From Mana Contemporary to Sacred Art Ground-Inside Maria Pavlovska’s Time Travelling Biennale Adventure.
Macedonian-born, NewYork based Artist Takes Venice — Inside Maria Pavlovska’s Time Traveling Biennale Adventure
Maria Pavlovska Personal Structures during the 58th Venice Biennale
PERSONAL STRUCTURES — Identities
11 May — 24 November 2019
Collectors and curators who flocked to the Venice Biennale last summer encountered a Macedonian born, New York artist Maria Pavlovska in an important exhibition organized by the European Cultural Centre.
“Personal Structures: Identities ” — which stayed on view into November 2019 — features Pavlovska along with nearly 200-some talents from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Latin America, Africa, and North America. The tri-venue exhibition took place at the historic Palazzo Bembo on the Grand Canal, and extends to the historic Palazzo Mora on the main street (the striking edifice where Pavlovska’s works are installed), as well as spilling onto the garden grounds of Giardini Marinaressa. Pavlovska work was noticed and invited by the ECC curatorial team and supported by Mana Contemporary Museum USA.
The painter is a staple of the New York art world. Her practice is headquartered amidst the MANA Contemporary Museum complex at MANA Studios since 2012. After her first solo show in New York in 2007 in the last 12 years she has been living between New York and Skopje, also shows internationally.
While Pavlovska is known primarily as an abstract painter, in recent years, she has created elaborate installations where drawings intersect with labyrinthine flow charts. Her fierce paintings — comprised of striking, deliberate scrawls — embrace polar opposites: light and dark, full and empty, black and white.
The portrait video, shot in Pavlovska’s studio at Mana Contemporary, ( produced by Mana Contemporary media team, remain courtesy of Mana itself), during the process of the project “A Reaction”, unveils the artist’s lighting bolt-like making process as she navigates both physical and metaphysical space.
With her project “A Reaction”,” the artist comes full circle, making her idea and the process documented in video material. These latest paintings and installation possess the imprint of the past and present environment. And appropriately they occupy an environment perfumed with Venice’s fabled contemporary.
“I present the conceptual idea of how the perception of time is realized through the simplicity of the line and the two colors,” Maria Pavlovska
“The Venice Biennale is the Olympics of art, and I couldn’t be more honored.”
Due to the attention paid of Pavlovska project since the opening on May 11, the curators of the European Cultural Centre invited and honored the Artist with the respectfully organized Artist Talk on May 17. The Artist Talk — Conversation with the Artist; took place at Palazzo Bembo main hall between the Artist, ECC Curator: Sara Danieli and ECC Press and Media: Ana Lucia.
The prolific Pavlovska returns to Skopje after the opening in Venice due to the publishing and Book Launch of the Monograph “ The First Principle — The DRAWING”, (her Ph.D. thesis translated into Monograph) and also by personal invitation exhibited February 20 through March 20. 2020 in another celebrated venue — at the OSTEN Biennale of Drawing 2020 ( preview solo show).
Pavlovska’s next act — a works entitled “OBJECT” at the upcoming Digital Open House: Town Hall, Mana Contemporary — opens Thursday, June 25, and remains on view through June 28.2020 (www.manacontemporary.com)
We ask her about the experience regarding this exposure, so she said:
“Arriving in Venice, I was greeted by dark skies, rumbles of thunder, and then incessant rain….but wait a minute! Who cares about the weather I had been invited to exhibit my artwork at the preeminent cultural event in the most beautiful city in the whole world.”
“The Venice Biennale draws hundreds of thousands of art lovers and professionals from all over the world and I was going to be a part of this for the full 6 months, so I repeat, who cares about the weather.” — continued Pavlovska
“After checking in to my apartment, I decided to head off to Palazzo Mora early to check that the lights did not reflect the videos and the installation.” This palazzo is one of the three palazzi taken over by the European Cultural Centre for the Personal Structures group exhibition and also the Kiribati National Pavilion as well as the Seychelles and Zimbabwe National Pavilions. Kiribati and Venice, although at different sides of the world both geographically and culturally, share similar environmental challenges in that they are both sinking.
“As I feared, the lights were too fierce, so with the best curatorial and technical ECC team we fix all, also I felt churlish complaining that the great Hermann Nitsch’s blood paintings were vividly on the other floor. Right next to him there goes fabulous work of Arnulf Rainer. I checked out my other fellow artists and who should be there also but none other than the great Yoko Ono…how blessed am I ! Nitsch’s blood and gore paintings, Maria Pavlovska’s project video and work, Arnulf Rainer drawings and Yoko Ono project Video. Well, this is the Venice Biennale, after all.”
“At 6pm there was a steady trickle of people arriving and by 6.30 it became a torrent as they arrived by the hundred. By 7pm with the Prosecco flowing and trays of exquisite canapés passing me by, there was barely breathing room.”
“The crowd seemed pleased, I was gratified to see the many people who did a double take as they realized that my video showed the full process during the production of the project A Reaction. The reactions were mixed from surprise to curiosity to listen to it all (putting the headphones on), but at least no one was complacent or unreactive. That is all I wished for, to provoke a strong reaction amongst all this amazing art.”
To take the Kiribati motto: “Te Mauri, Te Raoi ao Te Tabomoa”
“Health, Peace and Prosperity”
WEBSITES: http://www.europeanculturalcentre.eu
Artist at Mana; Maria Pavlovska Project ;A Reaction: https://vimeo.com/113301023
Courtesy; Mana Contemporary
