A Virtual Biennale

Country: Italian Pavilion

Artist: Multiple Artists

Curator: Vittorio Sgarbi

Venue: Arsenale, Padiglione Italia, Tese and Giardino delle Vergini

Considering the sheer mass of artists in the Italian pavilion, it would be nothing short of inappropriate to try to ‘summarise’ the genres on display (and rather time-consuming). Work in multiple media is stacked, layered and crammed into the Italian pavilion on curved shelving to ensure the maximum space is utilised. Thus, like any exhibition featuring such a diverse range of artists, cohesion is the primary downfall of this presentation. And while this year coincidentally is the 150^th anniversary of Italy’s unification as a country (with many artists choosing to reference in their artworks), no overarching theme comes through explicitly to the overwhelmed viewer.

While summation is impossible, a notable strand of derivation from the world of ancient Rome and the Italian Renaissance pervades, in some cases leading to a repetition of models – two works both relying openly on Mantegna’s Dead Christ lead to shockingly similar artistic conclusions. These tend to be hit-or-miss, and rather than wade through the incoherent jumble, I would recommend spending time in the only cohesively effective section, the ‘museo della mafia’ section which occupies the suspended wooden platform.

This dark, oppressive environment chronicles the history of the mafia, and includes artistic interpretations of the subject. While a disturbing series of exhibits, this is a necessary counterweight to some of the optimistically naïve celebrations of Italy’s 150 years – and manages to leave a far deeper impression than the multiple green, white and red-coloured works that derive their sole meaning from those invested in the Italian flag.

1 year ago 4 notes

Title: Entre Siempre y Jamás (Between Forever and Never)

Artist: Multiple Artists

Curator: Alfons Hug

Co-Curators: Paz Guevara, Patricia Rivadeneira, Alberto Saraiva

Venue: Arsenale, Isolotto, Pavilion of the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano

1 year ago 2 notes

Working for Change: Project for the Moroccan Pavilion

Curator: Abdellah Karroum

Artist: Multiple participants

Venue: Spazio Punch, Ex Birrerie, Giudecca Island

Think back to the last politically or socially-orientated art exhibition you last saw. Perhaps you stopped by once, soaked in the atmosphere and left. Perhaps you visited on multiple occasions and discovered every last metaphor and subtext. But then the exhibition ends. The work is packed up, possibly sold, and the expressive or motivating impulses are paralysed; limited by the boundaries of conventional exhibition schedules.

That is not Working for Change. Instead this project, present at the Venice Biennale via Morocco, has sufficient momentum to ensure that its subject – artistic production within changing societies – will continue to be tackled long after leaving its temporary home. As Abdellah Karroum (curator) explains, there is no beginning, middle or end to this project: it is not a spectacle to be produced, exhibited and then discarded. Working on the foundations of his ongoing project l’appartement22, Karroum designed this project to both benefit the artists selected, all of whom engage with the position of art in society, and to propose a new method for working with artists within the Biennale context. And while the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ may have formed the immediate context for Working for Change, it is clear from the outset that politics is not the only concern of these artists.

Rather than curate a traditional exhibition, Karroum instead invited artists to ‘occupy’ the space, working on table to discuss and potentially produce new work. This combination of research and production is a key aspect of the project, and is the first signifier that it has more potential than any finite exhibition. Resembling more a coordination office than a gallery or exhibition space, the Spazio Punch is filled with desks, not white walls and empty floor space. Some artists have already departed, leaving only traces behind, while others remain and some have yet to come: this tactic alone ensures the forward motion of the project.

An early occupant was Younès Rahmoun, a Moroccan artist, whose work Khamsa (Five) follows the artist’s attempt to form geometrical shapes from five wooden sticks, a reference to the five-branch star of Morocco. As such, the work acts as metaphor for the current political turmoil, by finding new configurations from old elements. However, through Rahmoun’s incorporation of the camera – the artist views his work from the lens and therefore creates hesitations – it also references the media’s involvement in societal changes. Furthermore, the video performance is accessible on the project website, allowing for a continual exposition and influence capable of extending the work infinitely beyond its initial performance in Venice.

