Summer Affair at the fordPROJECT  June 29th to August 10th 2011

These themes are most appreciable with Alessandro Belgiojoso’s flush mounted Lambda prints, Redentore *1 Blue (2009) and Redentore *4 Crimson (2010). The subject is the ‘Festa del Redentore’ which is customarily held in Venice on the third Saturday and Sunday in July. Originally a feast day commemorating the ending of the plague of 1576, it is also an affirmation of faith and a celebration of life. The Doge of the time, Alvise I Mocenigo, publicly pledged to commission the construction of a new church on the Giudecca in recognition of the Republic’s salvation. The commission was duly placed with Andrea Palladio and the Venetian architect and engineer, Antonio da Ponte, who jointly designed the church of II Redentore which was consecrated in 1592. In order to allow the then Doge, Sebastian Venier, to worship at the new church, a bridge pontoon of barges was run from the Zattere, so establishing II Redentore as a place of annual pilgrimage and thanksgiving.
On the eve of the festival, it is customary for Venetians to garland and decorate their boats and apartment terraces and to congregate at St Mark’s basin. Belgiojoso’s prints evoke the atmospheric and romantic backdrop of the evening celebrations with the explosive light of the fireworks reflected in the city’s lagoon. The inclusion of what might be read as a diptych of prints might be read as  a codedreference not just to the religious origin of the subject but to the duality of the notional couple of ‘fantasy collectors’.  This doubling of agency is also picked out, as the curators note, with the crimson and blue theme which is the deliberate colouring used in the two works. The timing with this year’s Venice Biennale and its associated festivities bring to these prints and their inclusion an added resonance.