From June 3 to November 22, 2009 the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents Belgian artist Wim Delvoye’s latest creation Torre: a stainless steel Gothic tower constructed, with its ogival windows and its turrets, to rise over the terrace of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, overlooking the Grand Canal.
Wim Delvoye – Torre, 2009
Both architecture and ornament, Torre by Delvoye demonstrates not only ethereal majesty and vision but forceful material presence, drawing inspiration from masterpieces of Gothic architecture such as Notre Dame, Paris, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York. From a fusion of the sublime with the most advanced capabilities of computer technology, the Gothic style of the Tower unites it with the Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
Wim Delvoye’s artistic practice draws on the notion of the attraction of binary opposites: the sacred and the profane, the past and the present, the triumph of ornamentation over functionality. His art thrives on such paradoxes, that also form the basis of Surrealist artistic practice, combining these components of difference, not always manifest but ever present in his aesthetic. The placement of a Gothic tower in the vicinity of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni’s classicism creates just such a forceful and provocative paradox.
For Wim Delvoye: “While the Renaissance was a world view, the Gothic was a state of mind. The Renaissance was finite epoch lasting half a century before being succeeded by Mannerism. Gothic was an art outside of time. The human eye takes in detail like a stroboscope; glancing over lights and tracery, crockets and finials, it thrills to the joy of the tower’s soaring ascent.”
Born in 1965, Wim Delvoye lives and works in Ghent. He earned international recognition with his participation in the Venice Biennale in 1990 and 1999 and Documenta IX in 1992. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at the Ernst Museum Budapest (February-March 2008), a presentation of one of his Cloaca machines at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary (June-August 2008) and participation in exhibitions at MARTa in Herford (April-June 2008), Weserburg in Bremen (May 2008) and CAPC Bordeaux (June-September 2008).
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is the most important museum in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century. It is located in Peggy Guggenheim’s former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. The museum was inaugurated in 1980 and presents Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection of 20th century art, masterpieces from the Gianni Mattioli Collection, the Nasher Sculpture Garden, as well as temporary exhibitions.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is owned and operated by the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, which also operates the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin.
704 Dorsoduro, I-30123 Venezia
Open daily 10am-6pm (closed Tuesdays and December 25)
tel +39.041.2405411
www.guggenheim-venice.it
