Page 64 - The Venice Biennale 2001 issue of World of Art Magazine

notes on the exhibition venues
Plateau of Mankind / theatre
Giorgio Barberio

corsetti

The Plateau of Mankind associates
two words that have immediate
49. Biennale Di veneziA
theatrical associations. it suggests
the whole of humanity, caught for a
single instant, so that their words
and actions become an object of
aesthetic appreciation that reveals
tensions, emotions, conflicts,
struggles and quietude.
inhabiting the same venues as the
visual Arts, we observe different
rituals - in which one can trace
similarities but also differences
(especially with regard to time and
duration). More than ever, this year
will serve to make the closeness
notes on the exhibition venues between these arts effectively
Plateau of Mankind / dance operative. Shakespeare &
carolyn carlson Shakespeare has already produced
extraordinary results through the
collaboration of all the sections of
Dance is a form of art, an expression that becomes concrete in space, time
the biennale; and throughout the
and energy. The idea, the poetry, the emotion and revelation of dance emerge
year there will be other encounters
in the gaze of the beholder.
and engagements, other carefully-
Dance and the visual arts have a common point of view; they raise the
studied coincidences.
imagination of mankind -that “pure vision”, free of words, which is the
explanation of both.
The Dance Section of the biennale will express this shared dimension through
Plateau of Mankind / music
two projects: a new creation at the Teatro alle Tese by Carolyn Carlson (with
music by giovanni Sollima), and a project by the French Fabrice Lambert, Bruno canino
which will involve the collaboration of a video artist.
As guests of the earth, we must share and encourage the awareness of just The tendency is to have the
how fragile our planet is, and how destructive the hands of mankind can be. performer listened to, placing the
musician, the artificer of sound and
Plateau of Mankind / cinema music, at the center of attention.
alberto Barbera With a series of concerts focusing
on atypical instruments, we aim to
explore the relation between music
Defined by André bazin as an “impure” art, cinema is the example of a
and the visual arts by proposing a
perfectly syncretic form of expression, given its ability to absorb techniques
shift in attention: away from the
and languages that belonged to the arts that preceded it (theatre, literature,
performer to the instrument. We will
music, dance, painting, etc.). And by exercising this ability to absorb, cinema
present instruments that are not
has, in the very few years since its first appearance, managed to establish
part of the normal classical western
itself as the dominant form of visual expression in our age.
repertoire, either in form or in sound.
This is why there is nothing unusual about this year’s collaboration between
These are also “visual” instruments,
the visual Arts biennale and the venice Film Festival. in effect, all we are
produced by or derived from far
doing is explicitly recognizing a relationship that already exists, even if it was
and distant cultures. Their presence
not part of some plan or program.
miraculously shifts the focus of the
The six film -makers who have accepted the invitation to take part are
music from the musician toward the
Chantal Akerman, Atom egoyan (with Juliao Sarmiento), Yervant gianikian
(with Angela Ricci Lucchi), Abbas Kiarostami, David Lynch and edward Yang. object (the machine, the invention)
that is producing those sounds.
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