My Art Guide Venice Meeting Point
Established in 2015, the Venice Meeting Point is a platform created by Lightbox for international dialogue in contemporary art, with the aim to foster collaboration opportunities between visual artists, art organisations and the international arts community, as well as cultivate deeper public engagement with the arts. The Venice Meeting Point, just round the corner from the Arsenale entrance, is a private club, the Navy Officer’s Private Club, which exceptionally only for the Biennale openings, welcomes also My Art Guides friends and partners.
The 2022 edition, the 5th since the beginning of the project, took place from April 19-24 and hosted a series of art encounters on art and technology presented by Unfinished Camp – a global platform that links the ethical technology and visual arts communities closer together brainchild of internationally acclaimed curator and artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist and author and cultural strategist András Szántó – and the collective art exhibition curated by My Art Guides publisher Mara Sartore titled “De Rerum Natura / The Nature of Things”.
The programme of the Venice Meeting Point has been enriched by the collaboration with Aorist and two guests artists Miltos Manetas and Jonas Lund connected to the theme of art and technology.
The Greek artist Miltos Manetas presented the 7th edition of the Internet Pavilion dedicated to the controversial figure of Julian Assange. For each day of the Biennale openings, he gave away free of charge 11 oil on canvas paintings and NFT of Julian Assange.
In the Annex Space to the Navy Officer’s Club, Aorist – a next-generation cultural institution supporting artists creating at the edge of art and technology – presented an immersive installation by pioneering artist Rafaël Rozendaal, “Observation”. Aorist has also presented inside the tavern of the Venice Meeting Point a work by Jonas Lund, MVP (Most Valuable Painting), an online participatory project (MVP.ART) in which 512 individual digital paintings transform and evolve, optimizing themselves to become more desirable based on audience engagement data and sales.
Aorist was founded by Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, a patron, and innovator in the NFT ecosystem, cultural place-maker Ximena Caminos; and artist Andrea Bonaceto.
Unfinished Camp
Unfinished Camp was launched in 2021 as a global community that links the technology and visual arts worlds closer together. Spanning six continents, Unfinished Camp collaborates with a growing network of artists and nine innovative art institutions to provide a global platform for emerging artists to explore the intersection of art and technology, while collectively imagining a thriving and equitable civil society for the digital age.
Unfinished Camp’s inaugural in-person convening was held during the Venice Biennale Opening Week, at the Venice Meeting Point, hosting multidisciplinary artists, technologists, game designers, thought leaders, and museum directors and curators for five days of educational sessions and interactive workshops on the future of art and ethical technology, with a focus on Web3.
Spearheaded by civic entrepreneur Frank McCourt and conceived by curator and artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist and author and cultural strategy advisor András Szántó, Unfinished Camp’s network includes organizations at the forefront of visual art, digital innovation, and technology across the globe: House of Electronic Arts in Basel, Switzerland; The Shed in New York; LUMA Arles in Southern France; Pivô in São Paulo; Serpentine in London; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing; The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MoCAA) in Cape Town; The Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, Australia; and The High Line in New York.
De Rerum Natura
The Venice Meeting Point then hosted a collective art exhibition titled “De Rerum Natura” curated by Mara Sartore (My Art Guides founder and director).
The title “De Rerum Natura / The Nature of Things” is taken from a book by the Latin poet Lucrezio (1st century BC). Lucrezio’s poem is divided into six books exposing the ideas of human life by the Greek philosopher Epicure, whose atomistic doctrine not only served to explain all life in the cosmos, but also human destiny, human psychology and the freedom to think and to act.
The exhibition occupied most of the spaces of the Navy Officer’s Club, and traced an ideal path through the central themes of the latin poem: the origin of the cosmos, the meaning of life, the relationship between human beings, the planet and the stars, the motion of the soul, death, love, dreams and passions.
The nine international artists that have been invited to present their works and meet the Biennale audience in this unconventional space are: Marie Denis, Elham M. Aghili, Ignazio Mortellaro, Giovanni Ozzola, Matilde Sambo, Francesco Simeti, Oxana Tregubova, Lucia Veronesi, Lorenzo Vitturi.
X MUSE
X MUSE, pronounced ‘tenth muse’, is not only the first blended barley vodka inspired by the spirit making traditions of Scotland, but also one of Venice Meeting Point’s Cultural Partners. In its space, located in the Tavern of the Navy Office’s, has been set up open a free Vodka bar. The space hosted the following events and art encounters: Forma Fantasma, Entra Nous Curatorial Collective, Jupiter Art Land.
Vino Vero
Vino Vero is a natural wine bar that opened in Venice in 2014 and in Lisbon in 2019. Vino Vero has very rapidly obtained international recognition for its wine selection. The Venice shop has over 600 labels from all over the world and produces famous cicchetti with top quality ingredients. This year, Vino Vero will be taking over the restaurant and the inside bar at Venice Meeting Point.
Cultural Partners: Unfinished Camp, XMuse Vodka
Partners: Vino Vero
De Rerum Natura Artists: Marie Denis, Elham M. Aghili, Ignazio Mortellaro, Giovanni Ozzola, Matilde Sambo, Francesco Simeti, Oxana Tregubova, Lucia Veronesi, Lorenzo Vitturi
Art Galleries: aA29 Project Room, Milan / Caserta; Alberta Pane, Paris / Venice; Francesca Minini, Milan; Francesco Pantaleone, Milan / Palermo; Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin / La Havana / Rome / São Paulo / Paris; T293, Rome
Guest Artists: Jonas Lund, Miltos Manetas
Annex Space: Rafaël Rozendaal, presented by Aorist
Special Events: Alserkal Avenue, Brazilian Pavilion, Forma Fantasma, Jupiter Art Land, Oscar Murillo
Concept, Art Direction, Communication and Press Office
