cosmopolitan scum

The years that John Ruskin spent in Venice are no longer just an important biographical fact about an eminent art Victorian critic. They have become a narrative prism through which to assess architecture’s role in contemporary society. This month the British contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale is effectively an architectural and artistic exploration of Ruskin’s writings.  At the most important exhibiton of architectural ideas in the world,  Britain’s contribution, housed in a small neoclassical pavilion in the Giardini in Venice, explores Ruskin’s relationship with Venice in a questioning way. The exhibition poses some important questions about Ruskin’s relationship with architecture’s role in contemporary society, specifically around the way it is made. Liza Fior, the artistic director of the pavilion would have us believe that Ruskin was a radical. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Baseman’s excellent art piece which was displayed at the Collective Gallery in Edinburgh earlier this year tiptoes cleverly around some of the aesthetic and political issues that surround Britain’s civic modernist heritage.
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Dan Dubowitz’s latest photography exhibition starts at Fermynwoods next month. These pictures predominantly of youth camps from the fascist era grew, as Dan’s projects do, out of a series of road trips. The pictures from this particular series were taken along the Tuscan and Emilio-Romanian coasts of Italy near where Dan now lives.

The pictures speak for themselves. The fact that these buildings are still standing shows the rigour with which they were made. They were important components of the architecture of Italian fascism. Children living in the big cities would be removed here for a summer of good air, marching about and spoon-fed indoctrination. The exhibition has already been shown at the Architekturgalerie in Weißenhof, near Stuttgart. There’s a book of the project due to by architect Patrick Duerden who is also a curator at Fermynwoods.