Florence Biennale report
When I first received the very flattering email from the jury of the Florence Biennale, signed by the director, inviting me to exhibit in the December 2009 Biennale, I thought it was spam. Surely this was too good to be true. Was the Artworld actually bothering to contact me, a mere painter? My husband/journalist knew how to find out whether this was the case, by sending them a one-liner: please send your information pack to the following address…A month later a package arrived through the door with an invitation letter, application forms and the costs involved. Entrance fee was Euro 2,750, which meant almost double the amount for British entries with the £ being so low. To find sponsorship seemed not quite the thing to do, although I did try the British Council for transport costs only. When they declined I decided to work for the whole project and do a commission. The cost of sending your work, insured and whatnot, your own travel there and stay for the duration of the Biennale i.e. your accommodation for 12 days, will easily double the Euro 2,750. In the end Angus suggested we take the painting ourselves, by car. I rented a self-catering apartment with parking possibilities.
He then proceeded to google articles and comments about the Florence Biennale, of which neither of us had ever heard until that point. Nor had our friends who had lived in Florence for over 30 years, one of whom works for the Dutch College of History of Art. He found plenty. And this is the reason why I am bothering to write my own findings down, so that any innocent artist who is surprised to find him/herself invited by so grand an institution has one more angle to view before they prepare themselves for the adventure of participating in the Florence Biennale.
I had my own reasons for accepting the invitation.
The first reason was a personal one. After a few years of operations and feeling rather low I felt that I was up for a project again and it would be a rounding off of one era and the beginning of a new one. Being 54 felt great and could turn out to be what I hoped it would be, a new start.
Also, when I left Florence in 1980, after a 4 year study at the Accademia (the fees where then £5 per anno), I left behind a triptych. Travelling by train I had my hands full with luggage, a 6 month old baby and as many paintings as I could carry. I couldn’t manage the heavy panel (with doors ) and so decided to leave my triptych behind at the Accademia. They told me that after 25 years I could reclaim my work, or buy it back if I had become famous in the mean time. That was 30 years ago.
So I emailed the Accademia and got a response within a week that I was welcome to come and have a look. In an old photo album I found pictures of the triptych, that might make the search easier, in the cellars of the Accademia.
My rapport with the Accademia was a troubled one. I suspect that being a natural blond was the main problem, but being a foreigner and a girl and therefore in Florence for any reason but to study how to paint, can’t have been much help. I changed professor after 2 years mainly to be rid of the assistant who would wait for me on the stairs to have a quick rape. Not that he managed it but it was so tiresome to have to wait, washing my brushes in the classroom until I could safely leave in the centre of a group, so to change was simply a question of saving time. One of the models once commented that I was going to be a good painter, because I looked after my brushes so well. Little did she know.
I promised myself I would return one year with a painting they would not be able to touch, judge or in any other way manipulate. I had had quite a few dingdongs with the very autocratic, communist professors, who didn’t quite see hope, faith and love as a painting option, or harlequins for that matter, or even worse a combination of the two. I felt that taking my triptych, The Unfinished Business would fit the bill beautifully because it shows a view of my world as I see it, leaves enough space for the onlooker to see their own meaning and also brings some hope, love and faith. It also just filled the 3m space with its 2.94m width and weighed just under the allowed max of 40kg, surely it was meant to be. I had high hopes.
In my painting about the path through life I had, with much pleasure of putting the world right (and bring world peace) painted the blinkered moneygrabbing ratrace into the background and brought the small virtues to the foreground: Love coming to the aid of Flora and Fauna, who suffer from the effects our materialistic society cause, Hope, Patience and Humility all playing their own small vital roles.
The Biennale’s invitation had mentioned the idealistic hope of bringing all the countries in the world closer to understanding each other through art. Great. Now was my chance not only to go and take a painting that would speak for itself, I was also picking up the first triptych I ever did, in Florence. A full circle. It meant that I could kill two birds with one stone and tie up some loose ends and bring world peace with like minded fellow artists. Miss Judgment.
We arrived in Florence after a most beautiful and trouble free trip by car, Alps with a light dusting of powder snow and mother-of-pearl skies, well in time for setting up at the Biennale and the triptych appeared still in tact. Finding the entrance to the Biennale was more difficult than expected and there were no signs for artists explaining where to go. It was freezing cold. Eventually we found our way in by walking around, asking and phoning each other and finally arriving in a massive underground hall where a few artists were already hanging their work. The girls at the reception desk pointed out my place in the far corner, opposite the award winning Marina Abramovich, a very good place they said. Beside me on the same wall hung two large paintings, one was a collage of enlarged news photographs on canvas with paint thrown over them and the other a collage of news items with a fat prostitute taking centre stage, her legs wide open.
