Currently on show down at UCCA is selection from Polish artist Pawel Althamer's 2013 Venice Biennale Venetians exhibition in which a cross-section of the city's disappearing local population has been rendered in plastic face and hand molds, and mummified wire, rags, and ribbons, in the presentation of a city scene that recalls Pompeii via a Marilyn Mansion video circa '92.
It's pretty neat-o.
According to the accompanying documentation, Venetians "reflects Althamer’s interest in social, site-specific sculpture" -- in this case, the declining indigenous population of Venice. Subjects young and old, and all shapes and sizes, are locked together in a communal sleeping death, their eyes closed in a sort of shared internalization -- here but in their own world, alive and dead at the same time. It's a bit of a bummer party. You can go see it if you like.
SmartBeijing check it out and took a bunch of photos, like a party photographer for the damned.
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Click here for a gallery of Pawel Althamer's 'Venetians' @ UCCA.
*** Klaatu! Verata! Nikto! Pawel Althamer's 'Venetians' is on exhibition down at UCCA until August 29. It's a 10rmb admission fee. Free on Thursdays. The gallery is closed on Mondays.
