ICI Venice – Istituto Culturale Internazionale
presents
LOOKING FOR MARCO POLO
ALICE GUITTARD
SOLO SHOW – ARTIST RUN SPACE
At the moment of Biennale de Venice 2019
ICI Venice – Magazzino del Caffè – Venice – Italy
8th of may – 28th of july 2019
Ideatore : Olivier Perpoint
Presentazione in ITALIANO / Presentation in ENGLISH / Présentation en FRANCAIS
At the time of the Venice Biennale 2019, ICI International Cultural Institute welcomes the emerging French artist Alice Guittard – winner of the Emerige Award for her first solo show: LOOKING FOR MARCO POLO
Since 2014, Alice Guittard and ICI International Cultural Institute have been researching the myth of Marco Polo. They wanted to create a new experience in the form of an Artist Run Space. Where the artiste her-self is curator and mediator of the space.
The works created especially for this exhibition have as their point of departure the story of Marco Polo, and more precisely his famous work The Devisement of the World, also called The Book of Wonders and all the legends that surround it. The stories of Marco Polo recall the part of fiction that attaches to any narrative tra- veler, they then ask the question of the boundary between travel and non-travel.
Maybe Marco Polo would never have left Venice …
The central piece, the film «Filature à la gondole» offers an investigation that is both a mental introspection mixed with an architectural observation that brings us clues as and when the drift. Shot in 16mm black and white film, it is projected in a loop in the exhibition space. Various clues collected during the Venetian wande- rings of Alice Guittard enrich the film.
The artist run space exhibition will be online on artsy. Title of the exhibition:
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LOOKING FOR MARCO POLO solo show by Alice Guittard
Ideatore : Olivier Perpoint
Dates et times 08.05.2019 – 28.07.2019 friday saturday, sunday 10:00-13:00 15:00-19:00 And on appointment
Preview 8/9/10.05.2019 10:00-13:00 15:00-19:00
Opening saturday 11.05.2019 at 10:00
Adress : ICI Venice – Magazzino del Caffè Campo San Simeon Grando – Rio Marin Santa Croce 923 | 30135 Venice
+39 041720507 – info@icivenice.com – http://www.icivenice.com
Notes of intent by Alice Guittard
The project envisaged for the Magazzino Del Caffè is based on the story of Marco Polo, and more precisely his famous work The Devisement of the World, also called The Book of Wonders and
all the legends that surround it. The original text, probably written in 1298 in Old French, did not reach us, but many transcriptions circulated in the Middle Ages, which can give us a fairly clear idea of its form and content. It should first be noted that the explorer was of great discretion in China, Country in which he had stayed more than 17 years at Kubilai Khan. «A discretion such as the im- perial archives, yet very complete, do not bear any trace of his passage, even though he says he has been charged with important functions.»*
Equally astonishing are some shortcomings in his story that do not mention certain traditions such as the tea ceremony, the Chinese feet, or the peculiarity of the ideogram alphabet and even the Great Wall of China, which stretches several thousand kilometers. For all travel stories, they ask the question of the boundary between travel and non-travel.
Maybe Marco Polo would never have left Venice …
So I went several times in this «Queen of the Adriatic» and collected various stories from locals as the existence of a legendary current that allows you to navigate without rowing once, the presence of a little known secret channel to Rio del Duca, the feeling of falling back to childhood because of the low perception of architecture, buildings thought for a view of hindsight yet impossible …
The film «Filature à la gondole» proposes an investigation that is at the same time a mental in- trospection mixed with an architectural observation that brings us clues as and when drifting. The central character, investigator of voiceless voices, establishes a reflection of a singular voice, oscilla- ting between murmur and provocation, soliloquy and confidence, dialogic plurality of figures of the drama on the silence of the image that scrolls.
By this drift, one can not obtain a stable image of the movement, the image can never take, always rejecting the formation of the last possible image: that of «the one-who-tries-directions-different- before -to-find-his-definitive-way «; it goes back to what the unknown person has never ceased to miss, there is no last image possible, and that is the purpose of this film, which will be shot in 16mm black and white film and projected in a loop in the exhibition space.
