VENICE ASTRAL PROJECTION CLINIC

Tatiana Trouvé: The Strange Life of Things at Palazzo Grassi | By Dr. Liselotte von Berenberg-Gossler | ★ ★ ★ ★ 

06.04.25 - 04.01.26

11 April 2025

Tatiana Trouvé’s “The Strange Life of Things” at Palazzo Grassi in Venice unfolds gradually, permeating all three floors of the palazzo, infiltrating its atrium, thresholds, and disrupting its tranquility. The show is less about self-promotion and more about listening, transforming the building into an instrument of memory and time. Trouvé operates within a linguistic framework that eschews singularity: sculptures merge into drawings, drawings melt into installations, and each media functions akin to human awareness in a liminal state between wakefulness and slumber. Her approach is firmly interdisciplinary, yet intimate, permeable, and cognizant of the interplay between inner and outer realms.

Chairs, ropes, and building fragments—utilitarian objects associated with habit and bodily proximity—are reimagined as memory devices, embodying the resonance of lived experience rather than the quantification of time. In Trouvé's grasp, space transforms into a psychological construct, memory assumes a spatial dimension, and imagination is afforded the respect of veracity. Interiors extend outward, exteriors appear to retract inside one's consciousness. Reality is never completely separated from memory or imagination. Engaging with “The Strange Life of Things” is more an experience of inhabiting a suspended temporality than mere observation, wherein the human perception of time—its elongation, its accumulation, its abrupt contractions—assumes a tangible manifestation. The palazzo seems transformed, as if it were contemplating with us, offering its floors and stairwells to an exploration that concerns not objects, but our coexistence with them and their subtle existence alongside us.

Trouvé's intervention at Palazzo Grassi manifests as a labyrinth—neither wholly architectural nor totally conceptual, but existing in a state of suspension between the two. One unavoidably recalls Borges, for whom time was not linear but akin to a maze, perpetually bifurcating and folding back upon itself, generating chambers of thought that diverge rather than lead to definitive conclusions. In "The Strange Life of Things," time operates in this manner. The artist creates a tangible labyrinth that reflects an internal one: corridors of perception and chambers that evoke a sense of familiarity prior to being observed. Navigation within the palazzo transforms into a cognitive process, while cognition itself assumes a spatial dimension. The exhibition does not direct but rather entangles, prompting the visitor to forgo orientation in favor of heightened concentration.

A significant section of the work has been designed in direct reaction to Palazzo Grassi—its dimensions, its historical significance, and its ongoing interaction with the fluctuating waters of the Grand Canal adjacent to its structure. Trouvé engages with the building not as a mere neutral entity but as a collaborator, permitting its architecture to dictate the rhythm and rationale for her interventions. However, interspersed among these newly created works are pieces from the previous decade, repositioned, revitalized, and engaged in dialogue with the current context. The outcome is not a retrospective; rather, it is an ecosystem: several temporalities cohabit, with older works relinquishing their original contexts and assuming new identities within this Venetian landscape. Each piece appears cognizant of the others, suggesting that the exhibition functions as a self-regulating ecosystem rather than a sequential presentation.

The atrium, where the interaction commences, presents a threshold-image. Trouvé adorns the marble floor with a newly conceived sculptural intervention that promptly disrupts anticipations. Materials linked to modern urban construction—metal components, industrial remnants—are enveloped in a layer of asphalt, extending across the terrain like a dark map. The piece, entitled Hor-sol (2025), functions simultaneously as a cosmic diagram and as the revealed apparatus of a clock: a gear devoid of hands, time absent of numerals. It is a surface intended for traversal, yet it impedes transparency, enabling us to perceive opacity, density, and heft. Positioned above it, one experiences a suspension between scales - the cosmic and the infrastructural, the immeasurable and the manmade. This initial gesture established the exhibition's central tension: between institutions that attempt to structure time and the human experience that perpetually eludes them. Delicate fractures manifest in the structure, understated yet intentional, as if the edifice were succumbing to the weight of amassed recollections.

During the exhibition, time seems to extend outward, even in opposition to the architectural divisions. Delicate cracks adorn the walls, understated yet intentional, as if the structure were documenting the weight of stored memories. These openings operate as wounds or apertures, indicating that space is also susceptible to the passage of time. Dispersed over this chronological landscape are continuous series like “Notes on Sculpture,” which present a more personal dimension. Each piece is a three-dimensional still life, cast in bronze from serendipitous studio arrangements and designated with a name and a specific date—December 20th, “Charles” (2025); April 27th, “Maresa” (2021); January 28th, “Marcello” (2025). These sculptures capture ephemeral thoughts, bestowing permanence onto what was previously casual and transient. Similarly distributed throughout the palazzo, “The Guardians” manifests subtly rather than striving for prominence: charts or benches accompanied by personal artifacts  such as a bag, a cape, a remnant of existence imply figures that are protective yet absent, vigilant yet reclusive, integrated within the cadence of the exhibition itself. Thus, “The Strange Life of Things” defies resolution. It provides no conclusive image, no definitive synthesis, but a succession of interactions that stay dynamic. Time, in this context, is neither linear nor static, but rather scattered and embedded in materials, movements, and voids. The exhibition concludes in a practical sense; theoretically, it persists, prompting us to reevaluate not the nature of the artifacts, but the duration of their waiting and the memories they may retain.