WE GAVE A PARTY FOR THE GODS AND THE GODS ALL CAME exhibition featuring works by John Giorno, Servane Mary and Ugo Rondinone. The show is conceived as an online exhibition but for a site-speciIic work by John Giorno on the palace façade.
Since the mid-1960s, American poet John Giorno distributed and presented his work widely beyond the territories of the literary and art worlds. The artist’s work spans disciplines of art, poetry, Nyigma Buddhist teachings, social engagement and performance. Five decades later, Giorno is historically acknowledged as an iconic American artist who Figures prominently in the countercultural movements of his era. Produced especially for this exhibition, a site-specific banner serves both as the point of entry and the title that inspired this exhibition. WE GAVE A PARTY FOR THE GODS AND THE GODS ALL CAME relates to a line of his poetry and use of the phrase in paintings and graphic works produced by the artist. In addition to the external installation, the artist presents two large sculptures, sourced from found boulders made of bluestone, into which poetic phrases are carved.
French-Swiss artist Servane Mary presents three large-scale magenta, cyan and yellow paintings that from a distance appear near-monochrome. These are part of an ongoing series of large, multi-panelled works, all of which are silkscreened with a simple, repetitive dot pattern that originates from a digital image of a sheet of pegboard, a material with regularly spaced perforations into which hooks are inserted so that tools may be openly stored and accessible.
Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone presents two large sculptures in the main hall. The moon and the sun, gold and silver facing each other in the same room, as natural phenomena. These large-scale circular rings are made from vine branches which were cast in bronze and then gilded. The artist chose to depict the vine as a symbol of renewal because of its life cycle from growth to dormancy and rebirth to a fruitful state every year—reminiscent of the solar cycle.
