EXHIBITION OF THE ARTIST QIU ZHIJIE AT THE CAFFE’ FLORIAN IN ST MARK’S SQUARE UNTIL 31 AUGUST 2015

The Caffè Florian in Venice is hosting the exhibition ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’ by the artist Qiu Zhijie, as part of the 13th ‘Temporanea – Le Realtà possibili del Caffè Florian’. The title of Qiu Zhijie’s exhibition is taken from a poem by Lord Byron, who wrote the words at a time when he lived in Venice in a letter to Thomas Moore. Zhijie reinterprets the Chinese Room in the oldest cafe in the world with a ‘site specific’ work produced exclusively for the Florian collection: walls, ceiling, floor, table and chairs are covered with mirrors on which sentences by famous people who frequented Florian’s (Byron, Goethe and others) have been etched, evoking conversations in the room. The writings appear in reverse and so can be read only by means of the mirror placed opposite them. The artist’s idea is partly related to the history of Venice, as the mirror was invented here in 1460 and for 150 years Venice had the monopoly on the mirror industry. The tradition of mirror writing dates rather from the pre-Islamic period in the Arabian Peninsula. Most of Leonardo da Vinci’s personal writings, furthermore, are in mirror italics. Venice thus becomes the meeting place of European, Arabian and Asian traditions.

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