Venice - Art Road

The Severed Head of Medusa – Malachite, 38 x 49.6 x 52 cm

As you already know we are visiting Venice and we came to attend Damien Hirst’s exhibition, “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable”. He has been absent for more than a decade and apparently he was busy working on this project, since the assemblage of the exhibition took 10 years.

In 2008 by scanning the coast of East Africa a vast wrecking was found, retrieved from the ancient sunken vessel, the Apistosalmost 2000 years ago, according to the curators.

Researches and scuba divers were astonished by the amount of art work that was submerged in the Indian Ocean for some two thousand years before. (or they want us to believe)

The Fate of a Banished Man – Carrara marble, 387 x 399 x 176 cm

The collection lent credence to the legend of Cif Amotan II, a collector who was a freed slave from Turkey, lived between the mid-first and early-second centuries. He stoled, commissioned and borrowed a massive collection, brought them together on the biggest ship of its day called the Apistos (translates from Koine Greek as the ‘Unbelievable’). The collection was meant to be used for a temple built by the collector.

“For me the show is totally about belief and it’s like you can believe whatever you want to believe. I mean I believed the story of the collector from 2000 years ago, I spent so much time on it, that it’s not a lie. I just believe it. I think you have to believe it.” Damien Hirst

There is a thin line between reality and unreality in this collection and we got quite confused ourselves going through the artworks, not sure which one belonged to the past and which one was made few years ago.

We assumed some of the gold ones could belong to the ship but still was not completely sure about our thoughts.

In one hand when you see the underwater footages, at first you think, well this is real, they actually found it under the sea, but then you realise it can be made up in order to create this uncertainty for the viewer, and on the other hand, you think it could be real and Hirst built this statues based on what he saw and was inspired.

We think that some were actually found from the Indian Ocean and are either in the exhibition or kept in a safe, and the rest was created by Damien Hirst based on the findings, but there is no actual promise for this as we are free to think whatever we want (at least for now).

This could be the theme for this show, to trust your own instincts and believe your own story, and what seems real to you.

If this is a fictional world created by the artist, we think it’s amusing and refreshing to combine ancient world with today’s art and modern life, if not, well then it’s a bit boring to see copies.

Bust of the Collector, Bronze, 81 x 65 x 36.5

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LIES AND TRUTH LIES THE TRUTH.

The exhibition is held in two venues in Venice, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana until 3 December 2017.

Demon with Bowl

Standing at just over eighteen meters, this monumental figure is a copy of a smaller bronze recovered from the wreckage.

The discovery of the statue Appeared to solve the mystery of a disembodied bronze head with saurian features excavated in the Tigris Valley in 1932.

Ancient Mesopotamian demons were complex primeval creatures that exhibited elements of the human, animal and divine.

Demon with bowl, Painted resin, 1822 x 789 x 1144 cm

Aspect of Katie Ishtar Yo-landi

The Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar is one of the most complex and elusive figures of the ancient Near East.

This large bust has been gilded from the neck down, the sheets of gold leaf applied by devotees in the manner of temple offerings in southeast Asia.

Aspect of Katie Ishtar Yo-landi, Bronze and gold leaf 164.5 x 90.0 x 66.6 cm

Best Frieds, Bronze, 72.5 x 136.7 x 82 cm

Sun Disc

Solar disc presents a human face emerging from a harmonic low relief pattern of intersecting rays. Sun worship is reflective of the universal human need to comprehend the mysteries of life, death and the beyond.

Andromeda and the Sea Monster, Bronze, 391 x 59305 x 369.5 cm

Hermaphrodite

According to myth, Hermaphroditus was the son of hermes and Aphrodite and the personification of youthful beauty. One day, he was accosted by the enamoured nymph Salmacis whilst he bathed. As she gripped his body, the nymph prayed that the two might be eternally united in their ‘clinging embrace’, at which, the fused into into one being: half man, half woman, seemingly ‘neither and both’ (Ovid).

The Severed Head of Medusa

From the Roman era onwards, Medusa’s great beauty became one of her most prominent characteristics. The late-medieval poet Christine de Pizan described her as a figure ‘of such striking beauty that not only did she surpass all other women, but she also attracted to herself, every mortal creature upon whom she looked’.

The Severed Head of Medusa, Gold, silver, 32 x 39.7 x 39.7

Hydra and Kali

Depicting the all-encompassing cosmic nature of a deity through a multiplicity of limbs is an Indian practice that dates from the Kushan period (second century BCE to third century CE). Whilst a many-headed snake (nāga) also features prominently in Hindu mythology, this seven-headed beast more closely recalls the Greek Hydra.

Hydra and Kali, Bronze, 539 x 612 x 244 cm

Tadukheba, Carrara marble, emeralds and rock crystal, 43.7 x 30.2 x 26.5 cm

Sphinx

This sphinx’s idealised female attributes recall Roman examples dating from the first and second centuries CE.

Unknown Pharaoh

While the identity of this figure is unknown, his pharaonic statues is confirmed by the nemes ( headcloth) he sports. A prominent uraeus (royal cobra) and vulture’s head coil upwards from his brow: a symbol of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt that occurred around 3100 BCE.

Aten

The practice of tattooing in Egypt is in evidence from around 2000 BCE and was traditionally associated with Nubian musicians and dancers. With her bejeweled nudity exultant expression, this figure expresses the power of the supreme solar god, Aten, in terms analogous to the ecstasy of sexual love.

Calendar, Stone, Bronze, 422.5 x 475.8 x 172.3 cm

The Diver

Poised on tiptoe, this double-sized bronze figure would have been displayed in a j : a shrine built on the site of a natural grotto. Grottoes were extremely popular in Greece and Rome, and large-scale artificial versions were sculpted in replication of natural rock formations.

The Collector with Friend, Bronze, 185.5 x 123.5 x 73 cm

Cronos Devouring his Children, Bronze, 312.5 x 334.3 x 253.5 cm

Two Figures with a Drum, Bronze, 556.6 x 238 x 274 cm

The Warrior and the Bear

This monumental sculpture relates to the ancient Greek maturation ritual of arkteia, which involved groups of Athenian girls imitating she-bears, whilst dancing and performing sacrifices. This act of sanctioned wildness served to appease Artemis – goddess of the hunt – following the Athenians’ slaying of a bear. While the practice of arkteia was intended to expel the animalistic qualities of a woman’s nature in preparation for a life of domesticity, this figure subverts the tradition by celebrating the ferocity that inhered within the goddess.