Pea Arts About

29 November 2019 A week after Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable opened on 9 April 2017, in the UK Channel 4 aired a documentary called Rome’s Sunken Secrets detailing the discovery and finds from the sunken Roman city of Baiae. Baiae was an ancient holiday resort near Naples and Pompeii where emperors, members of the senate and the excessively rich kept villas. A total escape from Rome and serious work, it was the site of many scandals and where the pursuit of pleasures played out. There are palatial ruins above ground, but more than half are submerged with the landscape, mosaics and vibrantly coloured frescoes adorned with stucco figures preserved underwater. Baiae was the size of a city but had no Roman landmarks, just luxury villas. At the edge of the site are the remnants of a building with chambers and studies featuring marble-surfaced statues adopting Greek styles. The Romans plundered art and culture when they conquered Greece and maintained a fascination with Gre

‘ The Venetians, like the British, were a seagoing island race, who laid claim to an extensive empire out of proportion to the size of their homeland, whose influence at times extended to the reaches of the known globe. Yet like America, Venice’s empire was more concerned with trade domination than with actual territorial possession. And, like both empires, it was not afraid of isolation: of turning its back on the large land mass that began just across the water, or of ignoring the larger continental worlds beyond – in the form of Europe, America and Asia.’ (Strathern pp. 1-2) That Venice’s vast maritime empire in the middle ages was built on trade and all that the notion of trade can encompass made it the logical home to Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable , an artist whose wealth and success have accumulated in his trade in the art market. Hirst’s extravagance and the power he can wield in a way make him the Venice of the art world. As a creator,

Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable Damien Hirst Punta Della Dogana | Palazzo Grassi 9 April – 3 December 2017 Viewed 14 June 2017 In its entirety, Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable was a work of contradictions. Situated somewhere not fully discernible between truth and mythology and the museum and extravaganza, it embodie d and perform ed Jacques Derrida’s mal d’archive . It present ed a collection of sculptures, videos and photography so huge that it could not be contained within the walls of two of Venice’s most substantial arts venues , the Punta Della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi owned by the French multi-billionaire Fran ç ois Pinault. From the tiniest gold nugget to an 18-meter t all resin ‘enlargement’ of a 2000-year-old bronze sculpture (of whose existence we are assured only by images of its discovery ) and everything imaginable in between, it is quite a challenge to convey and process the magnitude of

Back in 2017 when initially recovering from illness induced by severe stress and anxiety, I visited a friend who was teaching in Venice for a semester. We took the opportunity to spend a day at Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable exhibition. It sparked a curiosity and fascination with cultural production in me that had been dampened by some brutal experiences when trying to pave an academic career path. More than two years on and feeling no further progress in finding a new direction, I need to focus and take care of unfinished business before I allow myself to embark on any more new projects. For the past year I became distracted with the freelance hustle and I took on work for buttons that wasn’t necessarily as fulfilling or as stimulating as the voyage of discovery Treasures inspired me to go on. Instead, a lot of it dragged me back to topics from which I need a long break. This is me reprising that break. The Fate of a Banished Man (Standing), Carrer