INSTALLATIONS & VISUAL ART


seeking

"Seeking" uses newspaper classified ads to examine the private longings behind the public language of print mass media (this was pre-social media). The site-specific installation took place in a 17th c. palazzo in Venice. In a room facing the Grand Canal, a dotted line made of the first lines from relationship ads encircles the room, and isolated first names float on the walls in syncopation with the reflections from the canal waters; single lines cut from newspaper obituaries are wrapped around a thick rope dropping from the ceiling; the fireplace—the hearth—is blocked with wax bricks. In a far corner a dictionary appears to hover above the floor; its pages are inaccessible, covered with wax. The only words left is a spiral of personal pronouns in different languages cut from newspapers, embedded on the waxy open spread.

Large wall text the color of turgid canal water wraps around the room, with a quote from John Berger: "This century, for all its wealth and with all its communication systems, is the century of banishment…We live not just our lives, but the longings of our century." A second Berger quote is carved in the wax bricks that fill up the fireplace:"To whisper for that which has been lost. Not out of nostalgia, but because it is on the site of loss that hopes are born."

Mixed media installation, dimensions variable. Multilingual newspaper classified advertisements, wax, rope, dictionary, latex paint. Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, TransCulture, 46th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

1995