This film will be enriched with various clues collected during my Venetian wanderings. – excerpt from «How to talk about places where you have not been? », Pierre Bayard, the Midnight Editions, 2012
*excerpt from « Comment parler des lieux où l’on n’a pas été ? », Pierre Bayard, les Éditions de Minuit, 2012
ICI – International Cultural Institute
ICI is a non-profit socio-cultural organization whose vocation is the development of cultural resonances between East and West, between ethnographic art and a contemporary element (art, architecture, design, etc.), as well as the enhancement of the local heritage of Venice – Italy. Created by young Italians and French, ICI Venice, in few years, has become a cultural actor recognized by the Ca ’Foscari University and the MiBAC (Italian Minis- tery of Culture), both for the scientific goal and for the way to make the cultures of the world known. ICI Venice soon established a loyal audience that came to visit the « Coffee Warehouse » to discover little-known subjects such as the trail of Nepal, Bhutan, Zan Par and emerging contemporary artists.
In 2019, at the same time as the Venice Biennale, ICI Venice hosts the French artist Alice Guittard, winner of the Emerige and Bernar Venet awards, in an Artist Run Space to continue the search for her work: « LOOKING FOR MARCO POLO » from 7 May to 31 August 2019. With the support of Valore Cultura of Generali, ICI also presents an itineray throught a selection of craftmen of Venice for the project NATHALIE DECOSTER Intime Venice .
Why an Artist run space in Venice ?
Since 2014, Alice Guittard and ICI International Cultural Institute have been researching about the myth of Marco Polo. These five years have been punctuated with encounters, experiences, ravings Just like in the story of Marco Polo, these moments have opened new roads, opportunities, stories. In prefiguration of an exhibition, or instead of this exhibition, like this trip, done or not, by the Venetian, they wished to create a new stage, a new experience, or even a final stage, to this research work: a solo show in the form of an Artist Run Space.
In recent years, several artist residencies at ICI CASA have allowed Alice Guittard to explore the city and cap- ture an essence, to go beyond the single question –did he really make this trip ? –.
Meetings in Italy, in France have enriched the research with ethnographic objects that are described in the book, find themselves materialized in the Himalayas as we learned François Pannier, true stories but secret or incongruous : we will return the land of gardens in Venice to look for the body of the parents of Marco Polo, itself being, according to the legend buried next to his parents, a current would allow to go around Venice by boat without rowing, a jeweler goldsmith Jean Boggio fantasy architectures with a master Venetian glassmaker Moulaye Niang, …
As usual, a reading and analysis of the work of Marco Polo allowed Alice Guittard to define a structure. This story of the trip is interrupted by ravings that arise and the return to the road of the east is the basis of the ar- tist–s 16mm film produced especially for this exhibition.
The Artist Run Space will allow the public to participate in a moment of Alice Guittard–s narrative on Marco Polo. The visitor will be an integral part of the research work, the creative process with its doubts, its convic- tions. Our doubts, our convictions, those of Alice or mine. Your doubts and your convictions on our world.
The artist will activate the space at different times at his convenience: with announcement or surprise effect, pushing the door or door wide open. In the first place at the opening of the 7 to 10 May 2019, she will reveal her place.
For 8 years, ICI International Cultural Institute has been supporting and renewing the presence of contempo- rary artists emerging on the market, the usual relations with their galleries or the actors of contemporary art, in a collaborative vision: exhibitions of ethnographic art associated with a contemporary element of emerging artists (installation, architecture, dance, …), the presence on Artsy (since 2018), ICI CASA art residencies (since 2015) in particular that of Murano, valuation of craftsmen of Venice, organization of table round on cultural industries within Marketing Congresses, …
This new experience Alice Guittard‘s ARTIST RUN SPACE is the natural evolution to support Culture and emerging artists in the new unstable global context.
ICI International Cultural Institute 