A more practical approach has been taken by Tomas Colaço, a Portuguese artist, who has been present from the outset. Using a painting he brought to cover an old mattress and provide the artists and curators with a sofa, Colaço has adapted his existing work to the project. This is also reflected in his integration with the neighbours around the Spazio Punch, who are teaching him organic gardening and involving him in their community. This connection has already reaped benefits, assisting another artist with her project: setting up a living ‘still life’ for the opening night which was then consumed and destroyed, again linking art, community and life. In both these cases, art itself has been used to further the project in some form, be it the sustenance or comfort of those involved, again ensuring a forward momentum.

On the other hand, Doa Aly’s contribution is more theoretical. An Egyptian artist, the political uprisings in her country led her to consider how artists could function and contribute to a new system. Unsure of the questions that needed to be addressed, she compiled a list of questions written by others, contributing a selection instead of a visual piece. Once more, momentum is suggested through this bibliographic gesture, as while answers are not initially provided, the compilation of a list stimulates the search for the solutions, and ensures its continual relevance.

Another artist ‘present’ is Karim Rafi, a sound artist and poet. Unable to come physically to the Biennale, Rafi maintains a constant digital link to the project, emailing an image and/or text every day which is placed on the desk he chose for Venice. By setting up his own proxy desk in Casablanca and sending communications each day, Rafi has enacts a performance that relies on participation in a digital sense, therefore mimicking the media’s effects within society. Through this method, Rafi overcomes spatial distance to maintain a proximity to the project, while also highlighting a key aspect of life in the digital age: social interaction via digital surrogates. This performative work again may continue indefinitely, reliant only on access to an internet connection.

This reliance on digital media is also reflected in the general ethos of Working for Change, which strives to maintain connections with both the Biennale and the outside world. Karroum has insisted upon dialogue with pavilions facing political and societal changes, including China and Egypt. The discussions are also filmed and put online, ensuring that Working for Change is both capable of fostering new dialogue within the Biennale, and making this accessible in a larger context. This act similarly allows Karroum to investigate the position of art within both the Biennale and the national country, with the discussions highlighting any discrepancies between the two. Furthermore, satellite television broadcasts BBC and Al-Jazeera in the project space, allowing the artists and curators to keep up-to-date. As Karroum suggests, today the media moves faster than art: the inclusion of the television therefore narrows this gap, helping Working for Change remain connected to world events, and potentially reflect them instantly.

Working for Change then certainly fulfils its title. Instead of a singular exposition, the momentum of this exhibition ensures its efficacy as an active movement, considering both the position of art in society, and suggesting a way for art to directly affect that society – by being intrinsically linked to it. Each artist reflects an area of the interaction of art and society, and their staggered occupation of the Biennale and the extension in Rabat that will occur later prevents any stagnation of the project. Furthermore, the project’s presence online, continually accessible, means the work being done here will remain influential outside the temporal limits of a fixed-term exhibition. Tied directly to Karroum’s conviction that today’s political scenarios are linked to the activist work of artists, Working for Change is symptomatic of a longer-term commitment to art as social change.

Think back to the last socially-responsible art exhibition you saw. Now consider the example of Working for Change. Which do you think will be the most influential?

Jen Owen

www.radioapartment22.com

1 year ago 1 note

Title: Georgian Pavilion: Any-Medium-Whatever

Artist: Tamara Kvesitadze

Curator: Henk Slager

Venue: Palazzo Pisani S. Marina

Simultaneously seductive and disturbing, the undulating forms employed by Tamara Kvesitadze in Any-Medium-Whatever allude to some of the most oppressive methods utilised by humans in their struggle to inhabit the earth. Yet Kvesitadze’s social agenda is not expressed explosively, or as a militant call-to-arms screeching out at the viewer. Instead, it is her sedate methodology that lends this exhibition its poignant impact, as by illuminating the darker elements of human nature and positing a feasible alternative, Kvesitadze manages to communicate important insights to the viewer both aesthetically and conceptually.

Having already exhibited at the Venice Biennale in a 2007 group show, this solo exhibit has offered Kvesitadze the opportunity to revisit her concerns on a larger scale. But while admitting that her focus on the aesthetic has slackened (a primary factor guiding her self-confessed “romantic” exhibit Man/Woman back in 2007), it is clear that the visual still plays an important role in imparting Kvesitadze’s conceptual intentions to the viewer.

