Wu Tsang: Of Whales
59th Venice Biennale Arte: The Milk of Dreams, Gaggiandre
April 23, 2022 – November 27, 2022
2021 Production | Acquisition Grant
Of Whales is a site-specific film and sound installation that poetically evokes the ocean and explores the mythology of the leviathan from the whale’s perspective. inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and installed at the Gaggiandre—a semi-enclosed 16th-century arcade that stretches over the water—Wu Tsang’s project utilizes powerful XR (“extended reality”) software combined with the naturally reflective surface of the water in Venice to bathe viewers in an immersive and visually rich soundscape. The installation was developed in parallel with her feature-length, silent film adaptation of Moby Dick and serves as a continuation of Tsang’s thematic exploration of water, maritime history, social relations, and the potential for intersubjectivity in an environment where humans, animals, and natural forces collide. Together, the emotive installation and the narrative film combine to explore a central question that has long interested Tsang and her frequent collaborators in the performance collective, Moved by the Motion: how might it feel to embody different histories and subjectivities than those narrowly defined by capitalist and colonial logics?
Founded in1895, La Biennale di Venezia is one of the preeminent global cultural organizations and art destinations. Its mission is to promote study, research, and documentation in the fields of contemporary art through permanent research activities, events, experimentation, and projects. Throughout our 126-year history, the Venice Biennale has nurtured and celebrated the careers of some of our greatest artistic minds and galvanized a number of the most important schools of artistic thought. For the 59th edition of the Biennale Arte, Artistic Director Cecilia Alemani curated an exhibition themed around surrealism. The Milk of Dreams, titled after a book by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917–2011), features work that foregrounds the transformational potential of human and animal bodies in relation to each other, with a particular focus on women artists and non-western knowledge and imagination.
Installation view, Wu Tsang, Of Whales, 2022, at 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, 2022. Photos: Matteo De Fina.
