VII° CONCORSO LA FENICE ET DES ARTISTES ANNO 2006

Venice: future present, a time rediscovered

The city of Venice is suspended between the sea and the sky. If you arrive overland, by train or car, you suddenly leave behind the industrial cities of Mestre and Marghera to find yourself on the long Liberty Bridge linking Venice with the rest of the world.

Here you cross two branches of the lagoon, between imperceptible horizons, often dissolving into a slight mist, little islands topped with ruins, wicker-work fish traps suspended on the surface of the water, and boats - whose allusive traditional names you will later discover - gently rippling the water.

You land in Venice, and you venture along its canals and laneways; time takes on a different dimension from the one you are used to, the frantic pace of your usual life disappears and you begin to discover the rhythms of another time.

If you arrive by boat, once you get past the entrance to the harbour you are sailing surrounded by land, by the islands of the lagoon; in the distance you can see how the city and the natural landscape fit together in perfect harmony, and when you disembark you will find yourself in the silence of a Venice without tourists.

In both cases time seems to stop, as if by magic, and you, the onlooker, get the feeling you have already lived there at some time; you lose yourself in a past that is both recent and remote, created by the palaces, the names of the streets and the Venetian dialect that keeps reminding you that you are not just anywhere.

History follows you wherever you go, making you feel a part of what is happening and what has happened in the places around you: you hear the musical lines of Goldoni’s plays, you see Marco Polo pass by, busy with preparations for a trip, you stroll through the hustle and bustle of the merchants of Venice.

You are not just a spectator, but an active member of that world. You have found the time you were looking for, you are once again the master of your own day.

You allow yourself to slip into one of the local inns to try the snacks traditionally served with a glass of wine, and get caught up in the constant chit-chat that lends an almost theatrical air to these places.

Then you get lost in the maze that is Venice, discovering corners of unexpected magnificence where the hand of man has added a precious touch to a place that was already beautiful.

The cosmopolitan city alternates with local traditions, the urban landscape alternates with nature in a neverending succession of contradictions that makes Venice the unique city it is.

This is the inspiration I gave to those invited to work on the theme presented here; I would have preferred to avoid rhetoric in my speech, but I realise that I have often fallen back on images which are overly descriptive, losing sight of the research aspect that I wanted to be the focus of my discourse.

But the artists invited to interpret what I attempted to express managed to convey the sensations one feels in Venice in their work, better than I did in my speech.

They practically summed up all that we have attempted to say in the themes of the first six competitions, managing to combine environment, history, tolerance, aesthetics and ethics, giving people who see their works the feeling that they are getting right into them and enjoying everything that Venice has to offer.

I believe this seventh edition will be a highly successful one, thanks of course to the artists who capture the spirit of the event better and better every year.

For this, I would like to thank them in the name of all the organisers. Personally, I would also like to thank Fenice Hotels and EDF Italia for their renewed support, and particularly our friends Michele Facchini and Bruno D’Onghia, whose moral support I rely on every year in my search for new artists and new themes for the event.

The Curator, Giacomo Pellegrini

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