Was it an indisputable sign of climate change\u2014the type of extreme weather phenomena that more frequently than ever before mark the passing of each season? Or, as some have argued, the result of governmental negligence\u2014the missed routine maintenance of riverbanks and related infrastructures? Or both?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although climate change is real and science has been telling us so for nearly a century, reading the weather is often an arduous and contradictory task for us, the non-specialists. Is this summer colder or warmer than last year\u2019s? How many times did it snow last winter? Are we in a drought? The data is available and scientists can provide clear-cut answers, but our perception of the weather, how we experience it and remember it, seems to be more fluid and complex. It just doesn\u2019t seem possible for it to be simply based on evidence. It is instead defined by an intricate system of beliefs that ranges from the political to the religious passing through the philosophical. So, how can art help us negotiate these complexities? Over the past decade, exhibitions on climate change have mushroomed. Some critics have recently begun to doubt their usefulness and quality. But Everybody Talks About the Weather <\/em>does something different. As Miuccia Prada, president of the Fondazione Prada, notes, \u201cThe project arose from the idea of taking weather as a starting point to highlight the urgency of climate change, empirically equating meteorology and climatology, and using the tools of art and science together. The goal is to understand the environmental crisis and its undeniable impact on our lives by drawing attention to, representing, and analyzing meteorological phenomena. Climate is a global issue that influences the actions and destinies of people worldwide. Talking about the weather today therefore means talking and worrying about everyone\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giovanni Aloi and Roelstrate discussed the scope and aim of an exhibition that will be most likely remembered as a turning point in the history of art and ecology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"Everybody-Talks-About-the-Weather\"$
Everybody Talks About the Weather<\/em>, exhibition view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Giovanni Aloi :<\/strong> What does it mean to be a curator today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dieter Roelstraete : <\/strong>I did not receive any formal training as a curator, or even as an art historian. I studied philosophy, and I really only entered the art world in the early 2000s. My father, an artist\u2014not a famous one\u2014gave me an early introduction to art museums, openings, and so on. Ultimately, art is primarily a form of intellectual labour, and for me curating is a deeply personal passion accompanied by a rigorous, theoretical approach to art as a realm of ideas. I often joke that a curator is like a drummer who hangs out with musicians. Well, I\u2019m that guy who hangs out with artists. First and foremost, curating is social work, caretaking, and nursing. But I am aware that in my practice, I also hold on to a somewhat romantic idea of the public intellectual. \u00c9mile Zola\u2019s J\u2019accuse<\/em> is always going to be a model of sorts for what I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> : How did the idea for Everybody Talks About the Weather<\/em> come about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DR : <\/strong>I have a long-standing interest in matters that pertain to ecology and the environment and nature. One of the first books I wrote, A Line Made by Walking<\/em>, was about Richard Long. So, the relationship of art with the landscape, the relationship of art with nature or the natural environment, or the relationship of art with what we could think of as our natural habitat is an old preoccupation of mine. For years I\u2019ve been thinking about the weather and the climate crisis. A couple of years ago, I started working on an exhibition for the Neubauer Collegium, my place of work at the University of Chicago. This became the Chicago Cli-fi Library. <\/em>It featured the work of Beate Geissler & Oliver Sann, Jenny Kendler, I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle, and Dan Peterman. Some of the artists became part of the show in Venice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"\"$
I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle <\/strong>
You Don’t Need a Weatherman (Version 3)<\/em>, 2017, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the artist & Fondazione Prada, Venice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
That exhibition was strongly shaped by my reading of Amitav Ghosh\u2019s The Great Derangement. <\/em>In that book, he argues that contemporary literature has mostly ignored climate change as a bona fide subject, and I likewise feel that the art world has done mostly the same to date. This is where the premise for the exhibition emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I began my research, I came upon this German poster produced in the late 1960s by the Socialist Student Union, which says \u201cEverybody talks about the weather, we don\u2019t.\u201d Above these words are the portraits of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. I thought to myself, \u201cWhat an enormous mistake for progressive politics in the 1960s and 1970s to assume that talking about the weather bore no consequence.\u201d In a sense, that poster is emblematic of the beginning of the marginalization of this particular \u201cproblem\u201d as somehow inconsequential or secondary to real politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Pieter-Vermeersch\"$
Pieter Vermeersch <\/strong>
Troubled Air -Tribute to Sunn O)))-<\/em>, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy Fondazione Prada, Venice & Galerie Greta Meert (Brussels), Galerie Perrotin (Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, & Dubai), ProjecteSD (Barcelona), & P420 (Bologna).
