Design for Living: The hands of Venice

Lorenzo Quinn's sculpture Support, rising from the Grand Canal in Venice. Photo / supplied

There was some pearl-clutching in the art world when Lorenzo Quinn's sculpture Support was unveiled during the 2017 Venice Biennale.

More than a few critics thought it was, well, a bit cheap. A fashionable look-at-me political statement in a world that values creative subtlety. But the public loved it. It was the most talked-about artwork of the whole show.

Support lends a helping hand, or two, to the precarious city itself, which is both sinking into the mud and threatened by rising sea levels.

"Venice, the floating city of art and culture that has inspired humanity for centuries, is threatened by climate change and time decay and is in need of the support of our generation and future ones," said the artist. "Let's join hands and make a lasting change."

He can sound a bit pompous. And yet Support is an arresting and ambivalent artwork. The two hands rise from the Grand Canal and attach themselves to the walls of the Ca' Sagredo, a palace converted to a luxury hotel: are they holding the building up or pushing and pulling it down?

"The hand holds so much power," Quinn said. "The power to love, to hate, to create, to destroy."

Quinn likes to say he is influenced by Michelangelo, Bernini and Rodin, artists who have created some of the most sublime human hands in history. But does it matter if he has an inflated sense of the artistic company he keeps? This piece gets people talking.

And it's funny. It's disturbing because it's funny. Isn't that a pretty good thing to be able to say about public art?

Lorenzo, by the way, is a son of the actor Anthony Quinn, whom readers of a certain age will remember as Zorba the Greek and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Oh the bells.

Holding it up or pushing and pulling it down? Lorenzo Quinn's Support, in the Grand Canal in Venice. Photo / supplied

Design for Living is a regular series in Canvas magazine.