The Works：Venice Biennale IV, Raimund Girke & Dimitris Papaioannou's The Great Tamer

Over the past month, we’ve visited Venice a few times to take a look at Hong Kong’s contribution and at the work in several national pavilions at the 58th Venice Biennale. These official exhibitions take over the city until November, but they are not the only things going on over the next few months. Here are some of the other attractions we found while we were there.

The late Raimund Girke was an artist from Germany whose monochrome paintings and works are inspired by the Chinese sage Laozi. The title of Girke’s third solo exhibition at the Axel Vervoordt Gallery, “The Silent Balance”, is taken from the Laozi phrase: “Countless words count less than the silent balance of yin and yang.” White is the central colour in Girke’s work, providing a motif, a guideline, and both foreground and background. Any other colours, often muted, have to strike a silent balance with the white.

Choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou is at the centre of the Greek theatrical avant-garde. After studying fine arts under Dimitris Mytaras, he attracted attention as a visual artist, illustrator and comic book creator. He went on to stage performance, including directing the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, which gained him considerable international attention. After three decades of creating stage works, last year he produced a full-evening work for Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch, the first choreographer to do so since Bausch’s death in 2009. Three weeks ago, he came to Hong Kong for the first time, with his earlier production, The Great Tamer.

Well that’s it from us for this season. Time for The Works to take its annual summer break. But we’ll be back in the autumn. Until then, whether you simply enjoy the creative works of others, or create your own, have a great summer. See you soon.