Claude Monet<\/strong>
Impression, Soleil Levant<\/em>, 1872, Mus\u00e9e Marmottan Monet, Paris

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$\"Pieter-Vermeersch\"$
Pieter Vermeersch <\/strong>
Troubled Air -Tribute to Sunn O)))-<\/em>, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy Fondazione Prada, Venice & Galerie Greta Meert (Brussels), Galerie Perrotin (Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, & Dubai), ProjecteSD (Barcelona), & P420 (Bologna).
Caspar David Friedrich<\/strong>
Das Eismeer, 1823-24, Hamburger Kusthalle, Hamburg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Pieter-Vermeersch\"$
Pieter Vermeersch <\/strong>
Troubled Air -Tribute to Sunn O)))-<\/em>, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy Fondazione Prada, Venice & Galerie Greta Meert (Brussels), Galerie Perrotin (Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, & Dubai), ProjecteSD (Barcelona), & P420 (Bologna).
Hendrick Avercamp <\/strong>
Winterlandschap met schaatsers, c. 1608, Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> I remember when you first told me about the title. It surprised me because it had a very different ring from other climate-change\u2013based exhibitions I have seen. It sounded provocative and irreverent. I am referring here to the controversy around the appropriateness of the use of \u201cclimate change\u201d vs. \u201cglobal warming\u201d and how one or the other detracts from the urgency of the situation. Shifting the conversation to the weather seemed to tamper with our perceptual scale and our articulation of that perception. Weather phenomena may or may not mirror our expectations of what global warming entails. Conservatives often mock the left by bringing snowballs into legislative buildings to prove that winter is still cold enough. So, capitalizing on the notion of \u201cweather,\u201d in my opinion, shifts a conversation that is often ungraspable, because of its hyper-object status and scientific complexity, to the more localized, individual, embodied perception. We can all talk about the weather with some sense of authority, but the same cannot be said about our ability to decode or interpret scientific data. I read this as an intentional provocation, as your curatorial work often has a kind of tongue-in-cheek approach here and there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
DR :<\/strong><\/strong> Well, this might sound a little bizarre, but I\u2019m also a populist. I\u2019m interested in reaching as broad an audience as possible. I am interested in accessibility. The topic of this exhibition is certainly related to this. It might not be the case in Europe quite as much, but in the US to believe that the climate crisis is real actually has a lot to do with your political affiliation\u2014which is absurd. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> Yes, indeed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DR :<\/strong><\/strong> Now to go back to the title of the exhibition: \u201ctalking about the weather\u201d with a stranger on a train today no longer is the small talk it used to be. Ultimately, the changing climate patterns that global warming enacts are what will impact all of us much faster than other long-term catastrophic events. Much of the exhibition is concerned with communication and the failures of communication. Art can often reach where science can\u2019t. Ghosh talks about this in the conversation we had for the catalogue. He chastises the scientific community for always ringing the alarm bell so much that it blunts our perception. To a degree, the role the weather plays in the media today is akin to that of terrorism twenty years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> The exhibition combines art and science in innovative ways. I am referring to the large labels that featured scientific texts as well as graphs. I found that interesting, but it also made me wonder about information overload in the context of the exhibition as a spatio-temporal experience. More specifically, it reminded me of Claire Bishop\u2019s controversial essay \u201cInformation Overload\u201d recently published in Artforum.<\/em> The exhibition also featured an extensive collection of books on climate change situated on both floors. These were not relegated to the end of the exhibition, as has been common for many years now, but were integrated into the middle of the displays, in very prominent places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"\"$
Everybody Talks About the Weather<\/em>, exhibition view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
