Paolo W. Tamburella
Caffé Florian , Venice, Italy
It was at the Caffé Florian, Piazza San Marco, in 1893 that Riccardo Selvatico and his friends came up with the idea of hosting an international Art Biennial in Venice, placing this historic venue at the centre of modern art history. It is now host to an ongoing arts programme that has, over the years, included a diverse array of predominantly Italian artists in a setting that – due to a lavish 19th century renovation – requires a bold intervention. For his show ‘Florian Bangla’ – curated by Stefano Stipitivich – Roman artist Paolo W. Tamburella chose to hang traditional Bangladeshi chicken baskets from the ceiling of the café’s interior, above a looped documentary directed by Taredque Masud on the violent secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 (Muktir Gaan, The Song of Freedom, 1995). Ballooning at their bases, then tapering at their ends, as if modelled around huge beetroots or turnips, these baskets mimic some of the glasses in which the café’s stiffer drinks are served to its chic international crowd. The baskets’ large, lightweight frames clumsily occupy the delicate interior of Florian’s ‘Seasons’ room, with its elaborately decorated mirrors reflecting their bulbous forms. Yet, an aesthetic sympathy resonates between these foreign objects and their unlikely temporary home, perhaps due to Venice’s close trading ties with the East in the café’s heyday.
The baskets recall an earlier work by Tamburella, Murgi Prasad (Chicken Palace, 2010), for which the artist – who often produces art works and performances resulting from chance encounters – collaborated with a Bangladeshi chicken trader to help improve his sales by hosting a grand opening in the trader’s home city of Panam Nagar. In an adjacent room, a display of traditional Bangladeshi wood-carvings, together with a photograph of their carver – Babu Mia – are evidence of Tamburella’s interest in collaborating with tradespeople and craftsmen in order to bridge the gap between art and life.
For the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009, Tamburella repaired and transported a traditional wooden cargo boat, replete with several unemployed dockers, from the Comoros Islands. Prior to several of those dockers fleeing to seek asylum in France once the Biennale was over – a crossover of art into the grit of everyday life – they and the boat served as the Cormoros’s first pavilion, docked in front of the entrance to the Giardini. The traditional boat had been used to transport merchandise from container ships to the mainland of the Comoros Islands, and had recently been banned by the country’s President to comply with global standards. Tamburella read of the plight of the dockers and travelled to the Comoros to investigate. The ensuing collaboration saw the boat become to the 53rd Biennale what ‘Florian Bangla’ now is to Venice’s most historic café: both a curio and an intrusion. Whilst the chicken baskets look oddly at home in Florian’s ornate interior, the accompanying documentary presents an intentionally provocative statement.
But far from being antagonistic, the social value of Tamburella’s output resides in its grassroots engagement with a wide variety of workers. The resulting art works – often readymades – are records of relationships struck up and maintained through mutual respect. This ability to work alongside others without undue intrusion has extended to Tamburella’s collaboration with Caffé Florian, where the staff were employed in concocting a new cocktail for the menu, the ‘Bangla Martini’. Like the oddly-at-home chicken baskets such a gesture has served to augment rather than infiltrate the venue. In a tourist centre such as Venice, where Bangladeshi immigrants hawk cheap goods for a living, ‘Florian Bangla’ performs a balancing act. Both the café’s illustrious cosmopolitan past, and the difficulty immigrants have in assimilating into Italian culture are alluded to without being pointed. Yet questions are still raised in a way that allows for reflection on the complex topics of globalization and immigration. Meanwhile, in Piazza San Marco, the ever-present sight of Bangladeshi street hawkers being ignored by tourists speaks for itself.
Mike Watson
Responses
There are no responses yet for this article.
