Louise Bourgeois and Emilio Vedova in Dialogue at Fondazione Vedova

Curated by Germano Celant, the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova in Venice presents two simultaneous exhibitions featuring Louise Bourgeois and Emilio Vedova from June 5 to September 19, 2010. The shows occupy distinct spaces, one redesigned by Renzo Piano overlooking the Giudecca Canal, and are not intended to interact. Celant's pairing of Bourgeois and Vedova is surprising given his previous commitments, but not unprecedented—he had included Vedova in his 1997 Venice Biennale. The Vedova exhibition highlights his lesser-known sculptural work, aiming to free the painter from conventional categorization. Celant argues that Vedova's sculpture, like that of Cy Twombly and Barnett Newman, reflects a need to liberate painting's body, making it more tactile and sensory, contrary to modernist medium specificity. This emancipation began in the 1930s and intensified after 1953 with works like 'Riposta a Burano' incorporating materials such as burlap. The sculptures explore interior-exterior dialogue, surface and space, inert matter and movement, using everyday objects like crates. Bourgeois's exhibition focuses on her embroidered and sewn works, featuring geometric and arachnoid motifs. The atmosphere is stifling, heightened by the artist's death five days before the opening, with dim lighting and a narrow, tiered space. The works evoke family themes—father, mother, family business—and the artist's persistent obsessions. Despite resistance, the effect remains deeply unsettling.