So I came back from the 2009 Florence Biennale, rolling into to Sky Harbor shortly after midnight December 16 sicker ‘n a dog. I spent the holidays watching Christmas shows, box of tissue in hand, my IQ hovering between PB&J and potted plant. Needless to say working on putting my pictures together in a photo album on line with a travelogue was the furthest thing from my mind. The holidays ended officially for me on January 9 when my last house guest left. I had a lot to catch up on, but I have been working steadily on crunching down those pictures, putting on captions and otherwise making them suitable for a website etc. Early this morning I posted the last of the pictures and went “live.”
Jake Beckman at entrance to Florence Biennale featuring Marina Abromovic photo
The link to the Florence Biennale Experience is: http://akajake.com/florence-biennial-experience.htm
Working on the pictures brought back many fond memories for me and had me doing things like seeing how many people (that I befriended at the biennale) I could find on facebook. I realized as I was going through the pictures that I didn’t get pictures of many people I talked to and I didn’t get pictures of their art – guess I was too busy being at the Biennale instead of documenting it. I was in several group photos but I didn’t force the camera off onto the randomly drafted photographer often enough either. So I do have a request… If you were a participant in the Florence Biennale and have other pictures you would like to add to this conversation, please post them.
So far early comments have been positive. I hope you will enjoy it too, Anyway, let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you.
Jake
Artist, AKAJake.com Come Experience the Art!
The art work in this blog is federally copyrighted. All reproduction and publishing copyrights are retained by the artist. Images are not to be copied, re-distributed, imitated, derived OR otherwise used in any form without the explicit written permission of the artist.
Hi Jake,
Elisha Ben-Yitzhak tipped me off to your blog. He said he had seen my two Biennale paintings, EDEN REVISITED and MANDALA VIII, on your blog under “random art pics”. I decided not to make the trip to Florence so it was a pleasant surprise to see indisputable evidence that they actually were able to surreptitiously slip through all the hoops and end up hanging on a wall.
It is comforting to know that you recognize good art when you see it. Most of the art you selected to photograph was quite interesting. I enjoyed reading about your experiences although I must say it confirmed my decision to not make the trip. It’s sad that so much work went into the event and so few people actually found it important enough to view the exhibit. It’s too bad that many had to think of it as a vacation rather than a serious art event. What do you attribute to this state of affairs? What about the people/artists you talked to at the biennale?What did they think?
How about opening your blog to such a discussion.
Peace,
Kim
Howdy Kim
I have another blog topic that is open to people commenting about their practical experience of the Biennale http://akajake.com/blog/2009/12/28/2009-florence-biennale-experience/. Only one person, Julien Corcoran, chimed in with not one but two rather lengthy replies. After he wrote I published my civility policy, but I permitted his responses to post unedited. I have nothing against a lively discussion about the pros and cons of the Biennale, but I do request that people stop short of name calling and be respectful of others in their replies. If anyone wants to talk about their feelings about the Biennale, good or bad, I think that blog post is the appropriate forum.
I want this post to be about the art and camaraderie and other positive aspects of the show, the good stuff.
As for the art that I photographed, when I came home and downloaded my photos there were many artists whose work I admired that I failed to get shots of, but then again there were well over 500 participants. I did post every photograph the art I did get pictures of, but the exclusion of other artists by no means reflects on the quality of their work-it means I just didn’t get their picture while I was there.
As for me I didn’t view my participation as a vacation, which is one reason I did attend the event everyday. As to conjecture as to why the traffic was so slow, I did speculate a little in my other blog, but also I don’t think we should discount the state of the economy both in the US as well as in Europe.
Anyway Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment.
Jake