Gervasuti Foundation aims both to preserve and to promote a unique cultural context and its use through innovation. Initiating projects by cultivating past, present, and future while using Venice as its catalyst to present an open platform for artistic interdisciplinary traditions and materials relevant to a contemporary discourse. It is named after Eugenio Gervasuti, born in Venice in 1928, a highly skilled cabinet-maker who founded the Gervasuti Workshop in 1959 and worked on some of the most important Venetian buildings and churches. His son Michele Gervasuti, the Foundation’s Director has been involved in a multifaceted range of projects and activities with major contemporary architects, designers, and artists. For the 54th Biennale the Foundation is hosting the National Pavillions of Iraq and Bangladesh under the direction of Fiona Biggiero.
James Putnam was born in London where he lives and works as an independent curator and writer. He founded and was curator of the British Museum’s Contemporary Arts and Cultures Programme from 1999 to 2003. He has curated an ongoing series of critically acclaimed projects with contemporary artists at the Freud Museum, London. He was appointed curator of Arte ‘all Arte 9, in Tuscany in 2005 and was on the curatorial committee for the 2006 Echigo Tsumari Triennial, Japan. In 2009 he curated ‘Distortion and Library as Collateral projects for the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2010 he was a curator for the Busan Biennale, S.Korea.
Eiko Honda was born in Japan and lives and works in London. She has organised a number of curatorial, editorial, broadcasting and theatre projects that question the nature of art practice and its assumed history, economy and politics. She is the director of LightWall – site-specific interventions showcasing works of emerging artists in London’s public realms, and NOW&FUTURE – an art action production that aims to divert socio-political realities inside and outside of art history. The 2011 programme of the latter includes a curated charity auction in the aid of 3.11 orphans in Japan supported by Christies, and public interventions by the internationally acclaimed artist Alfredo Jaar.
Shih Chieh Huang was born in Taipei and lives and works in New York. He has been the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including the Oscar Signorini Prize, D’ars Foundation, Milan, Italy, Rockefeller Foundation New Media Arts Fellowship, Technical Assistance Grant, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. He creates installations that merge common, store-bought artificial materials and dissected electronics with air and water to create interactive organic living environments and sculptures. In 2010 his work was shown as part of ‘Living in Evolution’ for the Busan Biennial, South Korea and for ‘Arts and Cities’ Aichi Triennale, Japan. For ‘The Knowledge’ Shih Chieh will create a bar Nocturne -11-C-BR, open to public 10am – 9pm.
Tim Brennan was born in Sunderland where he lives and works. He has developed a unique methodology based on the act of walking and conversation as art (which he refers to as the manoeuvre) that combines the traditions of performance art, loco- description, history and journeying. Brennan’s Biennale project, Vedute Manoeuvre, relates to the Venetian artist Canaletto (1697-1768) who was an exponent of paintings called ‘Verdute’ or view landscapes. He will use a number of Canaletto images to correspond to their original Venetian locations that will become his performance sites with him leading a group of participants to various viewpoints in St. Mark’s Square on Wednesday 1 June 6.30pm, Thursday 2 June 11.30am & 6.30pm Friday 3 June 11.30am. Booking essential.
Mat Chivers was born in Bristol and lives and works in Devon. In his formative years, he learnt stone carving under leading British sculptor Peter Randall-Page. He has an instinctive interest in the physical properties of stone and the notion of deep geological time and the states of flux that exist, often unseen, below the surface. Much of his current body of work relates to an ongoing fascination for cloud-like structures and his dialogue with research scientists at Bristol University. Chivers also works with model-makers using scanning and rapid prototyping, which creates a fascinating counterpoint to his more traditional and spontaneous, direct carving technique.
Nancy Fouts was born in Seattle, U.S.A. and lives/works in London. She originally studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. With a keen sense of observation she uses and reconfigures found objects with an ironical and often-surreal conceptual twist. With a penchant for exploring the themes of nature and religion she transforms ordinary objects into extraordinary works of art. For ‘The Knowledge’ she has created an astonishing interactive sculpture from a vast wooden chest with countless drawers found in-situ at this former artisan’s workshop. In another work she has modified a taxidermied owl, the universal image of wisdom and knowledge.
Conrad Shawcross was born in London where he lives and works. He creates dynamic, thought provoking kinetic sculptures that draw inspiration from philosophy and scientific theories. He works with scientists to research and develop his ‘sculptural machines’ with the intention of exploring the laws of science. Demonstrating the abstract nature of scientific thought in a practical manifestation his work crosses the boundaries between physics and metaphysics. In 2009 Shawcross was the Centenary Artist in Residence at the Science Museum, London and also presented, Chord, a site-specific installation in the Kingsway Tram Subway, Holborn. In 2011 he received a major commission for the opening of Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK.
Chiharu Shiota was born in Osaka and lives and works in Berlin where she originally studied under Marina Abramović and Rebecca Horn. Besides being a performance artist she is best known for creating spatial installations with thread that envelop all the surrounding objects and architecture. Her project entitled, ‘Memory of Books’ adjacent to ‘The Knowledge’ exhibition incorporates hundreds of books found in the Gervasuti Foundation space. The configuration of the web of threads could be viewed in terms of a geometric, mathematical construction that ‘maps’ the memories of the building’s former occupants. This project coincides with the launch of her monograph published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin.