Any-Medium-Whatever features five works that consider the past, present or future consequences of human territorialisation, and our interactions as a species. It also begins with the end: Untitled, a sculptural-yet-painterly image of the debris left lingering once life has passed away provides a striking opening, with appliqué objects appearing to bleed back into their support, as the connections between them slowly erase. But Untitled also shares the space with the mechanical gestures of F=-F, which dictates the atmosphere of the area and inflects upon our reading of the artwork, preventing it being considered in isolation as an aesthetic object. Untitled is, according to the curator Henk Slager, a “conceptual anchorpoint”, both a history and a future, related to the struggles for territorialisation occurring elsewhere in the exhibition.

From consequence, one progresses to cause. A paragon of rigidity, formula, of change without real change, F=-F is a mesmerising exercise in vision, both inviting one’s gaze and forcing our rejection of it in disgust. On first glance the installation appears simple, as the sleek white masks bend to and fro betraying little of the complex machinations controlling them - until one hears the gently audible sounds of machinery, or views it from the side. But within the repeated motion of these generic masks, this regimented grid format effectively draws attention to the selfish, threatening and above all pointless modes by which humans clamour to occupy space to the detriment of others. This political message, enhanced by the machine’s control and the militaristic organisation of the aesthetic is however balanced by a personal one – something Kvesitadze is keen to emphasise. And it is indeed more by allusion to ourselves, through the potential to relate these generic forms to daily interaction that this work achieves its impact, in conjunction with the simultaneous beauty and repulsion of this oscillating object.

However, if one still struggles with the message Kvesitadze wishes to express, one may find the answershanging in the dark shadows behind F=-F, as Sphere places the present state of human territorialisation in lucid perspective. Deceptively static, a closer look reveals that this work also expresses the momentum of change and mutation, while also revealing the absurdity of the temporary change in the balance of power. Featuring once more the blank faces, crowded onto a sphere reminiscent of earth, these forms push in and out in fluid motion, recalling the controlled regularity of F=-F. But here the urgency of Kvesitadze’s message becomes more intense, as the pressure of human interactions are displayed more tangibly, as the weight of the sphere bears down on the swelling faces. Furthermore, the decision to conceal the mechanics involved manage to make the viewer more subtly aware of the distorting, disturbing and quite sinister effects one person’s struggle for territory can have on those around them. And it is through this simplicity, and the universal nature of the generalised, idealised forms, that the message Kvesitadze wishes to impart – for people to consider their effect upon others, and to strive for more equal interaction – is emotively expressed to the viewer.

Yet as the title suggests, these concepts may be expressed in multiple ways, and the final static works of this exhibition also contribute to Kvesitadze’s social agenda. Disappearance once again features the generic masks, allowing it to retain congruity with the other works. But in representing the figures fading equally into oblivion, this time in a static fashion, Kvesitadze reinforces the idea that no matter how hard one strives for dominance, with the passing of time each will disappear in equal fashion.

The final work Relationship dominates the outside courtyard, and while extending the scope of the preceding works, it is also far removed from them both aesthetically and conceptually. Light layers combined with a totemic verticality provides a liberation from the soulless mutation of Sphere or F=-F, which continue to mutate without achieving equality or sustainability. Relationship is an ideal, representing a balanced vision of humanity that is not concerned with reducing the ‘other’ in order to expand, but strives to coexist harmoniously. By providing this alternative scenario, Kvesitadze manages to summarise the messages prevalent in this exhibition, whilst still maintaining the balance of attractive aesthetic and significant, meaningful expression.

Kvesitadze is deeply invested in her project, utilising here what she considers the positive platform of the Biennale to pursue a social agenda that is easily accessible to the viewer. And it is also clear that she consistently balances her political considerations with the personal pain that first inspired her to create these works. While she declares that in art “you can be a revolutionary”, it is just as important for Kvesitadze that the ideas be expressed with subtlety and deliberation, adding that this method “could perhaps bring more results than a demonstration”.

