Robert Storr

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Advanced

Standard: American accent

THE ARTS

An American in Venice

The Venice Biennial is a major contemporary art exhibition which, apart from an interruption in the Second World War, has been staged every two years since 1895. This is the 52^nd edition and it is directed by an American for the first time. The man in question is the art critic Robert Storr, who talked earlier in the year to Speak Up about his plans for the event, which will run until November:

Robert Storr:

Standard: American Accent

I think Biennales are about art, they’re not about news. Some art is news and some is not. Art is an experience that happens fast or slow, according to what the artist intends and according to what the artist makes and it also is according to how the viewer wishes to engage with the art.

In the Biennale there will be art from literally all over the world, there will be art of all media. There’ll be drawings, there’ll be cartoons, there’ll be films, there’ll be videos, there’ll be sculptures, there’ll be paintings, there’ll be art of all about generations. The oldest artist s 95 years old and the youngest artist is in his 20s. There are no dead old masters, there are only artists who are of the present.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Storr was then asked whether being an American posed any particular difficulties when it came to working with the locals:

Robert Storr:

Making these exhibitions is difficult no matter who you are. I don’t know whether being are American makes it more difficult of less, perhaps it’s more difficult for Italians to deal with an American, who knows! But in any case, the point is it’s a great honor to do it, it’s an extremely complicated process altogether, but we’re going to get there and it’s going to be, I think a very good show and it will be a collaborative effort. I would say that I have very much relied on the expertise of the permanent staff of Biennale, the people who work there all the time, and particularly the staff who’s involved in the exhibition production and the press relations and so on, they’re very, very good and they’ve made it possible.

THE MEANING OF ART

In conclusion Storr was asked to explain this edition’s slogan, “Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.”

Robert Storr:

There is a tradition that is as old as Plato and as recent as Marcel Duchamp, to suggest that there is a categorical or decisive separation between what the senses tell us about the world and what exists as an idea. Plato believed, of course, that the senses misrepresented a more perfect reality of the mind. Marcel Duchamp believed that art was an idea before it was an object or a thing and one should concentrate on the idea and not spend too much time on the visual experience.

These kinds of divisions, I think, are fundamentally flawed, fundamentalist wrong, that all visual art is also addressed to the mind and all conceptual art is also addressed to at least one of the senses: it could be the sense of touch, it could be the sense of  sound, it could be the sense of vision, it’s usually more than one and very often four or five.

Exhibition Details (no audio)

THE 52^nd edition of the Venice Biennale’s International Art Exhibition will run until November 21^st. Other related Biennale events include the 5^th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, the 39^th, International Theatre Festival, the 64^th International Film Festival and the 51^st International Festival of Contemporary Music. For further information, visit: www.labiennale.org