"…The most moving moment I had at the Biennale, however, came in the last minutes of my last day at the show. Just before closing time, as guards herded stragglers toward the entrance from the far end of the Arsenal where I was, three marvelous-looking vessels cobbled together from urban detritus motored past Mike Boucher’s wonderful sunken suburban house, and into the small lagoon. A band played a haunting song, a woman sang, a girl swung on a swing. The boats are the work of the artist Swoon. I’m told that Swoon wasn’t even invited to the show. She and her gypsy friends simply entered of their own accord and did what they wanted to do. Like the best work here, Swoon’s work doesn’t come out of academic critique; it comes from necessity and vision. These are the perfect tools for making things as old as time new again -- including an art world turned dangerously into itself."
Jerry Saltz, New York
Magazine. Read more here.
"Barging In to Venice: The
Brooklyn artist Swoon and her merry band of anarchists from
deepest Bushwick are invading the Venice Biennale this
week—on boats built from garbage. New York City
garbage."
Vanessa Grigoriadis, New
York Magazine. Read more here.
"A fleet of intricate,
handcrafted vessels that functions as a stage, a sculpture
exhibition and a social experiment, Swoon's ‘Swimming
Cities’ project is headed to one of the places that
originally inspired it: Venice. The street artist and her
30-member crew will dock off of Certosa Island during the
Venice Biennale to give a series of performances,
collectively titled 'The Clutchess of Cuckoo,' which will
feature music, shadow puppetry, and visual storytelling."
Jacquelyn Lewis, Art In
America. Read more here.