Gelatin Pavilion – Some Like It Hot, 2011

Photo: Courtesy the artists | Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Photo: Courtesy the artists | Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Commissions
Collection

Pencil, ink, permanent marker, opaque white, water color on silk screen print
each 101.7 x 73 cm


On the occasion of the 54th Venice Biennale,under the general title "ILLUMInation", Gelatin contributed the "Gelatin Pavilion - Some Like It Hot".

A wood fired furnace in the Giardino delle Vergini (Arsenale) had to be fed 24/7 to keep the temperature up. Gelatin and performers from all over the world helped to keep the heat up. Wood, glas, music and expressions of cracks and heat, energy profusion. A gigantic mountain of wood got smaller during one week of performance and was transformed into hot air and ash. A mountain of broken glass was fed into the stove and poured out of it into blobs of hot liquid glass.  

As the molten glass cooled down it cracked again. Broken glass was transformed into broken glass. The fragile sculpture grew and the mountain of wood shrank.  It could never be moved as it falls to pieces when touched. 

Gealtin together with: Ben Washington, Christoph Harringer, Christoph Meier, Daniel Kelly, Fridrik Svanur Sigurdarson, Gabriel Loebell-Herberstein, Gudmundur Hallgrímsson, Michael Bäckström, Salvatore Viviano, Schuyler Maehl, Tom Van Camp, Japanther, Philipp Quehenberger & Elin, Nina, Günther Gerdes and Andreas Schlaegel (Elvis)

"Gelitin was an ideal “illumination” because it was simple: it was hang-out art that was unchallenging to the initiate. Those who sat and partook shared a “community” displaced from the demands of the biennial. It was a shrewd blend of materials and immaterial labor (a list of which reads: “Installation, performance, music, love, fire, sweat” and a “glass-melting furnace built out of bricks and heated with wood”)" – Matthew Schum


Gelatin are living and working in Vienna, Austria
Artist's Website