Page 195 - La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

contemporary artists in la Biennale di Venezia issue SUPPORTED BY THE CASIMIR EIGENSATZ FOUNDATION LUCERNE, FUKA-FONDS LUCERNE, GGL
MI SONO PERSO | VENEZIA
INTERVENTION DURING THE OPENING DAYS OF THE ART BIENNALE IN VENICE 2019

FOTO: GIUSEPPE DI SALVATORE © 2019 | RUTH BAETTIG © 2019

RUTH BAETTIG
Lives and works in Lucerne and Basel, Switzerland
www.ruthbaettig.com | www.filmexplorer.ch

the artworld as such – a dialogue for which the motto «May You Live
in Interesting Times» would be a perfect subtitle… The ephemeral
appearance of the expression in the night of Venice is an action
that interrupts the contemplation and conveys a collective memory,
unfolding a non-linear narrative of the urban space. «Mi sono perso»
calls for the need to reinvent oneself.

In previous projects, Ruth Baettig has performed as an anonymous
“white figure” in public space, creating a dialogue with other works
of art, historical monuments and landscapes, in order to explore
the tension between the social and the artistic worlds. In this way
she conflates the historical and the fictional, which are melted into a
dimension where humor is the vehicle for existential precariousness.
In her intervention during the opening days of La Biennale di Venezia
in 2019, Ruth Baettig let a neon float and navigate through the canals,
which displays the expression «Mi sono perso» – I am lost. This is the
last of a series of public interventions she has realized with the Italian
expression, referring to crisis and poetic chance at the same time. The
dialogue with the works of art takes now the form of a dialogue with

WORLD of ART 195