Venice Pavilion

NOTE PERSISTENTI (PERSISTENT NOTES)

Commissioner Maurizio Carlin
Curator Giovanna Zabotti
with the participation of Denis Isaia
and Cesare Biasini Selvaggi
Exhibitors Dardust, Paolo Fantin, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Alberto Scodro, Artefici del Nostro Tempo

Seen from up close, Venice seems to have denied its own geographical boundaries since its origins. It is likely that someone, at some point, must have grasped the possibility of establishing themselves in the most fertile territories of myth. To do so, they took advan- tage of the sea and the dreamlike voice of their city, whose singularity rests on a remote oak forest that connects it to the foundations of life. Like Venice, Note persistenti takes its cue from the water represented by the swimming pool that anticipates the interior space of the pavilion. Within that reflective surface, the first “notes” materialise: the duller, underwater ones that seem to resonate from the bottom of the lagoon.

They serve as relics of the world beneath the city’s feet — a landscape catalysed by stakes and what crystallises around them. In the narrative of the journey, the “notes”, now resurfaced, begin to echo once again in the air. They continue to call upon that aspect of matter closest to gratitude. As in a minor-key composition, the project invites us to align ourselves to the vibrations that allow us to endure. Matter, the persistent heart, thus welcomes the voices of the folds of history, while the city and its pavilion become a field of complicity.