The Snow Show, Venice - Exhibition Description

Snow Show, Venice, installation view.

The Snow Show: Venice, an exhibition of the drawings, photographs, models, and interviews with the participants, will focus on the collaborative process and it’s effect on the individual creators. The Snow Show: Venice will be on view at UNESCO’s Palazzo Zorzi from June 11 through July 25, 2003 during the 50th International Art Exhibition / La Biennale di Venezia: Dreams and Conflicts – The Viewer’s Dictatorship. The Snow Show: Venice proposes three ways of looking at collaboration between artist and architect: through the initial response of sixty internationally recognized participants; through a glimpse into the process as the individuals meld their talents, ideas and idiosyncrasies into one; through an understanding of the individual artists and architects, and the effect of this process on them.

The Snow Show: Venice is not just an exhibition; it is a quest into the collaborative process through the drawings, photographs, models and interviews of the established and emerging artists and architects participating in the unique experiment. The “process” is the collaboration: the essence of The Snow Show: Venice.

Culture, education, science and international dialogue combine to form the second essential vision of The Snow Show: Venice. The curators have created an art exhibition that includes all these components. The world is seeking direction in a turbulent time. Historically art leads the way. The Snow Show: Venice is a timely effort in the direction of harmony.

The classroom-like installation reflects the educational component of The Snow Show: Venice and its host, UNESCO. The didactic installation will be open to all biennale visitors to see. The exhibition space reminds of a school setting or place of worship where the artists and architects become pupil and teacher simultaneously. Traversing the exhibition space the viewer will experience the creative process through large presentation drawings and scale models. The proposals, at varying stages of completion, suggest the direction that the participating teams are heading for. The final results of their work will not be available for another few months: the final designs will be realized in snow and ice in March 2004 in the arctic setting of Kemi and Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland. A video projection of the Laplandscape, interspersed with interviews of many of the participants hangs at the “head of the classroom”, like a chalkboard that creates an alter-like environment to the surroundings.