风造就了天空：追寻马可·波罗的足迹的威尼斯双年展 第二站

威尼斯双年展历史档案馆特别项目，纪念马可·波罗逝世700周年（1324-2024）

策展人：路易吉娅·洛纳尔德利

古尔努尔·穆卡扎诺娃：《希望的记忆》

2024年12月10日至2025年2月10日，威尼斯双年展在位于圣马可的总部卡·朱斯蒂尼安宫（Ca’ Giustinian）内的科隆厅（Sala delle Colonne）举办了由路易吉娅·洛纳尔德利策展的《古尔努尔·穆卡扎诺娃：希望的记忆》展览。

该展览是威尼斯双年展历史档案馆特别项目《风造就了天空：追寻马可·波罗的足迹的威尼斯双年展》的第二站，该项目为纪念马可·波罗逝世700周年（1324-2024），重现其旅程。项目的第三站将于2025年秋季在伊斯坦布尔开展。

在第一站杭州——2024年11月9日于中国美术学院美术馆开幕的展览《完美之路》中，意大利总统塞尔吉奥·马塔雷拉也到场参观——项目重点聚焦于中国新生代艺术家对自我路径的探索。威尼斯的这一站则关注了尼科洛·波罗和马泰奥·波罗（马可·波罗的父亲和叔叔）。在他们早期的探索中，他们萌生了可以进一步向东推进的想法。他们穿越哈萨克斯坦广袤的草原，沿着从乌凯克到布哈拉通往远东的无数条路径之一前行。欧亚边界的沙漠地带一直以来都是天然的边界，这片土地上的居民数千年来始终是连接欧洲与亚洲地区的中介，承载着文化交流与融合的重任。

此次展览的主角，艺术家古尔努尔·穆卡扎诺娃，出生于哈萨克斯坦，现已在柏林生活十余年。她将纺织艺术的知识与传统带到了威尼斯。她的艺术实践通过羊毛、丝纤维和古老织物的叠加，以松散而细腻的编织方式唤起了对远东的印象。她的作品融合了彼此相距甚远的装饰图案和材料，常常达到不和谐的程度，但在她的手中却实现了和谐的统一。

路易吉娅·洛纳尔德利的评注：

“如同一道水线，她的介入贯穿了整个空间——策展人路易吉娅·洛纳尔德利解释道——其设计灵感来源于无限符号和龙蛇曲线，这一亚洲文化中的元素象征着大地的能量。她的作品彻底重新定义了科隆厅的空间，并通过整体性的空间解读吸收了厅内的柱体结构。”

“穆卡扎诺娃是一个世代的代表，她们首次在国际舞台亮相是在威尼斯双年展的中央亚洲馆（2005年至2013年间的展览）。这些展览探索了一系列来自哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦、塔吉克斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦的艺术家的实验性创作，思考贯穿该地区艺术身份的纽带，以及如何在这些年轻国家的建设中重塑前苏联时期的记忆。”

“出生于20世纪80年代的穆卡扎诺娃，在童年时期见证了苏联的解体，并在青少年早期目睹了国家独立的建立。她的作品反映了一种流动的身份，这种身份不试图定义类别或边界，而是拥抱了她成长过程中所接触到的视觉参考的复杂性。这位艺术家重新拾起了游牧传统以及苏联时期引入的廉价面料，并在连续的横向转化中将其与中国制造的布料结合。在完全没有图像、颜色和触觉价值的情况下，穆卡扎诺娃找到了材料和色彩组合的意外可能性，重新创造出难以一眼尽收的广阔表面，但却令人联想到欧亚大草原的辽阔地平线。"

塞夫代特·埃雷克《两栖》

如同杭州站，威尼斯站也由伊斯坦布尔艺术家塞夫代特·埃雷克（Cevdet Erek）为此次旅程创作的舞台伴随呈现。艺术家受威尼斯双年展委托，重新设计了位于卡·朱斯蒂尼安宫艺术实验室的舞台，其灵感来源于所在的船坞空间。舞台的建筑结构被解构以突出其结构元素，底部部件散布于空间中，随后它们将再次踏上旅程，前往该项目的下一站——伊斯坦布尔。

“如同一支现代商队穿越所经之地，”策展人强调，“《两栖》是一个临时的休息、停驻和相遇的场所。它是一个模块化的交流与表演空间，旨在开放与转化，其结构与音频系统会根据所到之地的建筑传统与节奏进行适应。《两栖》在其标题中暗含双重属性：既可在水中生活也可在岸上生存，而‘amfi’这一词根则蕴含‘环绕’或‘穿越’的意义。”

以下为报道原文

Second stage of THE WIND MAKES THE SKY. La Biennale di Venezia on the traces of Marco Polo.