DR :<\/strong><\/strong> The idea of foregrounding the scientific component came directly from Miuccia Prada. She was adamant that this kind of exhibition had to engage with scientific discourses in order to be credible. This is an exhibition that you can navigate on different levels. You can come in and just look at the art, or just read the scientific information. Or do both. But because of the prominence of scientific information, the art was allowed to speak for itself a bit more. Jason Dodge\u2019s small piece featuring ten dead bees in a glass case, for instance, was left to its own glorious self, because close by\u2014but not too close\u2014we placed an extensive text about the insect apocalypse. In many instances, this approach led to an interesting dialogue between art and science. This is not something that I could have foreseen. In fact, one of my concerns was that in an exhibition like this one, the artworks might become subordinate to science and appear as commentaries or illustrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Come to think it, I hope that Bishop comes to see the exhibition. I would love to know what she thinks. Her recent Artforum <\/em>essay on research-based art practices is well written and well argued. But I am not sure that she\u2019d consider this a \u201cresearch-based\u201d exhibition even though there\u2019s a lot of text on the walls. One reviewer did criticize the noticeable presence of books, claiming that it was a rhetorical, righteous gesture that implied we have science on our side. Curating entails taking risks, and this was certainly one of them. I don\u2019t regret it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"EverybodyTalksAbouttheWeather\"$
Everybody Talks About the Weather<\/em>, exhibition view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of Fondazione Prada, Venice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> I actually enjoyed the books. It seemed to me that everything came together really well, in the sense that it was an enriching experience on many levels\u2014and that\u2019s important when it comes to art today, to feel that you leave the gallery enriched. The notion there shouldn\u2019t be too many books or too much text in art galleries implies a certain kind of modernist transcendentalism, a purism according to which the experience surpasses the linguistic dimension. But that\u2019s only one of the many modalities in which the exhibition space can function, and, in more than one way, Everybody Talks About the Weather <\/em>was implicitly reaching beyond the perimeter of its walls. The opening took place right at a time when there was nothing on the news but talk about the weather as the region of Emilia Romagna, not too far from Venice, experienced devastating floods. The conversation quickly became hyper-politicized. Unpredictable catastrophe or clear evidence of climate change? It was somewhat surreal to switch from the live reporting outside the gallery to the many weather reports that dotted the first floor of the exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was struck by how you integrated different media across two floors in a building that, as beautiful and majestic as it is\u2014the Ca\u2019 Corner della Regina\u2014also poses several challenges from a curatorial standpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Raqs-Media-Collective\"$
Raqs Media Collective<\/strong>
Deep Breath<\/em>, 2019-22, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the artist, Fondazione Prada, Venice, & Frith Street Gallery, London <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Chantal-Pen\u0303alosa\"$
Chantal Pen\u0303alosa<\/strong>
Untitled<\/em>, 2018, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the artist, Fondazione Prada, Venice, & Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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DR :<\/strong><\/strong> Well, the biggest challenge in Venice is the water. Every work arrives at the gallery on boats\u2014it\u2019s quite surreal. Humidity was a massive concern throughout. The galleries are beautiful, but they are all different in size and d\u00e9cor. The architectural features are bespoke\u2014this is not the average curation in a white cube. The idea to arrange the second floor around atmospheric agents came from the Fondazione Prada curators Mario Mainetti and Carlo Mazzei. That idea gave us a good backbone to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> One of the aspects of the exhibition that I particularly enjoyed was the aesthetic diversity across the artworks on show. The recent rise of interest in climate change requires the crafting of new artistic languages, and curators are always at the forefront of selecting and validating certain aesthetic approaches to them. Their role often ends up being a defining one in this sense. I have been interested in the aesthetics of the Anthropocene for a while. Which aesthetic modes are more suited to the subject and why? What do certain aesthetics communicate vs. others? A few years ago, before the pandemic, it seemed that industrial aesthetics played an important role, but more recently the needle seems to have shifted toward a more nature-grounded, poetic mode of engagement that can inspire hope. How did you set the aesthetic parameters for this exhibition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DR :<\/strong><\/strong> The weather is a very fickle subject that is somewhat underrepresented, in my estimation, in the broader curatorial purview. This angle warranted more flexibility, and it allowed us to incorporate a variety of expressive forms. In many past exhibitions