Past Exhibitions / VENICE'S ARSENALE 1980 - Awaiting for a New Beginning

 

Graduated in architecture from Venice University, Antonio Martinelli brings us in one of the most magical and significant place in Venice. The Arsenale pictured in his photos speaks about all its glorious history and asks for changes.

 

In 1980 Martinelli, already an internationally recognised photographer, after many years spent traveling across Europe, India and Japan, decided to come back briefly to his beloved Venice. The result of this experience is an extraordinary clear and accurate documentation of the Arsenale that captures its precious past at the verge of an imminent great future.

 

After many museums exhibitions in Europe, Martinelli seems to release all his passion in this personal and introspective journey: a stylish black and white former shipyards, forges, sculptures and warehouses that talk to us about their past and about their fear of a cruel abandonment. 

 

Martinelli’s investigative eye brilliantly succeeds in capturing that atmosphere when time seems to be suspended between memory and anticipation, engraving it in a dazzling photographs that build bridges between time periods.

 

The same places in fact, will see a new era of renovation very soon. In the same year of this reportage, the Arsenale was set to become a wold-famous platform for contemporary art and culture. The south east area has now become the stable site of Venice Biennale activities, with extraordinary exhibition spaces, theatres and workshops.  All the vibrant and international art and architecture world now gathers here with the aim of developing art and culture of our time. The Arsenale has now become the touchstone of the international contemporary culture world, letting these places live again.

 

This detailed visual record has been displayed for Martinelli’s solo exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture in Paris in1990 and published in the book ‘L'Arsenale di Venezia : Storia di una grande struttura urbana’ (Marsilio editore) in 1983.