ASKING ARCHITECTURE (2012)

This year’s exhibition in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 13. International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will belong to the project Asking Architecture, which presents more than 18 artists and creative groups from the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic. The exhibition project of the rese arch platform will be opened on August 27, 2012. An unconventional installation relies solely on virtual and augmented reality and reveals itself only after the visitor makes a step towards a collateral communication with the exhibited projects and the artists themselves.

A growing number of artists and independent creative groups treats architecture as a media of art, culture, science or society: with no ambition to provide answers or solutions, optimize or replace the un-suitable with the appropriate. They rather ask, problematize, thematize, decompose and experience.

Hence, these activities are closer to art practices than to what is commonly understood as architecture. The Asking Architecture project questions whether this is an emerging approach in our countries, and probes its historical and socio-cultural background with attention to its international relations, trying to find out whether it is a new concept at all or rather a fundamentalist return to the basis of architecture coming from outside the discipline.

The exposition leaves the pavilion without any conventional physical exhibits. However, 26 installations from 18 artists and creative groups from Slovakia and the Czech Republic are delivered through a technology of augmented reality. Custom made tablet software will encourage the visitors to leave rich video comments that will be used to catalyze a further development of the exhibited projects.

The common name La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennial) houses prestigious displays of contemporary architecture, art, film, dance, music and theater. 29 national pavilions were built by the participating countries themselves in the area of Giardini della Biennale. The theme of this year’s Biennale is Common Ground, the main organizer of the exhibition in the former Czechoslovak Pavilion is Jan Perneckýs platform rese arch together with the Slovak National Gallery, the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and non-government organizations Mladý pes n.o. and Čerstvé Ovocie, n.o. Asking Architecture features artists and creative groups from both, Slova-kia and the Czech Republic. The next opportunity to create a Slovak exposition at the Architecture Bi-ennale will occur in four years.

The display in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion will be officially opened during the Preview on August 27th, when La Biennale hosts the invited professionals from all over the world. At this time the exposi-tion will be augmented by a series of talks on questioning and the critical approach within architecture with invited foreign architects and theorists Reiner Zettl (AT), Peter Trummer (AT) and a lecture by Hernan Diaz Alonso (USA).

13. International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will be open for public from August 29 until November 25, 2012 in the historical areas of Giardini della Biennale and Arsenale and other venues in Venice.

More about Asking Architecture project: http://askingarchitecture.sk

Atrakt Art at 13th Bienale presents:

— AUDIOTURIZMUS: BRATISLAVA (2004) http://atrakt.sk/audioturizmus-bratislava

— FASA MIESTO (2005) http://atrakt.sk/fasa-miesto

— BA! OD UFA K UFU (2007) http://atrakt.sk/ba

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Photos: Jiří Hloušek http://www.2foto.cz