on climate change, the curators opted for a documentary-like approach. Reportage seemed to validate a disputed subject. We incorporated some of this, but only in part. We wanted to strike a balance between the imaginative and the factual. This was often accomplished by juxtaposing works. As the exhibition began to come together, we also became aware of more narrative strands and the relationships that figuration and abstraction wove in this context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GA<\/strong> :<\/strong> I\u2019m somewhat concerned that the recent aesthetics of the Anthropocene tends to lean a bit too heavily toward what I call toxic positivity. It might be a form of compensation. Faced with catastrophic visions, we look for comforting and reassuring messages. A literary genre has quickly developed around this need, and these books become instant bestsellers for a reason. I think there\u2019s pressure on curators too, to work on exhibitions that ultimately communicate something positive. This summer, the Hayward Gallery is hosting an exhibition titled Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis.<\/em> I think the phenomenon is real and in full swing. I don\u2019t think that this happens with Everybody Talks About the Weather<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DR :<\/strong><\/strong> Sometimes art is expected to kind of initiate a process of healing. Curating is not curing. Art is entitled to its own despair. Art fundamentally offers a glimpse into the beauty of the world. Take, for example, the work of Vivian Suter. I find it very moving. Her paintings are produced in her garden in Guatemala. The canvases are a collaboration between her and the elements. They conjure a beauty that theoretical appraisal cannot reach. So, returning to your question about the aesthetics of the Anthropocene, I guess that it is the very idea of beauty that is being redefined from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Vivian-Suter\"$
Vivian Suter<\/strong>
Untitled<\/em>, installation view, Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2023.
Photo: Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the artist, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Karma International, Zurich, Gaga, Mexico City, Gladstone Gallery, New York & Brussels, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, & Stampa, Basel <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
An author and curator specializing in the history and theory of photography, representations of nature, and materiality in art, Giovanni Aloi has edited and written more than ten books. He is the editor of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture<\/em> and the University of Minnesota Press series Art after Nature<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dieter Roelstraete <\/strong>is curator of the Neubauer Collegium at the University of Chicago, where he also teaches. Roelstraete previously worked as a curator for documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens in 2017. From 2012 until 2015 he served as the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and from 2003 to 2011 Roelstraete worked at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen in his native Belgium. He was trained as a philosopher at the University of Ghent and has published extensively on contemporary art and related philosophical issues in numerous catalogues and journals.<\/p>\n\n\n
Chantal Pe\u00f1alosa, Giovanni Aloi, I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle, Jason Dodge, Pieter Vermeersch, Raqs Media Collective, Vivian Suter<\/div>\n
Chantal Pe\u00f1alosa, Giovanni Aloi, I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle, Jason Dodge, Pieter Vermeersch, Raqs Media Collective, Vivian Suter<\/div>\n
Chantal Pe\u00f1alosa, Giovanni Aloi, I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle, Jason Dodge, Pieter Vermeersch, Raqs Media Collective, Vivian Suter<\/div>
Chantal Pe\u00f1alosa, Giovanni Aloi, I\u00f1igo Manglano-Ovalle, Jason Dodge, Pieter Vermeersch, Raqs Media Collective, Vivian Suter<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":197723,"template":"","categories":[883,892],"numeros":[],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[932],"artistes":[6688,6670,6682,6674,6689,6690,6672],"thematiques":[],"type_entretien":[],"class_list":["post-197748","entretien","type-entretien","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-webzine","auteurs-giovanni-aloi-en","artistes-chantal-penalosa-en","artistes-dieter-roelstraete-en","artistes-inigo-manglano-ovalle-en","artistes-jason-dodge-en","artistes-pieter-vermeersch-en","artistes-raqs-media-collective-en","artistes-vivian-suter-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entretien\/197748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entretien"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/entretien"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=197748"},{"taxonomy":"type_entretien","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_entretien?post=197748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}