And it is clearly this unwillingness to be abrasive or militant in her pursuit of a social agenda that makes these works so effective at highlighting the means by which we reduce and affect others. By her reliance on simple (and often beautiful) aesthetic forms, combined with the at-times visible and audible mechanical processes, we become startlingly aware of the sinister processes we utilise, and which have negative effects on others. Kvesitadze makes it clear that too often one person’s success is to the detriment of others, and by the hopeful message of Relationship forces a rethink of our oblivious natures. While the simplicity of this final work is based on an idealistic vision of equality that many may wish to view as outdated, this counterpoint to F=-F and Sphere is necessary to providing us with the final impetus for change, and is an alternative that should be embraced.

Any-Medium-Whatever does not need to resort to short-lived shock tactics in order to express its poignant message. Here the works are presented without fuss or exclamation, and this subtle staging is undoubtedly what lends this exhibition its lasting resonance – probably the most important factor that will provoke us to change.

Jen Owen

1 year ago

Title: outside itself

Artist: Federico Díaz

Curator: Alanna Heiss

Venue: Arsenale Novissimo Nappa 90

Jen Owen interviews Federico Diaz:

Jen Owen: Are you excited to be working with the Venice Biennale on this installation?

Federico Diaz: I have a very close relationship with Italy – my family and I lived in Milan in the 80s. I visited the Biennale for the first time when I was nine and we’ve been there every two years ever since. So for me the Biennale is like a long-time dream, and with the new installation outside itself, I’ve now entered it.

JO: How much does this new work connect to previous themes and your general outlook on art?

FD: ‘Outside Itself’ follows up on the project Geometric Death Frequency 141, which is now at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The character and creative process are similar. In both cases, the entire form of the installation is based on algorithms and assembled by robots. ‘Outside Itself’ is a new evolutionary phase in which visitors walking through the installation have a direct impact on the resulting form.

JO: How important are aesthetic concerns? For example the black spheres?

FD: I have long been fascinated by the space we do not perceive and which is more significant for me than the reality we are able see. Our senses are limited and what is visible is not necessarily what is important. Black is the manifestation of the space that creates us. Black spheres represent photons.

JO: What do you feel will be gleaned from the finished sculpture, when all the people have come and gone and influenced its form? Do you feel it will be a ‘readable’ representation of the visitor group, or is it intended to be a more impenetrable mechanical reflection?

FD: Visitors will see three parts of the installation. The first part is the space where robots stick together the structure composed of black spheres. The second space that visitors walk through gradually fills into a monumental form made of 250,000 spheres. The third part is a projection where we see a moving structure of black dots reacting to the visitors’ movements. This projection is mapped out onto a structure made of spheres. Everything is linked and without providing a complicated explanation, people will understand that they, too, have the ability to create the final, resulting form.

JO: Your new installation is naturally very tied to the Biennale’s theme ILLUMInations. While it expands upon ideas you presented at Mass MoCA, was it designed to tie so directly in to the Venice thematic this year?

FD: Yes, ‘Outside Itself’ follows up on Geometric Death Frequency 141 very naturally. Already at MASS MoCA, the form was created by objectifying light. The black spheres represent individual photons. ‘Outside Itself’ gradually emerges as infrared sensors track people’s movements in the installation. As a result, over the course of the entire Biennale from June till September, a sort of map will be generated that will be the basis for the resulting form composed of individual spheres. The sculpture is produced from data, and the data is different every day based on how quickly people go through and what colour clothing they have on. What is responsible for this is the interaction between the photons reflecting off people’s bodies. So light is brought in by people and they then create the form.

JO: With regards to the human interactivity, how important to your work is the idea that it is merely a human presence that controls the robots? For example, is it key to your work that there is no actual direct link, merely a visual connection free from control?

FD: Each photon has a unique position both in our world and in the virtual world, in the simulation we create. Movement is not predicted. Each sphere has its own unique position that is different and changes from moment to moment. It is a system of chaos. We don’t know what outside itself will look like at the end or even how it will begin. As it would be impossible to create the object and form manually, it is adhered together by robots that directly gather information about the people. Always at the end of the day, the software evaluates the map of people’s movements and starts to build the structure out of black spheres.

JO: It is suggested that viewers of all ages and nationalities will influence the sculpture’s form, and yet they are merely reflected via sight into a mechanical process – do you feel that this moves a step beyond the social networking and human use of technology today, as the viewer merely becomes a visual stimulus with no further input than presence?

