Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation

I love Tourism

Venice equals Tourism, an all too easy equation, that takes the city from the shimmer of the water to the glint of the shop windows for wealthy travellers. Or to the pizzerias for those who want a quick bite to eat: both are categories that tend to take away only a superficial layer of the city, just an idea, similar to illustrations already seen. On the other hand it would be moralistic to condemn this attitude. Nowadays, who can afford to take a Grand Tour, which allowed the upper classes to go and stay in another place for a number of months? Rich or poor, today we all seem to be in a hurry. The city “is worth the trip” but isn’t worth our time any more.
I love Tourism is based on these ideas, an exhibition that seeks to reflect the loveable, grotesque and kitsch side of tourism, hungry to find out and see what is translated into a glass crocodile from Murano, more or less mass produced, a souvenir sewn in China and passed off as Burano lace, a bag bought on the bridges amongst the thousands of designer imitations.
Nowhere could have been better for a similar display of St. Mark's Square, temple of beauty and history but today also of unsophisticated tourism that can be naïve, intrusive and conformist, but that no-one can really condemn as it allows the city to survive.

Through drawings, comics, portraits, sketches, toys and stories, the works displayed represent some transversal, grotesque and happy sides of the stories that happen to tourists. The exhibition, let's make it clear, is not being snobbish or making judgements, as we are all tourists: from New York to Venice, from Peking to Paris, from pleasure trips to business trips, from religious pilgrimages to sexual ones, from short breaks to elite tourism, the exhibition will be a kind of picture diary inside the world of tourism, investigated in its varying and contrasting aspects.
Visitors entering the gallery will find themselves immersed in a lively and seducing world, a place populated by different kinds of objects and works that cross over and mix together like tourists in airport lounges, telling their stories and those of their authors. In the exhibition halls there will also be videos projecting large animated comic strips on the classical misadventures of camera-happy tourists snapping away. There will also be the large scale toy figures of snobbish English tourists (by the artist James Jarvis), compositions that are a cross between photographs and illustrations on a background of the most visited places in world tourism (by Geneviève Gauckler), pictorial compositions (by Matt Furie), large pictures (by Parra), series of water colours in different dimensions (by the artist Livincompany) and videos accompanied by sound tracks (by François Chalet).
Real artistic performances will also be featured, which will directly involve the “real” tourists in St. Mark’s Square (by Shoboshobo).
Some of the authors will create exclusive objects especially on the theme of tourism including T-shirts, bags and exercise books that will then be sold in the bookshop. The exhibition will also have the aim of bringing what doesn’t normally “make it” into an art gallery: a whole world of latest generation pictures and designs, that animates magazines and underground culture but that doesn’t often enter into the visual arts system.

Organised by the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, together with Studio Camuffo, the exhibition seeks to be the first original source of inspiration on the funny but also the deeper elements that are linked to today's travel methods.

Authors in the exhibition

François Chalet, Matt Furie, Geneviève Gauckler, Graphodrome (Alex Purdy) James Jarvis, Jeremyville, Misaki Kawai, Livincompany, Jason McLean, Mumble Boy, Paper Rad, Parra, Josh Petherick, Andy Rementer, Shoboshobo, Ian Stevenson, Will Sweeney, Fabio Viscogliosi.

Catalogue

All the works present in the exhibition will be collected together and published in a catalogue in a cross between a visual report on tourism and a treaty on the same theme and the tendencies for the future: the texts will in fact be created, not by art critics or design experts, but by economics experts. The book, introduced by Angela Vettese, President of the Foundation, will be presented therefore as a mass of scientifically based reflections on the phenomenon of tourism and its potential. The authors include some of the most well-known Italian experts in the industry: Stefano Baia Curioni, Guido Guerzoni, Pierluigi Sacco.

Bookshop

Since 2006, the Foundation has been the home to the Galleria di Piazza San Marco with a bookshop, of which the exhibition is an ideal continuation. It is a place for tourists who love Venice: a curious traveller is not satisfied by mass-produced objects, stereotype pictures and souvenirs, but looks for exclusive objects, “intelligent souvenirs”, created by national and international designers. I love tourism is a new way of perceiving tourism in relation to the city’s cultural production, showing that the city is not just its past, but a living organism, proactive and dynamic. The shop offers its own line of exclusively created objects by avant-garde authors and illustrators, who transform Venice’s palaces, gondolas, pigeons and bridges according to their own visions. They include Tim Biskup, eBoy, Koerner Union, Andy Rementer, Amy Franceschini, Fake ID, Nic Hess, Ed Fella, François Chalet. The new arrivals for this season include the shopping bag series decorated with an ironic and original representation of the city's symbols, silk sarongs printed with the map of Venice, pink pigeon-shaped lamps and the new collection of I love tourism T-shirts and bags.
The bookshop has been designed as a concept store and also presents a rich series of fashion products – T-shirts and bags, exercise books and posters, Japanese toys and the most innovative books and magazines on design – created by the most original brands and designers. I love tourism finds its ideal location in the city of Venice and is a project designed and created by the Studio Camuffo.

Studio Camuffo

The Studio Camuffo, founded in 1990 by Giorgio Camuffo, operates in the various areas of communication and graphics as well as promoting and designing cultural initiatives, including the magazines “Sugo. Scritture indecise” on international visual communication, and “Venice is not sinking”, dedicated to the unexplored aspects of Venetian culture.
Giorgio Camuffo runs the Specialised Degree Course in Visual and Multimedia Communications (CLASVEM) at the Venice University Institute of Architecture (IUAV).

www.studiocamuffo.com

Press pack and images available on http://www.studiopesci.it