Scotland+Venice Diaries: Chewing the Scenery

Blog by Alex Millar | 31 Aug 2011

Halfway through our stay – oh how time marches on – and all is andando alla grande! Things continue to tick over nicely in the exhibition, with many happy visitors to note. 

The exciting news is that we’ve managed to bag ourselves tickets for the opening film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, The Ides of March; an American political drama starring George Clooney.  So stay posted for exclusive thumbs up (or down) on that one!

On the art front, the best thing we’ve come across recently is the Swiss collateral exhibition (in addition to their pavilion in the Giardini, with work by Thomas Hirschhorn) – Chewing the Scenery. Located in and around Teatro Fondamenta Nuove and curated by Andrea Thal, the exhibition is an ongoing collaborative project between a variety of artists, writers and actors – all centred (loosely speaking) around the concepts of theatre staging and “dramaturgy”.  

The show contains a large film installation by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz entitled, No Future and No Past, which runs alongside a terrific performance piece by Tim Zulauf/KMUProduktionen. This work – Devieare - Vier Aganten - Part of a Movie – consists of an actor attempting to act out an ambiguous narrative under the direction of three others. The events and sound spill out from the theatre onto the waterfront and surrounding alleyways, in a bizarre mix of reality and fiction.

For more in-depth information, including the publication, you can find a PDF here.

That’s all for now!  Ciao,

Alex