FD: When a person gets dressed in the morning, their clothing says something about their personality and the colour their psychology. Each colour reflects light differently, and this is the basis for how we perceive it and how it has an effect on us. The resulting form mirrors the social networks of the people who went through the Arsenal in the course of Biennale di Venezia. The mechanical process of the robots is the extended arm of our space we don’t perceive. Without the robots, the installation would not and could not have come into being.

JO: Regardless of the technological and mathematical links, this speaks to me about the power of spectatorship and empathetic mirroring in society. Was this something that also inspired your project?

FD: Yes, the main statement is that Art is not art if human hands bring it into existence. I want to provocatively state that what’s important is the idea. Society’s mental field. Collective morphological fields inspire me.

JO: Is it important to you that this is all mathematically programmed and carried out by machines, rather than allowing any further creative interpretation by a human? Do you often work with rationalised responses to humanity’s presence?

FD: Mathematical processes are the language of nature, but it’s not important to emphasise them. They are the essence of the installation, and the algorithms are controlled by Robots. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his book on a typing machine and the publisher did not want to publish it, arguing that the book was written by a machine. Those are the beginnings of mechanics. Without human input, the mechanism doesn’t work. Robots will stand still. Let’s understand that they are just a new perspective so that we can understand the relationships that are not visible to us.

JO: The use of identical black spheres will no doubt somewhat erase the diversity of the audience that shapes it. Was this your intention?

FD: This year I am writing the Manifesto Nero. Black is fundamental, just like White. They are borderline colours that join us with the world beyond the limits of our senses.

JO: The Venice Biennale is, much like your installation, a reflection of its constituent parts and those that come to see it. Do you have any comments on the Biennale as a collective artistic enterprise, and on the aims of this bi-annual event?

FD: The Biennale is celebrating its 116^th anniversary; it is the oldest international exhibition in the world with an enormous history. The significance and joining of all nations underlines this – and this is another reason for ILLUMInations this year.

1 year ago 1 note

Artist: Dmitri Prigov

Curator: Dimitri Ozerkov

Venue: Universita Ca’ Foscari, Dorsoduro 3246 (Calle Foscari)

Challenging the viewer from the moment they step through the dark curtains, this exhibition by Dmitri Prigov thrusts the viewer into a tense, threatening environment. Initially faced by a shrouded man banging on a manuscript and shouting in Russian, we are however acutely aware that the sounds around us are not solely accounted for by this image. Our curiosity grows, and as we step through the second set of curtains we are faced by what appears to be the true(r) source of the aggressive noises, as two men sit in chairs shouting at one another. But once again, we do not have the ‘full’ story. Casting our glances back over the forbidding curtains behind us, we move forward to continue this tense experience with the third man, who retells a story in an increasingly emphatic tone.

While this corridor of tension is intriguing, despite all attempt to linger and watch the entire sequence, it is hard to remain within the curtains for any length of time. Instead, one longs for the white space beyond the final projection. And yet even on escaping this channelled aggression, the graphic drawings and installations of Prigov are infected with the tension and anger embodied in the initial videos. While both absurd and at times disconcerting images, the noise that resonates through this exhibition, as well as our memory of the initial projections feeds into the graphic works, with sight, concealment and above all discomfort coming to the fore as the major themes expressed in Dmitri Prigov.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago

Title: Lucid Dreams

Artist: Cristiano Pintaldi

Curator: Achille Bonito Oliva

Venue: Ex Cantiere Navale, Castello 40 (San Pietro di Castello)

Rather than through the specific images themselves, it is through the labour-intensive process involved in their creation that the conceptual strength of Lucid Dreams is articulated. On viewing these works up close, the large-scale images transform into abstract configurations of red, green and blue, imitating the methods used to translate video images onto a television screen. But while relying on the methodology of the televisual medium, these paintings still manage to provoke a startling realisation of the constructed nature of images.

Pintaldi’s emphasis on the created or ‘composed’ image is conveyed through his laborious process, making one heavily aware of the method by which television transmits media images to the viewer, reducing our visual experience to unintelligible pixels. Furthermore, the discrepancy between the black and white images visible from a distance, and the RGB components visible up-close is particularly illuminating, forcing you to question the images one trusts from afar.

