In conjunction with the 55th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Judi Harvest will present her 14th solo exhibition in Venice. “Denatured: Honeybees + Murano” is dedicated to raising awareness of both the global environmental threat to honeybees and the local threat to artistic heritage that is represented by the closing of glass factories in Murano. The exhibition incorporates a newly created, bee-friendly garden in Murano and a presentation of sculpture, video, and painting in the center of Venice. The exhibition is curated by art historian Marcia E. Vetrocq and conceived in partnership with Bees Without Borders, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting beekeeping skills for the alleviation of poverty around the world.

“Denatured: Honeybees + Murano” engages two locations: the Scola dei Battioro e Tiraoro—an 18th-century building on the Grand Canal that originally housed the confraternity of the city’s goldmakers—and a once-neglected, weedy field on the grounds of the Linea Arianna glass factory in Murano.

During March 2013, Judi Harvest created a bee-friendly garden in the 250-square-meter field, designing an environment of 30 fruit trees and 500 fragrant, flowering plants that will be home to four fully functioning hives. The first honey from Murano will be harvested during the summer. The plantings and hives will remain in place to be cared for by local gardeners and beekeepers, who will regularly gather the honey.

The principal art work of the presentation at the Scola dei Battioro e Tiraoro is Honey Vessels: Double Line(2013), a 6-meter-long, wall-mounted installation comprising 90 hand-made glass vessels created by Harvest with the master glass blowers of Linea Arianna. Also on view will be the video Breakfast with the Bees(2013) and a group of paintings and Murano glass sculptures inspired by the anatomy and behavior of the honeybee, the liquid state of honey (akin to that of molten glass), and the modular geometric structure characteristic of the hive.

An illustrated catalogue with essays by Marcia E. Vetrocq and Enzo Di Martino will accompany the exhibition.

Judi Harvest is a New York-based artist who has worked and exhibited in Venice since 1987. She studied painting at the New York Studio School and began working with master glassmaker Giorgio Giuman and his team at the Linea Arianna glass factory in Murano in 1988. Along with exhibitions of her paintings and glass sculptures in Venice, she has created three glass-based public artworks in the city:Fragmented Peace, Buddha(2003, installed at the Vallaresso vaporetto stop), Luna Piena/Full Moon(2005, remains on view at the Vallaresso vaporetto stop), and Venetian Satellite(2006, first shown at the Caffè Florian in Piazza San Marco and currently on view in New York in the lobby of the West Chelsea Arts Building).

Scola dei Battioro e Tiraoro
Campo San Stae, S. Croce
Venice 30135 Italy

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Daily from 10 am to 6pm
Closed on Tuesdays