Bubble gum sculptures for Venice Biennale

Scott Eady
Time, Space and Existence
Personal Structures
Palazzo Bembo, Venice
June 1 - November 24

New Zealand’s presence at this year's Venice Biennale will be the strongest ever, with three artists exhibiting.

Two of the them, Darryn George of Christcurch and Dunedin-based Scott Eady, will have their work on display at the Palazzo Bembo, one of the most accessible venues in Venice and just metres from the Rialto Bridge.

The pair have been invited to be part of the curated exhibition Time, Space and Existence, one of the major exhibitions of the biennale featuring more than 60 significant artists. Each will have their own space in the vast palace.

The exhibition theme sits within the wider curatorial premise of this year's biennale of "The Encyclopedic Palace".

Within the context of the Personal Structures exhibition Eady’s work will reference the sculpture of past exhibitors, including well-known international artist Carl Andre, whose work featured in the previous biennale show.

In an international context, Eady will be continuing with his playful minimalist sculptures and the way they engage with audiences. 

Eady’s bronze sculptures will be cast at a foundry in Auckland and freighted to Palazzo Bembo, where they will be installed in early May. The surface of each ball will be painted in soft, muted colours that purposely disguise the solid heavy bronze medium of the balls.

Confront visitors

These painted bronze sculptures – which are like large blob of bubble gum – will be positioned purposely to challenge and confront visitors to the courtyard of the palace.

Wellington City Gallery curator Aaron Lister notes that the artist’s disruptive sculptures confound expectations of the medium through provocation, frustration and humour.

“These obdurate blobs offer a kind of full stop, a place where sculpture might confront its own histories, its contested place inside and outside gallery walls, and probe that often tense relationship between audiences and the sculptural object.

“Eady presents sculpture as prank, often calling on childhood games or tricks. As with other recent sculptures, Ivan had a solid bronze core slathered with thick layers of bright paint.

"While unsettling those fraught battles over the boundaries between painting and sculpture, here this material subterfuge primarily assists in prank-making.

"A hand-written ‘Kick Me’ note is stuck on to Ivan’s seemingly soft and gooey surface, setting a trap for anyone willing or gullible enough to take up its invitation," he says.

“The participatory element emerges from an activation of the sculptural possibilities born from that very physical encounter between body and the sculptural object played out in real space and real time.

"This channelling of the sense of the danger and disorder carried by sculpture invites chaos and mess into the gallery experience under the guise of participation.”

High-profile exhibitions

Eady has had a number of recent high-profile exhibitions. His 100 Bikes Project (Part II) was selected for the Gwangju Biennale last year, Asia’s longest-running biennale and widely considered the most avant garde of them all.

In 2012 he exhibited his 100 Bikes Project (Part I) at the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt and had several sculptures included in the Obstinate Object exhibition at the City Gallery, Wellington.

Eady will be represented at the Venice Biennale by RH Gallery and will be financially supported by Otago Polytechnic and private patronage.

The invited artists for Personal Structures 2013 exhibition are:
Chul Hyun Ahn (KOR), Yoshitaka Amano (JPN), Alice Anderson (GBR), Jan-Erik Andersson (FIN), Axel Anklam (DEU), Yifat Bezalel (ISR), Hans Bischoffshausen (AUT), Djawid Borower (DEU), Faiza Butt (PAK), Mimmo Catania (ITA), Genia Chef (RUS), Chen Ping (CHN), Canal Cheong Jagerroos (CHN), Karlyn De Jongh (NLD), Scott Eady (NZL), Toshikatsu Endo (JPN), Carole Feuerman (USA), Cristiana Fioretti (ITA), Dale Frank (AUS), Chris Fraser (USA), Marc Fromm (DEU), Sally Gabori (AUS), Jakob Gasteiger (AUT), Darryn George (NZL), Selby Ginn (AUS), David Goldenberg (GBR), Gotthard Graubner (DEU), Kimberley Gundle (ZAF), Laura Gurton (USA), Patrick Hamilton (CHL), Anne Herzbluth (DEU), Per Hess (NOR), Hirofumi Isoya (JPN), Sam Jinks (AUS), Grzegorz Klatka (POL), Rori Knudtson (NOR), Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (FRA), James Lavadour (USA), Helmut Lemke (DEU), Luce (LVA), Heinz Mack (DEU), Michele Manzini (ITA), Christopher Martin (USA), Christian Megert (CHE), Herre Methorst (NLD), David Middlebrook (USA), Atelier Morales (CUB), Peter Simon Mühlhäußer (DEU), Hermann Nitsch (AUT), Yoko Ono (JPN), Roman Opalka (FRA), Otto Piene (DEU), Uli Pohl (DEU), Triny Prada (FRA), Qin Chong (CHN), Stefanus Rademeyer (ZAF), Nicola Rae (GBR), Arnulf Rainer (AUT), Bogdan Rata (ROU), Thomas Riess (AUT), Rene Rietmeyer (NLD), Yhonnie Scarce (AUS), Wilhelm Scherübl (AUT), Dmitry Shorin (RUS), Nitin Shroff (IND), The Icelandic Love Corporation (ISL), Monika Thiele (DEU), Michele Tombolini (ITA), Stefan Toth (CZE), Suh Jeong Min (KOR), VALIE EXPORT (AUT), Elena & Vitaliy Vasiliev (UKR), Ben Vautier (FRA), Raphael Vella (MLT), André Wagner (DEU), Xing Xin (CHN), Plamen Yordanov (BGR), Zhang Yu (CHN).