I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. Swapping the paintings round so that the prostitute was slightly further away from my Hope panel would have done the trick, but the girls at the reception said I could only do that with consent of the artist. The artist never showed up and Hope and the prostitute hung side by side 10cm apart for the whole duration of the Biennale. It took me 48 hours to try and block the horrid image from my mind and I spent little time in front of my own work. I thought how extraordinary a figure Jesus is, to come especially for prostitutes and tax collectors, or in this case moneymakers and what a privilege it was to experience a bit of that. Not out of choice though and I still think it would have benifitted both paintings to be further apart or the prostitutes legs closer together. Abramovich in the mean time was making grunting noises while beating herself up with a skull (on video, but apparently she has knocked herself out once doing live art) or getting rather excited with the skeleton lying on top of her. Fifteen minutes can become very long. Four clips of video, each about fifteen minutes long and on a loop is hell, believe me.
The Accademia was its own charming self with a bottle blond of a certain age shouting at us. I have 3 witnesses to the scene she made, out of pure habit, and how she got a bit frightened when we spoke back in Italian, unfased and surprised at how much strong language was still available to be used from our memories. Even better, no ready-made sentences could send us off scent. We produced some phrases that she probably had never heard and might never hear again. Original language. But the long and short of it is that the cellars remained closed to us. It was good to know that I had not exaggerated as a student about how absolutely awful the Secretaria of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence is and how the place has more than a whiff of adaptability according to what’s on offer.
Meanwhile the Biennale opened in a frantic incomprehensible shambles accompanied by the fabulous drums in costume. Within two hours I received the most fantastic compliments a traditional painter could ever dream of that will stay and glow with me forever. One was that my triptych was renaissance style painting brought up to date and with a political slant that was personal.
So, armed with an armful of those and the forbidding open legs of the prostitute keeping us and especially families with children that were visiting the Biennale at arm’s length, we ventured into Florence where we found that quarter of the city where there are restoration workshops, woodcarvers paradises and old skills still alive. The warm glowing hidden heart of Florence gently beating its way through the centuries. Time stood still. We chatted, stood in between pots of melted wax, rows of chisels and we passed a golden window where a young girl was learning how to apply colour to some pillars – a Vermeer come to life. It was still, cold and with that familiar smell of dust on old stone. I love, love, love Florence.
The Florence Biennale hung for a quiet week in between busier weekends. A lot of the artists looked forlorn. I had wondered about how the public was supposed to know about prices for the artworks on display, but a fellow Brit informed me that halfway through the week he was told by the organisation to take his prices down. It was probably spoiling the refined uncommercial atmosphere and letting the place down. As I had different reasons for being there this didn’t affect me, but for a lot of artists this must have been quite a blow. The director did his rounds with a group of friends, family, vips and dribbling bibs. Media was directed carefully to chosen spots. During the week Angus found in the local newspaper on page 30 (how did he find that?) a picture of the two brothers director giving a Lorenzo il Magnifico award to the journalist who was covering the story. I hadn’t taken on board that we were also going to be judged for awards, but yes, an absurd award ceremony was held, which went on and on and had people in tears or beside themselves with joy. It reminded me a bit of the Eurovision song festival with its political voting. There were no clips of the work that was chosen and no explanation of the criteria used. I believe there were 14 5th prices for painting.Then followed every other media you could think of. It’s funny how these events make you think for a split second that you want such a widely shared 5th price but I knew I had nothing to fear, because nobody had talked to me during the week. Not even a ‘good morning’ I dare to add. So I was mercifully left out of the awards. Abramovich’ agent noisily demonstrated against awards, this was after she had had hers sometime during the week and he was duly escorted off the premises. That was rather fun.
The girls at the reception were a pleasure, always friendly. The grand Opera dinner for 800 on the last Saturday was something I would almost go back for and utterly delicious.
When we packed up the car to come home a last artist came up to shake hands, just a quiet shake. Fab.
On our way back I realised how fantastic the open house system of exhibiting is. How personal and to the point and how very, very sophisticated. I am glad to have had this wonderful opportunity to meet artists from all over the world and to have had the luxuory of talking technique with some of them. To find so many in the same boat lost at the Artworld sea. I still want world peace, but I might just work at it in private.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 1:36 pm