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Bivouac

By Gianluca Gasca
Powred by Salewa

A bivouac, a cross-border meeting and sharing place, displayed on the island of San Servolo on the occasion of the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale. An idea born from the South Tyrolean association ArtintheAlps which, together with the Bolzano-based brand Salewa, wanted to represent the soul of the South Tyrolean land in a strong and almost physical way: an open place, beyond the borders, where the mountains are not a barrier but a bridge between the north and south of Europe. For this reason, on the occasion of the hundred years since the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain that divided the Tyrol by attributing to Alto Adige and Trentino, a historic bivouac erected in 1972 by Reinhold Messner in memory of his brother Günther, who tragically died in 1970 on Nanga Parbat (8125 m, Pakistan), has turned into art.

A true bivouac in Venice
It is quite impressive to come across a real Dolomite bivouac while taking a walk in the beautiful garden of the island of San Servolo. Today fixed bivouacs of this type, in sheet metal and with very few comforts, are no more produced. Moreover, their function is certainly not to offer comfort and beauty. The bivouac is an emergency shelter, a last human outpost in the land of adventure, to lean on in case of need. An always open place where you have to follow some unwritten rules, such as sharing and brotherhood. When you camp outside we are all brothers and, as romantic as it may sound, a bivouac is never pleasant. Simon Messner, the son of Reinhold and grandson of Günther, said it blunty. A good mountaineer (a good DNA helps) that last September 17th, on the occasion of his presentation as a Salewa athlete, was the protagonist of an interesting dialogue with Patrizia Spadafora (ArtintheAlps president), Christiane Rekade (curator of the Bivacco project) and Stefan Rainer (Salewa general manager).
An exhibition conceived by the artist Hannes Egger, who first requested the permission from Reinhold Messner to move the historic structure which will ultimately become part of the museum circuit of the Messner Mountain Museum. Then he transported from 2510 meters, at the foot of the north wall of the Great Vedretta, up to the zero meters of the island of San Servolo, the bivouac immediately underwent a restoration, from the same hands of the person who built it fifty years ago, then it passed into the hands of Rekade who was entrusted with the task of bringing art into art. The bivouac itself, positioned in the Venetian context, materializes as a kind of orange Ufo in the eyes of visitors. An object unknown to most, in which in addition to the classic necessities such as candles, snow shovels, blankets or a small stove, there are also seven artworks by seven artists.

Seven artworks by seven artists
It must have been quite impressive for the artists to find themselves facing a bivouac imagined as an exhibition space. Small and minimally equipped, always open, unattended and not air conditioned. A real challenge that the seven young guys have courageously joined. First of all Hannes Egger, creator of the entire Bivacco project, who imagined a sticker inspired by those left over the years by various Alpine clubs. Usually they have an emergency number to be contacted in case of need written on, the artist’s number has a QR code instead which allows the visitor to download an audio performance to your mobile phone that can physically accompany you in the history of shelter.
Our first approaches with the structure are thanks to the work of Jacopo Candotti, who by melting 20-cent Euro coins worked the resulting metal to form a handle that wraps itself around the original one. A reference to Europe and its fragile ideals where the Euro seems to remain one of the few driving and cross-border forces. Inside are Simon Perathoner and Nicolò Degiorgis that remind us of the true soul of the bivouac as an alpine structure. Perathoner carved the chemical formula of the mineral itself into a block of Dolomia, symbolically bringing the mountain to the sea; Degiorgis imagines instead a whole other panorama for the Dolomites thanks to the pages of the magazine “Peak”, that represents the mountain group through the shapes of peaks and valleys, and arranging the photo of half mountain next to the half of another mountain.
Even the covers of the woolen blankets become art thanks to Maria Walcher who puts together the cross-border trails, used by shepherds to reach the pastures, to the escape routes of migrants in Europe. The first embroidered on cotton, the second ones in blue: together they give life to a constellation, point of orientation or hope for the future. Instead, leaves many questions the artwork of Leander Schönweger that transforms the bivouac into a mountain church, a visionary idea of ​​the structure that opens to questions and reflections.
Julia Frank, the youngest of the artists involved, is inspired by the story of Günther Messner by installing flags made of colored ropes on the sides of the bivouac. Thanks to a tangle of knots on these flags, the words “lie” and “true” appear to recall the long struggle carried out by Reinhold to claim the truthfulness of the events of 1970 and how, with the disappearance of Günther, his version of the events has gone forever with him.