Absolutely vital for survival; or how vodka in Venice is ‘absolutely’
best paired with tonic
At the Palazzo Zenobio, an exhibition sponsored by the Swedish
Vodka company Absolut, entitled ‘Absolut Generations’ (14 June-28
September 2003) with works by 13 artists, many of whom participated
in Absolut’s 1998 show. This new show links several pairs, one mentor
and one ‘young artist’ together. A hazardous, perhaps
rather painstakingly Swedish enterprise, one might say, playing
the (lost) generation game. But in actuality, the installation by
the famous Viennese architect-artist Hans Hollein, still for sure
‘Alles ist Architektur’ proves everything can be accommodated.
So Enzo Cucchi chose to ‘mentor’ Andrea Salvino. Louise
Bourgeois, whose strangled Absolut bottle somehow caught the parched
feeling of those seeking complimentary refreshment without success,
teamed up with Aspassio Haronitaki, who provides a welcome contrast,
animals with humans, to the Australian pavilion. Hans Hollein teamed
up with Viennese artist Lois Renner with great success. Renner had
studied under Gerhard Richter. The results demonstrate the impossibility
of photography where the reality is about both decorative effect
and scale effect. The Absolut bottle looks as if it could freely
lubricate half of Venice. This is ‘Transformations’ and the bottle
is actually scaled up to accommodate a gondola, like those ships-in-bottles
so skilfully erected by old seadogs. Béatrice Cussol, teamed
with ‘Ben’, a friend of Absolut, whose motto is ‘I
drink to forget art’, produces a lyrical combination of two
bottles, seemingly transformed into lovers with elegant watercolour.
Linn Fernström seems to be the mandatory Swedish artist, teamed
with Dan Wolgers. His sculpture derives from Duchamp for inspiration.
He admires Fernström’s messiness, and it is a complicity of
opposites. Wim Delvoye and Delphine were quite the opposite. Delphine
upsets Wim Delvoye because as a Belgian artist she lives in London,
abandoning ‘the Belgian art scene’ (whatever that might be). She
created at big chair for a tiny bottle. The concept of a model Elton
John who ejects Absolut traces into a beer glass while farting harmoniously,
the way Belgians do: the only problem, Elton doesn’t and isn’t.
Veronika Bromova, by contrast, extends a longstanding Czech tradition
of ironic parody, intricacy, a kind of lurking fatalism, as in ‘Hello
to All from the Trip to Venice’ where a family is photographed playing
innocently from a li-lo in the midst of a field. Absolut have brought
this whole intelligent venture, which could have descended into
a commercial banality, to witty and humorously proficient success.
Now, where was that glass?
