Vortic in Venice

For the opening week of the Venice Biennale, Vortic was delighted to present five remarkable projects and exhibitions, giving visitors the opportunity to transport themselves into exhibitions around the world, or that exist only in Virtual Reality. 

Included in the presentation is the premiere of a 360° film featuring Flora Yukhnovich exploring Venice’s influence on her work during her residency in the city, a curated display of works from The Nixon Collection, a digital-only exhibition by artist Doug Aitken, the inaugural exhibition at non-profit multidisciplinary art organisation CICA Vancouver and a survey of Patricio Cabrera’s work presented by Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga. 

Fragonard to Tiepolo: A Rococo Journey with Flora Yukhnovich

Created during her residency at Victoria Miro in 2020, Fragonard to Tiepolo: A Rococo Journey with Flora Yukhnovich takes viewers on a guided VR tour of Venice. Led by the artist herself, the tour starts in The Wallace Collection in London before moving on to Venice, highlighting the Rococo architecture and frescos that continue to inspire Yukhnovich’s practice, and exploring Yukhnovich’s favourite spots across the city, including Ca’ Rezzonico museum and Chiesa Santa Maria della Visitazione. Viewers are then able to roam the artist’s studio, reconstructed exactly as it was through her two-month Venetian stay, taking a detailed look at the works she created during her residency. The completely immersive 360° virtual video plunges the viewer into Yukhnovich’s world and offers a profoundly personal, almost one-on-one experience with the artist, allowing for a unique understanding of the artist’s creative process. In addition to the video, Vortic also hosted a talk between Flora Yukhnovich and Katy Hessel, to further discuss the artist’s residency in Venice, the city’s influence on her creative process, and the making of the VR video.

An exclusive view of The Nixon Collection

The Nixon Collection, established by English businessman Simon Nixon, is a dynamic collection of over 300 artworks comprising emerging as well as established artists. The exhibition, available exclusively on Vortic and opening to the public for the first time during the Venice Biennale vernissage week, shows a selection of highlights from the collection in a VR space conceived by London-based interior design practice Base Interior. Curated by Nicole Kluk and Louis Blanc-Francard, the VR presentation is a rare opportunity to explore an outstanding private collection which includes artists from Anselm Kiefer and Yayoi Kusama, to Chloe Wise or Joy Labinjo. Among the works featured is Louise Giovanelli’s Orbiter, a luminous work that challenges the eye by dissolving the foundations of representation into textures and patterns, and Jenna Gribbon’s Interior Landscape, which plays with notions of beauty and intimacy. Through its focus on vision and perspective, the painting vests the viewer with the parallel but contrasting roles of voyeur and artist.

Doug Aitken: Open

Doug Aitken: Open, which launched exclusively on Vortic VR in February 2022 was also available for visitors to experience. Across four separate viewing rooms, viewers encountered Aitken’s artworks installed in imaginary architectural environments that are themselves set within a hyperreal world that is at once familiar and fantastical. ‘Like a sequence of notes, the virtual space allows you to move through one encounter after another,’ says Aitken. With its shifting lighting and spatial audio, Open creates ‘a soundscape, an atmosphere, an environment that you fall back into.’ Open is jointly presented by 303 Gallery, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Regen Projects and Victoria Miro.  

CICA Vancouver: Through Our Eyes – Resonance and Illusion in Contemporary Portraits

Contemplating the human need for social interaction widely experienced through the prolonged global pandemic, CICA Vancouver’s inaugural exhibition Through Our Eyes – Resonance and Illusion in Contemporary Portraits, featuring works by George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Derek Fordjour, Hernan Bas, Austin Lee, Javier Calleja and more.

Offering a fresh look at what it means to represent a subject, the featured portraits lead us into a dialogue with ourselves and the current condition. The ‘sitter’ is abstracted to carry memories, emotions, experiences, and quarantine monologues, playing with commonality and ambiguity as well as perception and illusion.

Patricio Cabrera at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga

Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga presents a digital survey of Sevillian artist Patricio Cabrera’s work in El labrador y el astronauta (The Farmhand and the Astronaut), curated by Fernando Francés. The exhibition includes over 60 works, more than 20 of which are new, and reveals Cabrera’s mastery of space and colour. Inviting viewers to venture into an exotic, faraway land, his canvases feature elements such as ladders, birdhouses, landscapes, vegetation and abstract figures to develop a new pictorial language.

Using technology to transcend geographical barriers to experiencing art

Vortic was delighted to highlight these five extraordinary and unique projects during the week in Venice, offering the possibility to discover shows from as far as Spain and Canada or even existing only in VR while never leaving Venice. The varied selection of exhibitions on view offered a new and exciting art viewing experience to all visitors and art lovers, and many of the exhibitions are still available to view on Vortic at the links below. 

Visit Doug Aitken: Open

Visit Patricio Cabrera at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga

Visit CICA Vancouver: Through Our Eyes – Resonance and Illusion in Contemporary Portraits