There is a plethora of events around the Venice Biennale but some stand out more than others. One talking point was a performance held 7 May at Palazzo dei Fiori, a Renaissance Venetian palazzo, devised by Jordan Roth, the US multi-disciplinary artist who wowed crowds earlier this week at the Met Gala in New York with a “living sculpture” look. Presented in collaboration with Performance Space New York’s Visionaries Circle patrons group, the work staged in Venice was attended by art world luminaries such as Scott Rothkopf, the director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the London-based dealer Kristin Hjellegjerde. Guests were unsure what to expect as they filed into the grandest of halls. But Roth left the onlookers speechless and silent as he tore apart vinyl prints of the 16th-century polymath Irene di Spilimbergo affixed to a glass pane in a custom gilt frame, elegantly repositioning and refashioning the fragments into compelling collages accompanied by classical music. “Bound within the frame, Roth and the paintings are fused together, muse and artist becoming one,” says a pithy project statement.
