Import/Export

800 sq metres block print executed and exhibited in a disused monastery on the Guidecca, Venice; the exhibition explores the popular use of crazy paving and its cultural heritage. Import/Export is an 800 sq metres block print executed and exhibited in a disused monastery on the Guidecca. The exhibition was comprised of an oversized crazy paving pattern which filled the monastery’s piazza where a terrazzo floor had once stood. Woods explores the spread of “crazy paved” driveways and the connections with an increase in mass foreign travel in the early 1970s. He draws on memories of being a child and being fascinated by these D.I.Y renovations at the same time as the popularisation of foreign travel and awareness of other cultures. Woods travelled extensively to Venice and researched various architectural sites suitable for the installation. Over a four week period, the piazza was filled with an enormous printed floor, which graphically described the crazy paving that was in turn influenced by the original terrazzo. This artwork was commissioned by the Henry Moore Institute for the contemporary art biennale; it was one of three major projects that year, including Hilary Lloyd and Graham Gussin. The project led directly on from the commissioned work Woods installed at the Royal Academy (see Output 3). The restoration of the derelict piazza was the first large scale brick pattern Woods installed, and this project led directly on to the red brick cladding installed in Oxford at New College (see output 4). The work was published in the Venice Biennale catalogue “Dreams and Conflicts’; it was featured in lecture programmes and discussion panels as “Art in the Public sphere” Tate Britain (March 2006) and “Discussing Art and Architecture” Kettles Yard Museum, Cambridge (June 2007)