The contemporary art exhibition “Beauty and the Beast” will be shown in the context of the 2017 Venice Biennale at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, a magnificent 16th century palace overlooking the Grand Canal.
Inspired by the famous fairy tale, the exhibition will present works by Judi Harvest and Quentin Garel in a narrative framework that speaks of the fate of mankind.
Beauty and the Beast aims to address a highly topical and very important subject: the relationship established by human beings with the rest of nature.
The powerful works of Quentin Garel (drawings and wooden or bronze sculptures of wild animals and fossil skeletons of prehistoric creatures) embody man in the form of the Beast. The extraordinary works created by Judi Harvest represent the kingdom of bees, and embody the beauty of nature as a cooperative and balanced relationship.A large part of our day-to-day survival is linked to pollination by bees: our food, about one bite in every three of the food we eat, or our clothes, such as in the case of cotton for textiles.
The exhibition route will be set out in a Y-shape. In the first room on the main floor of Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, visitors will come face to face with Quentin Garel's large sculptures, representing the Beast, which all human beings can identify with to some extent.
Moving to the second room, which represents the intersection of the Y, the visitors will assist to the meeting between Garel's ape sculpture (gorilla with its deeply human eyes, beyond any "beastliness") and a work of Harvest, inspired by bees and their hives.