Papers

A brief history of I Giardini: Or a brief history of the Venice Biennale seen from the Giardini

Vittoria Martini On the occasion of the 51st Venice Biennale, Antoni Muntadas made a new site specific art project in the Spanish pavilion. On Translation: I Giardini has been a complex installation based on the historical and archival research I made. The result of my research, besides the contents of the installation itself, has been the text A brief of Giardini, published in the exhibition catalogue (Muntadas/On Translation: I Giardini, Actar, Barcelona 2005). Based on scrupulous archival research this text analyses the rise of the national pavilions in the Giardini of the Biennale. Read more

The Space Between Roberto Rossellini’s Post-War Films (Rome, Open City, and Paisà) 
and the Art of Renato Guttuso

Stephanie Cotela Tanner

This paper explores the interface between art history and film studies. The focus is the post-World War II films of Roberto Rossellini and the paintings of Renato Guttuso. Discussions include a compare and contrast of issues such as neorealism and social realism, the artists personal politics, urban icons and landscape, rhetorical space and narration and representations of the body. I also explore the divisions of space and what that entails in both painting and film as well as a dedicated chapter to spectatorship and media including viewers perceptions of each medium.

Kinky In Progress: Conversations With Switch Theatre

Monica Sanchez-Argiles and Rebeca Maseda

The focus of attention of this interview with performance group Switch, conducted by Monica Sanchez-Argiles (Intern curator at Tate Modern) and Rebeca Maseda (University of Alaska Anchorage) is sadomasochism (SM) practices in the art context. SM opens controversial questions about pain and pleasure, dominance and power, especially in terms of gender inequalities. 

Switch reminds us that the experience of pain is decisively shaped or modified by individual minds and by specific cultures. This artistic company also reveals an approach to the experience of pain that is mainly lived in secret. The history of pain they recount is one of secrecy and silence, because it is erotic and sexual and because it is considered “perverted” or “abnormal”. They engage in the process of publicly representing our pleasurable encounters with pain.