Whitney McVeigh – Hunting Song

Mostra personale

Comunicato stampa

O
n the occasion of the 55th Venice Biennale,
the Gervasuti Foundation is presenting a
solo project by London-based American
artist Whitney McVeigh entitled Hunting Song. This
constitutes a site-specific installation in one of the
Foundation’s adjacent buildings, a former hospice for
unmarried women dating back to the 16th century.
McVeigh has created a fictional old curiosity shop
with a diverse collection of objects from her own
‘collection’ interwoven with ‘found’ objects located
on site at the Gervasuti Foundation. These have been
carefully selected and painstakingly arranged and
ordered. Her own objects have been accumulated
from flea markets and junk shops on her extensive
travels over the last 20 years and have a profound
personal significance to her. They include an old
typewriter, artefacts from Syria and Africa, old
letters, diaries, ledgers, encyclopaedias, neglected
photographs and tintypes from New York and
numerous other books, such as a Children’s Treasure
House, which all evoke deep memories for her. Some
of McVeigh’s own monotypes are also integrated with
the other found objects and discreetly mounted in old
frames including one that incorporates the cover of
a book of vintage sheet music entitled Hunting Song
which also provides the exhibition’s title.
According to particle physicists, energy never dies,
so it could be said that every object retains an
‘energy’ or memory of everything it has ever been,
of where it has moved and of every person with
whom it has come into contact with. McVeigh’s
installation of found objects celebrates this sense
of their interconnectedness, bringing together the
building’s history and the memories of its former
residents. Unlike the sumptuous Venetian palaces
where Biennale projects are often staged, McVeigh’s
project utilizes a more atmospheric derelict building
re-opened by the Foundation and situated in the
historic Castello region, the oldest community in
Venice known for its expertise in woodcraft and
its shipyards. This also relates to the notion of
psycho geography or how specific geographical
environments have a psychic atmosphere that can
affect the emotions and behaviour of individuals. The
installation has an eerie sense of presence that the
shopkeeper is close at hand and will soon return to
open up the shop.
McVeigh’s installation reveals her acute observation
and attention to detail in her choice and careful
arrangement of objects that aptly relate to the
Biennale theme, The Encyclopedic Palace. As we
increasingly struggle to deal with a constant flood
of information, there are continuous attempts to
reconstruct memories and realities as well as to
hold on to concepts and tangible objects that are
considered as fundamentals. Hunting Song explores
both personal history and collective memory and
alludes to the layering of time and how the histories
of found objects (and implicitly those of their
previous owners), can transfer a sense of universality
to the person encountering them. As part of the
human condition we tend to collect objects in order
to enhance our sense of identity and thus to feel
more connected to the world.
The Gervasuti Foundation is delighted to present
an artist whose work reveals a very personal
archaeology and a deep affinity with the
Foundation’s mission: the preservation and reevaluation of context and cultural collective memory
through contemporary practice.
Whitney McVeigh is an American, London based
artist. Her work focuses on the exploration of the
physical and psychological elements of the human
condition. McVeigh has travelled extensively to
carry out her practice and has held residencies
in India, Mexico, and Beijing, and more recently
in South Africa. Concerned with reinvention, her
work often uses found objects, including books and
also creates large monotypes embodying a sense
of time and human imprint. In 2009, McVeigh has
employed the use of video during a trip to Syria to
create Sight and Memory and in 2012 she visited
Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia with the BBC to make a
short film about artists. The artist has taken part in
international exhibitions such as David Krut Projects,
NY and Archaeology of Memory at Nirox Projects,
Johannesburg and has worked in residency at NY
Arts in their Beijing space. Her work is also featured
in ‘White Light/White Heat Glasstress’ at the Palazzo
Franchetti & Murano - a Collateral Project of the
55th Venice Biennale.