A Special Project by La Biennale di Venezia’s Historical Archive to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo (1324 – 2024)
curated by Luigia Lonardelli

Gulnur Mukazhanova.
Memory of Hope

La Biennale di Venezia inaugurated the exhibition Gulnur Mukazhanova. Memory of Hope, curated by Luigia Lonardelli, in Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian, headquarters of the Biennale in San Marco, open from 10 December 2024 to 10 February 2025.

The exhibition represents the second stage of the Special Project by La Biennale di Venezia’s Historical Archive, titled The Wind Makes the Sky. La Biennale di Venezia on the Traces of Marco Polo, which retraces Marco Polo’s travels on the 700th anniversary of his death (1324 – 2024). Istanbul will be the third city touched by the project in the fall of 2025.

During the first stage in Hangzhou – with the exhibition titled The Perfect Path, inaugurated on November 9th this year at the CAA Art Museum and visited by the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella – the project concentrated on the latest generation of Chinese artists who are searching for their own personal path. This Venetian stage instead considers a geographical area traversed by a lesser-known journey, that of Niccolò and Matteo Polo, Marco’s father and uncle. During their early explorations, they conceived the notion that they could push further east, travelling across the wide-open steppes of Kazakhstan to follow one of the infinite routes that, from Ukek to Bukhara, led to the Far East. The desert areas on the Eurasian border have always constituted a natural border and for thousands of years their populations have been at the centre of a process of mediation connecting the European and Asian areas,carrying the responsibility of cultural exchange and fusion. 

The protagonist of this exhibition, artist Gulnur Mukazhanova, born in Kazakhstan and based in Berlin for over ten years, brings the knowledge and tradition of textile art to Venice. Her artistic practice layers wool, silk fibres and ancient fabrics in a loose and delicate weave that evokes impressions of the Far East, blending decorative motifs and materials that are quite distant, often to the point of dissonance, which her hands marry to achieve harmony.

Note by Luigia Lonardelli

“Like a waterline, her intervention pervades the entire space –explains the Curator Luigia Lonardelli–, following a design inspired by the sign of infinity and the sinuous lines of the dragon-serpent, an element which in Asian culture conjures the energies of the earth, completely redefining Sala delle Colonne and absorbing its columns within a total reading of the space”.

“Mukazhanova is part of the generation that made its international debut inside the Central Asia Pavilion (hosted by La Biennale di Venezia in the editions held from 2005 to 2013) which explored the experimentations of a series of artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, reflecting upon the bonds that run through the artistic identities of this region and how the memory of the pre-Soviet identities might be reshaped in building these young countries”.

“Born in the 1980s, the artist saw the Soviet Union fall apart during her childhood and watched her country build its independence during her early teenage years. Her work reflects a shifting identity that does not seek to define categories or borders, but embraces the complexity of the visual references which surrounded her as she grew up. The artist retrieves the nomadic traditions and mass-market fabrics brought into the country during the Soviet era, which she matches, in continuous lateral moves, with pieces of fabric made in China. In this complete absence of iconographies, colours and tactile values, Mukazhanova finds an unexpected possibility of material and chromatic combination, recreating expansive surfaces that are difficult to take in at a glance, but are reminiscent of the vast horizons of the Eurasian steppes”.

The project by Cevdet Erek
Amfibio

Like in Hangzhou, this phase in Venice is again accompanied by the stage created by the artist Cevdet Erek from Istanbul, commissioned by La Biennale to follow these travels.  In Venice the artist redesigned the stage, presented in the Laboratory of the Arts at Ca’ Giustinian, drawing inspiration from the boatyard space in which it is located: its architecture has been disassembled to highlight its structural elements, exposing its base components which are strewn around the space, before departing again on their journey towards Istanbul, the next stop for The Wind Makes the Sky.

“Like a modern caravan transiting through the lands across which it travels, emphasises the Curator, Amfibio is a temporary setting in which to rest, stop and meet.  A modular space of encounter and performance, conceived to be permeable and to be transformed, both in its structure and audio system, to adapt to the architectural traditions and rhythms of the places through which it travels. Amfibio has in its title its dual nature, a creature that can live in water or on shore, while the root “amfi” carries within it the meaning of being around or crossing through”.