VENICE, ITALY-AUGUST 2006: As a guest of the Emily Harvey Foundation, I created Storràgio Venezia, nine collaged shirt boxes with collaged lids, as a tribute to Venice via nine famous people who made their home there. I found the empty boxes one day on our quiet little street in San Polo, Calle di Cinque. The notion of art in boxes naturally corresponded with my concept of the The Art of Storàge which I had been working with before my departure for Italia. The idea was then developed further when I was inspired by Lucio Fontana's Venice and New York series, which I saw exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. I decided that making collaged tributes out of found objects from the streets of the city to nine residents of Venezia through the ages, inside of found boxes, would be as good a way as any of learning and exploring some of the local nuances, past and present, similar to what Fontana had done, but in a completely different way. This was what I was after and it came to fruition beyond my wildest dreams. My final selection of these nine Venetians took me to many unexpected places, literally and figuratively. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to create these works during my residency in beautiful Venezia as a guest of the Emily Harvey Foundation. These photos of the works in the first two columns were graciously snapped by Berty Skuber. The third column shows a drawing of each famous Venetian that I did from a photograph when I returned to New York in Fall 2006 as the concept continued to grow. I have been expanding this series of works in a new manifestation called Venice 2006: Everything Right, which uses other collage fragments collected in Venezia and the drawings. It is still a work in progress. Click the images below to enlarge them. -MARK BLOCH (2006)
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San Marco aka Mark the Evangelist (Lived c. 1st century BC and AD - Body moved to Venice 829AD) |
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Marco Polo (September 15, 1254 - January 8, 1324) |
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Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (known as Titian). (c. 1488-90 - August 27, 1576) |
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Shylock (created by William Shakespeare, baptised April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616)(as Shylock here is Ezra Pound) |
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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678, Venice - July 28 (or 27), 1741, Vienna) |
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Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (25 February 1707 - 6 February 1793) |
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Gian Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (April 2, 1725 in Venice - June 4, 1798) |
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Margaret "Peggy" Guggenheim (August 26, 1898 - December 23, 1979) |
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Emily Kreis Harvey (1941-2004) |