. It’s a bit­ter irony of value and con­sump­tion that Venice rests on what had been huge trees forest­ing the Dolomites, all chopped down for now-rotting pil­ings. As the sea rises, the city sinks.

In a place known for cycles of deca­dence, death and decay, we used the plat­form of the V|07 Venice Video Art Fair, coin­cid­ing with the open­ing of the Venice Bien­nale, to present work that explores eco-psychology and sys­tems on the brink of col­lapse and regen­er­a­tion. Our recent trav­els to old-growth forests in Ore­gon and coastal areas of Nova Sco­tia uncov­ered com­plex prob­lems in nat­ural resources man­age­ment, the pol­i­tics of fire and run­away development.

By metaphor­i­cally trans­plant­ing footage from these envi­ron­ments into dif­fer­ent con­texts and locales, we can reveal the men­tal dis­con­nect between nature and its con­ver­sion to con­sum­ables. We can also reveal our place in the result­ing phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal land­scape on an abstract level. As the pace of every­thing con­tin­ues to speed up, it’s often over­whelm­ing to men­tally mea­sure extreme global envi­ron­men­tal issues while pro­cess­ing what’s in our own lives and backyards.

So no, our work is not just about trees, but also about growth and change on a per­sonal level. Com­ing from a gen­er­a­tion of skep­tics plagued by doubt, there seems to be no more room for it as an artist. Ask­ing exis­ten­tial ques­tions for which there are no answers takes a life­time. Only through our work can we momen­tar­ily sus­pend time and move­ment, slow­ing down long enough to see and won­der with­out our thoughts being clouded by irony or expec­ta­tions. We often rely on chance rather than work­ing from a plan or script, we assem­ble spon­ta­neously gath­ered footage, record­ings and iso­lat­ing detailed views to cre­ate non-linear nar­ra­tives of men­tal and phys­i­cal land­scapes. Draw­ings and works on paper record impro­vised marks made using our breath or grav­ity, gen­er­at­ing a new approach to spa­tial figure-ground rela­tion­ships while keep­ing tempo with the video. By exper­i­ment­ing with time, per­cep­tion and after­im­age, we chal­lenge pow­ers of obser­va­tion and alter the pace at which we usu­ally view the world.

Although we never intend to make overtly polit­i­cal work, in Venice and else­where we’re get­ting strong con­fir­ma­tion that art can and should be con­cep­tual, polit­i­cal and beau­ti­ful at the same time. It should also be uncon­strained by the pro­pa­ganda and endorse­ment of cor­po­rate cul­ture dis­trib­uted by pow­er­ful institutions.

In light of our incli­na­tions, San Ser­volo Island—home to Venice Inter­na­tional Uni­ver­sity and a newly estab­lished haven for artis­tic and cul­tural exchange in what was once the city’s pub­lic men­tal hos­pi­tal, herb gar­den and pharmacy—proved to be a ther­a­peu­tic world apart from the frenzy of the Gia­r­dini. About a five-minute vaporetto ride from Venice, the island hosted a num­ber of film, photo and video events.

In addi­tion to videos seen in the V|07 Fair by Stephanie Lem­pert at Vanessa Quang and Daniela Perego at Douz & Mille, we were par­tic­u­larly drawn to sev­eral out­door projects like Gavin Wade’s “Strate­gic Ques­tions” kiosk that re-addressed Buck­min­ster Fuller’s sem­i­nal 1969 work, Utopia or Obliv­ion: The Prospects for Human­ity. When pressed, Wade con­ceded that he thinks we’re closer to obliv­ion. Why is it that we all feel this way? We wish we’d had more time with Tobias Putrih’s “Venet­ian Atmos­pheric” pavil­ion, con­structed in the mid­dle of the gar­den. The bio­mor­phic archi­tec­tural structure/sculpture was illu­mi­nated in the evening and oper­ated as a fully func­tional cin­ema, screen­ing a pro­gram of 14 artists’ films includ­ing a 1953 work by Chris Marker. We also enjoyed meet­ing other artists stay­ing on the island includ­ing London-based Lia Chavez, with pho­tographs in the exhi­bi­tion “Shot and Go,” and Ger­man artist Augusta Laar who spoke about her part­ner Kalle Laar’s Call­ing the Glac­ier from the project “Mobile Journey.”

After V|07 ended, we switched from par­tic­i­pant to spec­ta­tor mode and saw as much as pos­si­ble in our remain­ing days, con­cen­trat­ing on the Arse­nale and col­lat­eral events. Even with the size of the Arse­nale, the instal­la­tion seemed claus­tro­pho­bic at first. Once you’d nav­i­gated Jason Rhoades’ mag­nif­i­cent neon and bric-a-brac spec­ta­cle, it opened up to fea­ture some strong video instal­la­tions includ­ing Paolo Canevari’s Bounc­ing Skull and Yang Zhenzhong’s 10-channel pro­jec­tion of young and old talk­ing heads repeat­ing “I will die,” which steadily built emo­tional res­o­nance. Yes, you can see we were obsessed with exis­ten­tial angst through­out the week.
Beuys/Barney at the Guggen­heim Col­lec­tion made us won­der what could have hap­pened if Beuys’ con­cept of social sculp­ture had taken root on a broader scale among the next gen­er­a­tion of artists. Despite Barney’s under­uti­liza­tion of that aspect of Beuys’ legacy, the exhi­bi­tion pro­vided a les­son in expertly crafted mythology.

Artempo, Where Time Becomes Art at Palazzo For­tuny will likely yield our most vivid mem­o­ries because of the for­bid­den temp­ta­tion to touch and pho­to­graph every­thing in sight. Enter­ing the large-paneled draw­ing room draped in old hand blocked silks and full of care­fully placed or casu­ally dis­carded objects can only be described as walk­ing into a 3D mashup of all the art his­tory in your head. Arranged on heavy antique tables and in library cab­i­nets sat mas­ter­piece mar­ble busts, taxi­dermy spec­i­mens and arche­o­log­i­cal relics among works by William Ken­tridge, Louise Bour­geois, Mar­cel Duchamp and oth­ers. On the per­fectly decon­structed upper floor, it took a sec­ond look to dis­tin­guish the Lucio Fontana paint­ings from sur­round­ing lay­ers of peel­ing paint and gouged plas­ter walls. Thank­fully there were no labels and few cue cards to go around, serv­ing as a reminder that art and life inter­twine with­out the dis­trac­tions of flashy brand names and price tags in ster­ile envi­ron­ments.
Even with­out the super cool side of the Venice Bien­nale filled with pri­vate par­ties and yachts, you can’t help but be a lit­tle deca­dent in Venice, the giant nature morte in the lagoon. We indulged our­selves in the atmos­phere avail­able to all—an excep­tional open­ness toward art, con­ver­sa­tion and the incon­gruities of life surg­ing in like the tide every other year.