DYSFUNCTIONAL at Ca' d'oro

Carpenters Workshop Gallery, in partnership with the Swiss private bank Lombard Odier, are proud to present DYSFUNCTIONAL, at Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’d’Oro on the Grand Canal during Biennale Arte 2019.

The exhibition will present works by established and rising artists seeking to break the thin boundaries between art, architecture and design. The site-specific works combine extraordinary craftsmanship with strong artistic and emotional expression.

17 artists from Carpenters Workshop Gallery roster have been invited to initiate a dialogue between the jaw dropping architecture of Ca’d’Oro, its impressive collection of Italian masters, and the best of contemporary collectible design. To name a few, Atelier Van Lieshout, Studio Drift, Maarten Baas, Nacho Carbonell, Vincent Dubourg, Verhoeven Twins and Virgil Abloh.

Their works will draw on the artistic heritage of the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’d’Oro, which features masterpieces such as Andrea Mantegna’s St Sebastian, Jan van Eyck’s Crucifixion and Bernini’s Rio della Plata, a terracotta model for his Fountain of the Four Rivers.

The works in the exhibition resonate with Venice’s rich heritage of craftsmanship and artistic expression. Virgil Abloh’s commission, his first ever functional sculpture collection having only recently joined the gallery, is inspired by the lagoon city and its acqua alta (high tide). Nacho Carbonell’s tree-like, organic sculptures transform the Monumental Courtyard of 15th century mosaics into a forest of light. Their shimmering texture references the gilt and polychrome decorations which once adorned the palazzo’s façade and their cocoon metal mesh shapes echo the quatrefoils that decorate the windows of ‘the golden house’.

DYSFUNCTIONAL seeks to forget function whilst celebrating the power of artistic expression. The idea of dysfunction, defined as ‘the disruption of normal social relations’, invites visitors to rethink the conventional relationship between form and function, art and design, the historical and the modern.