David Lewis, Billy Gerard Frank: Epic Memory – Venice Biennale 2019

Two quite different artists who have distinct and diverse relationships with the islands of Grenada and its people meditate on the impact these roots have had on their work and their identities

Epic Memory is the title chosen by Grenada for its third presentation at the Venice Biennale. Inspired by the speech Derek Walcott gave on receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, the commissioner Susan Mains and the curator Daniele Radini Tedeschi chose artists whom they felt would be uniquely well placed to explore their brief, which was:,“To look at their own memories and contemplate how our tapestry of memory fragments leads us to interconnectedness as a region.”

Set within the Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello in Cannaregio, a wide assortment of work is on display from film to installation, photography, videography and painting. The contributing artists are: Franco Rota Candiani, Amy Cannestra, Billy Gerard Frank, Dave Lewis, Roberto Miniati, Shervone Neckles and the collective CRS avant-garde, comprising of Carlo Caldara, Giovanni Scagnoli and Paolo Rossetto.

Occupying the same room are Lewis’s photographs and Frank’s film, Second Eulogy: Mind the Gap. They are co-located thanks to the resonances between their work. Frank says: “We are dealing with similar issues, the father, the land, Dave returning to Grenada to explore his own relationship with his father and the land (his father) grew up on. Me returning to explore my relationship around my dad, my colonial past, sexuality and exile. So many images in the film are similar to Dave’s issues … the landscape is a very big force in the work.”

Epic Memory
Grenada Pavilion, Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello, Cannaregio 4118, Venice
11 May – 24 November 2019

Interview by VERONICA SIMPSON
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY