Hosted at La Fucina del Futuro, the San Marino Pavilion is designed and realised by FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea S.p.a., the official organizer of the Pavilion.The Pavilion of the Republic of San Marino at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia is officially open to the public. It will be open until 24 November 2024 at La Fucina del Futuro (Calle San Lorenzo 5063B, Castello). American artist Eddie Martinez will represent San Marino, the world’s oldest republic, with his project Nomader, curated by Alison M. Gingeras.
The San Marino Pavilion is designed and realised by FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea S.p.a., a San Marino company headed by Roberto Felicetti, Vincenzo Rotondo and Alessandro Bianchini, with the support of the Secretariat of State for Education and Culture in continuity with the Biennale Arte 2022 and the Biennale Architettura 2023.
The opening programme opened with greetings from Secretary of State Andrea Belluzzi, Commissioner Paolo Rondelli, Deputy Commissioner Riccardo Varini, and Roberto Felicetti and Alessandro Bianchini for FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea S.p.a. The works and research of Eddie Martinez were presented to the public by the curator Alison M. Gingeras and by the artist himself, who talked about his creative journey. The evening was enlivened by a musical intervention by singer Vanessa Jay Mulder, accompanied on the piano by maestro Stefano De Santis, in an interplay of forms, ideas and sounds.
San Marino, the world’s oldest republic, has a history of welcoming outsiders and has often looked to foreign artists for its participation in the international art and architecture exhibitions organised by the Venice Biennale. This choice pays homage to the country’s history: a place of hospitality and refuge in the past, and today an important tourist centre and university seat of international renown.
Strangers Everywhere – Foreigners Everywhere
The biography and conceptual underpinnings of Eddie Martinez’s work present a close affinity with Strangers Everywhere – Foreigners Everywhere, the theme proposed by Adriano Pedrosa, curator of the Biennale Arte 2024. Martinez, in fact, was marked by an itinerant childhood, lacking conventional stability. During his formative years, Martinez moved with his family from one region of the United States to another, from coast to coast, often more than once a year. His inclination to appropriate fragments of images and themes thus stems from his nomadic background. Traces of the different landscapes he travelled through during his youth occasionally appear in his iconography, which includes portions of images from an itinerant life, revised and transformed from work to work. Martinez felt perpetually foreign, regardless of where he stayed, until he put down roots in Brooklyn as an adult.
Drawing was the element that gave Martinez continuity throughout his life, having begun his practice at a young age. Even when he was constantly traveling, portable materials allowed him to invest in drawing as a core practice, which has been the backbone of his work ever since. Drawing provided Martinez with a sense of home, giving him comfort and allowing him to explore his imagination; in turn, drawing became the generative engine of his painting and sculptural practices. Stay up to date on the newest in the world of Fashion, Arts, Beauty and Lifestyle; Follow FAB on Instagram.
Alison M. Gingeras says: “Just as the Biennale’s curatorial theme embraces the notion of ‘Homo Migrans’ – the supposition that to be human means to migrate, to physically move, mentally change, and traverse cultures and identities – so does the visual universe of Martinez’s oeuvre. Martinez has allowed his work to formally and conceptually migrate from the legacy of automatic drawing, and abstraction practiced by the CoBrA group to his distinctive take on post-Philip Guston cartoony figuration, as well as his unusual revisitation of various classical art genres such as still lifes and portraiture. His experimental, heterogeneous practice is ever-changing, deploying different media as if always trying to make his visual language foreign to himself.”
Eddie Martinez represents the Republic of San Marino at La Biennale
The title Nomader summarizes Martinez’s relationship with forms and ideas, moving from drawing to sculpture and painting, from figuration to abstraction and vice versa. This neologism suggests both the theme of nomadism, both physical and cultural, and a phonetic play on the American pronunciation that sounds like “no matter.” Both meanings resonate with the artist’s work and his imagery.“I am honored”, says Eddie Martinez, “to represent the Republic of San Marino at La Biennale, and am grateful to the team at FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea S.p.A. who have organized the pavilion and chosen an artist beyond their borders to represent them on the world stage. I am also thankful to Alison Gingeras for her continued collaboration and her fearless interrogation of painting and its possibilities.
This project is the result of a decade-plus journey together, translating my visual lexicon and journeying to new lands, metaphorical and literal.”Conceived specifically for the spaces of La Fucina del Futuro, a former factory workshop in the heart of the Castello district, the installation conceived by Eddie Martinez and Alison M. Gingeras aims to give the viewer full access to the artist’s creative process. In the first room, a trapezoidal table is set up with a wide selection of drawings and some bronze sculptures, which the artist made by assembling various discarded materials found on the beach of Long Island. Surrounding the table is a selection of paintings created especially for the San Marino Pavilion. The installation of paintings then continues in the second room. Both sculptures and drawings are an integral part of the migratory conceptual and formal processes Martinez undergoes to produce his large-scale paintings.
Special Information:
Pavilion of the Republic of San Marino 60. International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Artist: Eddie Martinez
Title: Nomader
Curator: Alison M. Gingeras
Commissioner: Paolo Rondelli
Deputy Commissioner: Riccardo Varini
Scientific Committee: Alessandro Bianchini, Roberto Felicetti, Vincenzo Rotondo, Riccardo Varini
Venue: La Fucina del Futuro
Address: Castello 5063B Calle San Lorenzo, Venice, Italy
Dates: 20 April – 24 November 2024
Summer opening hours: 11 am – 7 pm (from 20 April to 30 September)
Autumn opening hours: 10 am – 6 pm (from 1 October to 24 November – last admission 5:45 pm)
Closed on Mondays (except 22 April, 17 June, 22 July, 2 and 30 September, 18 November)
Web: www.biennaleveneziasanmarino.com
