The Venice Biennale, the art or architecture exhibit in Italy, is shown every other year and it just opened. So all the art world has pictures everywhere about what is being shown and who is showing it. This one, using fabric, caught my eye.
Polish-Romani multidisciplinary artist, educator, and activist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas has been selected to represent Poland at the Fifty-Ninth Venice Biennale. Her “Re-enchanting the World” will occupy the Polish Pavilion during the event’s run, from April 23 to November 27, 2022. Known for a practice comprising sculpture, painting, installation, and large-format textiles, Mirga-Tas challenges discriminatory Romani stereotypes and cultivates a positive image of Roma culture. Her work frequently incorporates clothing belonging to friends and family, which she collages into patchwork screens showing scenes of the garments’ wearers engaged in everyday life, smoking or talking or just sitting around.
Art Forum
There are several places in Venice, Italy where the art is displayed, and many nations participate. I grabbed screenshots from the YouTube video for the pictures below, because hey–it’s FABRIC; the video is a three-minute overview of the art.
Britain took the National High Award (a golden lion) for their music presentation Feeling Her Way, by Sonia Boyce. I mention this also because the backdrop for her presentation are walls that look like patchwork and because the video is kind of cool to watch, to listen to.
I took a lot of photograph and digital art classes when I went to college and went through many “evaluations” or “workshops” of what we produced in the dark room/hovering over a computer. So I kind of laughed at one of the paragraphs in the Art Forum review, as it is so very “art-speak.” I propose some minor edits that can describe any of us and our quilts.
Original phrase: “unusually attractive visual form (opening the pavilion to a wider audience) combined with an original and deliberate ideological concept ‘proposing a new narrative about the constant migration of images and mutual influences between Roma, Polish and European cultures.’ ”
My Souped-Up phrase: I use an unusually attractive visual form, combined with an original and deliberate ideological concept of using various geometric and free-form shapes in order to propose a new narrative about the constant integration of images and mutual influences between traditional, modern and art cultures in my quilting.
Like that? You, too, can art-speak!
Happy Quilting!
P.S. I’ve been having some problems with some software changes by the hosting service and WordPress and I are monitoring how comments are emailed to me. If you have a moment and could help us out by leaving some sort of comment (even a word would do, but I read everything) so we can see if this is a bug, or a problem with their new forms, we’d appreciate it.
If you send me a comment, I’ll enter you in a drawing for all my old clothes, so you, too, can enter the Venice Biennale and be world-famous. I’M KIDDING. But if you could leave a comment, that would be great.
OccasionalPiece--Quilt! 
What a wonderful post – as usual, I always learn something from you!!!!!!! And you thought you were retired? 🙂 Re-enchanting the World is something else and it boggles the mind to see how the artist envisioned this work. All the links were excellent – thanks so much for including them. You’ve done it again!
Thanks for bringing this art exhibit to my attention! My little guy loves art and will love seeing this.
Thank you for sharing this! It is beautiful!
Have a good day!
So very interesting! Hi from the Hudson Valley!
Oh, Venice, where everywhere your eye lands is beauty. (And my daughter’s hysterical laughter at my insistence that there HAD TO BE TAXIS!)
There ARE taxis in Venice. They are WATER taxis, and ply the canals.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for introducing me to yet another bit of food for the soul and senses. Sometime, I’m going to take 2 weeks off work and do nothing but explore your posts and all the great links you provide. You are a wonder.
You can take the girl out of the newsroom but you’ll have to pry the red pen from her dead hand …
“I took advantage of the wide space of the pavilion to share my commentary on society and how we are one race, continually influencing one another.”
No old clothes please.
I love your posts! Thank you! Always thought provoking and stimulating. So grateful for you!
That looks fascinating. I’ll donate my old clothing to you so you can make a piece or two! 😉
Love your posts! Trying to be a helper!
Can’t imagine working in the extraordinary scale that Mirga-Tas works. Thanks for sharing, Elizabeth!
Hi friend!
Beautiful display. I wish I could see it in person! Thank you for sharing. PS I have enough of my own clothes 😄
If you are planning to make a Ring Cycles Quilt, may I suggest that you take a look at Sandy Klop’s (American Jane) :Squaring the Circle” It gives the same effect, but with square blocks.
Always interesting with you Elizabeth! How wonderful would it be visit the biennial AND Venice! Good luck dealing with your email/Wordpress issue. BTW there are always blogger comments I don’t receive to my inbox. Something to do with their email address! Have a great day.
Hi, Elizabeth! Hope you are having a great day!
Interesting!
Wow, those collage pieces are wonderful, fabric can do so much is so many ways!
Hi, Elizabeth,
I save your posts. I read them at that point in the day when I cannot look at another email or try to solve a problem for the volunteer organizations I work with. The posts are a virtual coffee break with a friend and they always refresh my soul.
Blessings,
Celia
As usual, you’re speaking to ME! You’re a Kindred Spirit. I remember a couple of the art quilters at Empty Spools talking about having to do artist statements, and what a pain it was to write in art speak.
Haha! No need here for your old clothes, but I’d love a trip to Venice to see these exhibits! Thank you for the great post!
P.S. Commenting seems to be working in Chrome for Mac, but the button doesn’t show in Firefox for Mac – it’s a bit glitchy lately …
Your posts are always informative. I enjoy reading each one, although I don’t always make time to respond.
Your posts are always so interesting. Hope the bugs get eradicated
Yes, good example of the ridiculousness of art speak! And I have plenty of old clothes of my own 🙂