Giardini – Biennale, Venice (OSM)
The Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos created that artificial Garden of Eden for the 2015 Biennale, sponsored by the master of plastic watches, Swatch. Oh, nothing wrong with plastic watches, and nothing but admiration for the Swatch Brand Management, making generations of naives put down hard earned cash for a bit of PVC (or any other synthetic material) and a feeling. But I admire Vasconcelos for having won that supporter for her artificial eden installation, consisting of thousands of plastic flowers, lamps and optical fibers, glowing in air conditioned darkness in a makeshift exhibition pavillion, while out there was Venice. Definitely a very fine and subtle provocation, already in itself, but topped by that plasticky sponsor.