denny Architectural Art & Design

Conversation between artist John Baldessari, Daniel Birnbaum, curator of the 53 Venice Biennale and Steven Henry Madoff at Teatro Piccolo Arsenale in Venice on 5 June 2009. Baldessari talks about his work and in particular the facade of the Pavilion in the Giardini. Extract from Carol Vogel article in the York Times: The California artist John Baldessari first came to Venice in the early 1970s, when he was invited to show his works in a Biennale. He recalled, I slept on top of a Volkswagen bus parked in the Giardini, the shaded gardens that have been home to the Biennale for well over a century. This year he is back, ensconced in a hotel and no longer considered part of the avant-garde. At 78 he is one of two winners of the Golden Lion Award, a lifetime achievement prize he is sharing with Yoko Ono. A Santa Claus look-alike, with snow-white hair, a bushy beard and a hulking 6-foot-7 frame, Mr. Baldessari was hard to miss the other day. He was standing in front of what has long been called the Italian pavilion but this year has been renamed the Palace of Exhibitions, an 1895 colonnaded structure that is the first thing visitors see when they walk through the Giardinis iron gates. An anchor of sorts, the building is a familiar meeting place amid the labyrinth of national pavilions. It is also here that the artistic director presents a special exhibition. For the first time the pavilion is no longer white. From a distance the structure seems a cool sky blue. But close up a ...