Narine Arakelian's The Pharos Flower Transforms Venice's Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo

During the 2019 Venice Biennale, Armenian artist Narine Arakelian presents The Pharos Flower at Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, a 15th-century spiral staircase. The installation, curated by Pier Paolo Scelsi and opening May 10, turns the staircase into a multicolored lighthouse by inserting colored plexiglass panels into the external arches, projecting colored light at night. Inside the palazzo, Arakelian displays polychrome glass and crystal objects created by Studio Abate Zanetti of Murano. She will also perform The Bloom, transforming into an ancient marble statue, and on May 9, she performs Revolutionary Sensorium at the Armenia Pavilion (Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael, Dorsoduro), curated by Susanna Gyulamiryan, reconstructing the 2018 Armenian Velvet Revolution's protests under the slogan 'solidarity and love'. This is Arakelian's second Biennale intervention; she is also part of the Armenia Pavilion with ArtlabYerevan (Gagik Charchyan, Hovhannes Margaryan, Arthur Petrosyan, Vardan Jaloyan). Previously, she participated in the 2017 Biennale with L'Illusion du Marriage at Scuola Grande di San Rocco, in 2015 with Personal Structures: Crossing Borders, and at Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018) with Glasses, and the Naked Hearts Charity Exhibition curated by Jeff Koons in New York (2018).