Albero della vita

25 May – 24 November 2024
Venice, Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo

Curated by Chiara Squarcina, Carla Tolomeo

In all cosmogonies, the Origin is represented vertically. It is born and arises from the water and reaches out towards the sky. It is almost always a mutant object between the animal and plant kingdoms. Its metamorphoses are paraphrases of evolution or the story of creation in an indecipherable time, finite and infinite, as infinite are the forms in which the initial energy is manifested and embodied.

In Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings, the Bahamuth is fantastic: a fish rises immeasurably from the water, which then becomes a tree, a bull, a bird, a ruby, an angel.
On the 496th night of the Book of the Arabian Nights, Isa (Jesus) manages to see the Bahamuth but loses consciousness. Under the fish there is the sea, and under the sea an abyss of air, and beneath it is fire, and below it is a great serpent that has hell in its mouth. The story seems to illustrate the cosmological proof of God’s existence, in which it is argued that every cause presupposes an antecedent cause and affirms the necessity of positing a first cause in order not to continue indefinitely.

Admission to the exhibition with the Museum’s hours and ticket.

Biography of the artist >>>