Venice – things we like so far..

What with running gunshot for Anastasia, testing the outer limits with Stuart and fretting about Laresa’s leg of fame we’ve hardly had a chance to glance at other’s art…we did a quick whiz down the corridor at the Arsenale…the things we liked thus far include:

Franz West’s array of plinth objects, framed works and viewing cabinets – laden with materiality …and of course we enjoyed the plaster sympatico with our Laresa … West is bringing his ‘studio’ to Venice in this installation

Urs Fischer’s hellenistic-inspired candle made from a life size wax replica of Giovanni Bologna’s The Rape of the Sabine Woman (see it in Florence) overseen by a wax statue, also candle, of Fischer’s friend, artist Rudolf Stingel, and Urs’ own studio chair…all melt under the heat of the eternal flame which glows and burns on top of each…this is a crowd stopping work…the veracity is compelling, the tragedy immense and the silliness just right

Carol Bove’s massive plinth supporting an assortment of objects from the ephemeral and natural to the permanence of rock and steel…Bove’s works remember the trajectory of objects from the 1960s … lurkings of Hesse, Bourgeois and others are deliberate references

Monica Bonvicini’s stairs in a variety of materials, glass, mirror, which reference the Presentation of the Vurgin by Tintoretto is a homecoming project that works

Everyone loves Christian Marclay’s The Clock…but since we saw it recently elsewhere we don’t have to sit their pondering minutes, although the rest would be welcome!

Elisabetta Benassi’s The Innocents Abroad is a very moving installation…a mircofiche ‘history painting’ using the archive of hundreds of press photographs which detail global unrest and incidents.