Somewhere Else: Artists from Wales
Press Reception: Thursday 9 June 15.00 16.30
Other Vernissage Opening: 9 June 10.00 18.00, 10 & 11 June 10.00 20.00
Ex-Birreria
Giudecca, Venice
Peter Finnemore, Laura Ford and Paul Granjon will represent Wales at this years 51st Venice Biennale of Art, opening in June. In addition to the exhibition at the Ex-Birreria, Giudecca, we have a residency by Bedwyr Williams, a partnership between Wales at Venice and Cywaith Cymru . Artworks Wales.
Peter Finnemore was born in Llanelli, Wales in 1963 and studied at Glasgow School of Art and Michigan University. He has exhibited in Britain as well as in the Netherlands, Switzerland, the USA, France and Croatia. Peter Finnemores new work for Venice is a 3-screen video installation that investigates themes of memory and identity in all its complexity.
Laura Ford was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1961. She studied at the Bath Academy of Art and Chelsea School of Art in London where she now lives and works. She has exhibited widely in Britain and abroad and is represented by Houldsworth Gallery, London. Fords sculptures, often part human, part animal, resemble strange hybrid creatures. For Somewhere Else she has created a series of new works, together entitled Glory Glory and one other solitary creature called Beast.
Paul Granjon was born in Lyon, France in 1965 and has lived in Cardiff for ten years. He founded Z Productions (www.zprod.org) in 1988 before graduating from lEcole des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, France. Solo shows include ZLab and Z Food Across the World which both toured extensively. Paul Granjon has created a Robotarium for Somewhere Else – a sort of robot zoo where we see three automatons going about their daily life.
Born in St Asaph, Wales in 1974, Bedwyr Williams now lives and works near Caernarfon, Gwynedd, following studies at Central St Martins School of Art, London and Ateliers, Arnhem, Netherlands. Creating work in several media, he has exhibited in Britain and abroad and won a Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2004.
Bedwyr Williams is our man in Venice, intrepid detective, reporter, non-participant observer, loose cannon on the island of Giudecca. He has been stationed in a studio overlooking the garden of the Ex-Birreria taking up the challenge of his residency, armed only with a trusty camera and laptop and a seriously black sense of humour. The residency has inspired the creation of a book, Basta (Enough) in which Bedwyr observes the strange, the mundane and the obvious around him while critiquing what he is doing.
Karen MacKinnon, Curator said of the selected artists from that ever-elusive somewhere else, somewhere outside the inside, they reveal a clearer sense of our contemporary condition.
The Ex-Birreria, Giudecca is reached from Vaporetto Stop: Palanca
Line 82 (direct) from Zattere and San Zaccaria
Line 42 (direct) from San Zaccaria, Arsenale and Giardini
Further details and images are available by request. Images also available to download from the press section on our website www.walesvenicebiennale.org
Contacts: Michael Nixon, Commissioner
Tel: 44 (0)1938 810910/Mobile: 44(0)7785 298468
email: michael@walesvenicebiennale.org
Nia Roberts, Project Manager
Wales at Venice Office, 28 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3QE.
Tel 44 (0)29 2038 3027 email: nia@walesvenicebiennale.org
Exhibition Venue tel. from June 3rd: 39 041 5223852
Press:
Alan Sykes
Tel: 44 (0)16977 2228/Mobile: 44 (0)777 3615170
Email: alansykes@talkinhead.demon.co.uk
Wales at Venice 2005 is hosted by the Arts Council of Wales, supported by a partnership of public and private sponsors. The residency is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.
Cywaith Cymru . Artworks Wales is the national organisation for public art in Wales.
In collaboration in Venice with Nuova Icona Cultural Association.
Exhibition open to the public
12 June 30 September: 12.00 19.00
01 October 06 November 12.00 18.00
Closed Mondays
