Few exhibitions command the same level of excitement, curiosity, and inspiration as the Venice Biennale with every new edition. While much of that energy is directed towards the main exhibition and the national pavilions located in the Giardini and Arsenale, many of the most exhilarating exhibitions are at the venues off the beaten path. Venice is a city that continually opens up opportunities for discovery; getting lost and absorbing the singularity of the light that permeates the Grand Canal and the countless, impossibly narrow walkways is what makes exploring the city such a special experience. This is true for viewing art, too: while the Biennale is on view, there is nothing quite like happening upon an exhibition tucked away in a discreet, centuries-old building. One of the most intriguing shows in this vein is an exhibition of new paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Eddie Martinez curated by Alison Gingeras.
Eddie Martinez Represents the Republic of San Marino in Venice
For the 2024 edition, the Republic of San Marino selected New York-based Martinez to represent their national pavilion. The insular, landlocked country on the Italian peninsula is the fifth smallest country in the world and seldom is discussed internationally. In keeping with Biennale curator Adriano Pedrosa’s exhibition title, “Foreigners Everywhere,” this exhibition abstracts the meaning behind this multilayered theme through the artist’s difficult-to-define approach to artmaking across his chosen mediums. Through the artist’s close connection with renowned curator Gingeras, the pair worked together to highlight Martinez’s singular space within the canon of contemporary art and allow viewers to dive deeply into his fascinating, deeply conceptual process. Whitewall sat down with Gingeras to discuss the exhibition’s origins, how the show connects to the overall Biennale, and the significance of this presentation, on view through November 24, 2024.
Alessandro Gea, Alison M. Gingeras; Opening of Eddie Martinez’ “Nomader,” Photo by Daniele Cortese, Courtesy FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea.
WHITEWALL: How did you and Eddie first get connected and what was the impetus for working together on this exhibition?
ALISON GINGERAS: Eddie and I worked together on a special presentation that was part of my exhibition “The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and its Legacy” many years ago. Eddie has an astute eye and has constructed his own pantheon of artists—from self-taught artists from the American South like Joe Minter and Mary T. Smith to the radical avant-garde group Cobra (Copenhagen Brussels Amsterdam).
I always found Eddie’s art historical interests to be such an interesting and singular aspect of his work. This was the beginning of our friendship and dialogue over the years. This past winter, Eddie invited me to be part of his project in Venice for the Biennale and that is how I came to curate the San Marino Pavilion with him.
Portrait of Eddie Martinez; photo by Jason Schmidt, courtesy of the artist.
WW: The theme of the Biennale this year seemed to provide an apt backdrop for this installation and San Marino as a nation, which is known for embracing travelers from all over. How was this considered while you were conceiving of the exhibition?
AG: San Marino’s history as a tiny Republic that has harbored refugees over the centuries—most notably saving tens of thousands of Jews during the Second World War—makes its presence in Venice this year particularly meaningful.
Eddie, of course, has a different biography than many of the artists featured in Adriano Pedrosa’s main exhibition, which has a geopolitical focus on the Global South. Yet in a more expansive sense, Eddie too has been a stranger in his own country having had an extremely nomadic childhood, which has imprinted on his art practice as he bounced from coast to coast, sometimes more than once a year. Eddie very early on took refuge in drawing, which was in some sense his only home. As a mature artist, this nomadism has transpired on Eddie’s constant searching and shifting between different types of expression, using automatic drawing that often then generates visual tropes in his paintings and sculptures, moving freely between abstraction and figuration without any allegiance to a single aesthetic or movement. I thought there was a powerful allegorical extension of the main exhibition’s themes in Eddie’s own work and the spirit that drives his practice. He is almost always trying to make himself a stranger to himself. Strangers everywhere indeed.
“Eddie very early on took refuge in drawing, which was in some sense his only home,”
Alison Gingeras
Installation view of Eddie Martinez’ “Nomader,” Photo by Daniele Cortese, Courtesy FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea.
Eddie Martinez Inspired by Venice Exhibition Site—A Former Metal Workshop
WW: Martinez, who works with a wide range of mediums, is showing a variety of paintings, works on paper, and sculptures. Was it an important element to highlight his multidisciplinary approach to artmaking with this installation? Not too far from the Arsenale, the space is a fantastic and very Venetian site. How was it working within the confines of this venue and the architectural elements that preceded your exhibition?
AG: The idea for creating this immersive presentation of Eddie’s practice which combines all the different ways he makes art (drawing painting sculpture) actually came from the exhibition space itself—La Fucina del Futuro—a former metal workshop.
When we began to discuss this project, I thought it would be interesting to try to capture the energy and process that Eddie uses to make the work his own workshop in Brooklyn. It is covered in drawings that spill from tables onto the floor as well as cut up canvases from paintings that he considers “failed.”
Riffing off the history of the space as a workshop, I thought it would be interesting to try and translate the Brooklyn studio to this very soulful corner of Venice which is embedded in an actual residential, working neighborhood where you can still see the rhythms and rituals of everyday life in Venice. It is an industrial space before industrialization.
I hope that when the visitor comes into the space and is confronted with this giant work table covered with drawings and collaged canvases, and is then strewn with apple boxes that serve as pedestals for Eddie’s sculptures, which are made from casting bits of flotsam and jetsam he finds in his wanderings, that you would get a sense of how he makes the work and have a glimpse of his creative process. I thought it was important that the paintings, which are hung on bricks of the original workshop as well as on crates that were used to ship them, would be seen through the drawings and the sculptures. I think this is a kind of visual explanation of how this particular artist works. We were very inspired by the space itself using its quirks as literal platforms for sculptures as well as allowing the space to dictate where the paintings would look best. The installation process was quite magical and whimsical.
Installation view of Eddie Martinez’ “Nomader,” Photo by Daniele Cortese, Courtesy FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea.
Installation view of Eddie Martinez’ “Nomader,” Photo by Daniele Cortese, Courtesy FR Istituto d’Arte Contemporanea.