For Pintaldi, these images also reflect the conjunction of individual images – our own perceptions of singular events – and mass images, which we all acknowledge as ‘real’ despite their presentation to us through the edited perspective of the media. By emphasising their painterly structure, these works therefore draw our attention to the formulated media image, arousing our suspicion of these everyday Lucid Dreams.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago 1 note

Title: Nato a Venezia/Born in Venice

Artist: Koen Vanmechelen

Curator: Peter Noever

Venue: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Palazzo Loredan, Campo Santo Stefano 2945

Nato a Venezia (Born in Venice) is the result of a twenty-year project by Koen Vanmechelen, begun on the island of Murano, and focusing, curiously enough, on chickens. In contrast to many of the other collateral events occurring in Venice, this project is highly scientific in conception, with the two-decade study concentrating on the cross-breeding of chickens to create an ideal hybrid type. Related to the multiculturalism of historical Venice, too, this project manages to encompass notions of diversity in both culture and biology. Its only downfall, perhaps, may be that chickens do not often have strong connotations of serious artistic and scientific investigations.

Yet rather than being a ludicrous spectacle, the work is in fact presented rather sedately. A humorous touch is added in the entrance hall with an enlarged marble chicken head infiltrating the sculpture gallery of famous Venetians, but beyond the initial comedy the exhibit proves to be quite intriguing. Over the last twenty years, Vanmechelen has been cross-breeding national and regional breeds of chicken, each with their own distinctive characteristics. While each individual breed may be narrow in its specifications, through the cross-breeding a new diversity has been launched, with each new generation stronger than the last. The Venice Biennale exhibition falls on the occasion of the 15^th generation, which will be born during the Biennale.

Vanmechelen views this project as a metaphor for the evolution of human society, and while you may wish to raise your eyebrows at such pronouncements, as a scientific exploration of the diversification of a species it does provoke some interesting questions. Additional interactive research programs are running in conjunction with the ‘Cosmopolitan Chicken Project’ at the Palazzo Loredan, focusing on more human examples of diversification – therefore ensuring that some of the ideas applied through Vanmechelen’s poultry experiment can be transferred into a realm we all can relate to.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago 2 notes

Title: ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion

Artists: Hew Locke, Christopher Orr, Mike Marshall, Gayle Chong Kwan, Dave Lewis, Sophy Rickett

Venue: Palazzo Zenobio, Dorsoduro 2596 (Fondamenta del Soccorso)

Artsway’s New Forest Pavilion is a mixed exhibition, featuring the work of six artists specifically selected for the Venice Biennale – and unsurprisingly the work varies much in terms of style and subject matter. The surreal beauty of Mike Marshall’s video, A Prism Splits Light is immediately seductive, pressing the viewer to linger in the mystery of the scene. Yet across the hall lies the work of Dave Lewis, whose conceptual backstory – the retracing of steps taken by his ancestors – feeds into the photographs on display.

Elsewhere Gayle Chong-Kwan’s The Obsidian Isle has an altogether more mystical, fantastic atmosphere, as huge-scale digital prints portray panoramas of an imaginary island. The Obsidian Isle is the resting place for the destroyed buildings of Scotland, and indeed these images have an apocalyptic feel, with the gothic colouring and dramatic angles. Sophy Rickett’s video To the River has a related atmosphere; displayed in a darkened setting, figures emerge to discuss the rise of the Severn Bore, transporting one into the spectators’ sphere – yet never revealing the event one is there to see.

Painting also is represented by Christopher Orr, with dark and murky hues recalling the banks of the Venetian canals. Finally, a full-scale installation by Hew Locke, Starchitect, manages to round off the selection of artistic media, albeit in a rather garish and unusual manner. Plywood and cardboard constructions at first appear adorned with precious materials, but on closer inspection appear to be cheap knick-knacks, undermining the viewer’s acceptance of the scene at face-value. While indeed a diverse selection of works, there is in fact something for all tastes at this year’s ArtSway pavilion.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago 11 notes

Title: The Heard and the Unheard - Soundscape Taiwan

Artists: Wang Hong-Kai, Su Yu-Hsien

Curator: Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan

Venue: Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello 4209 (San Marco)

The Heard and the Unheard: Soundscape Taiwan in the Palazzo delle Prigioni offers an intriguing alternative to the visual art-centric exhibits composing much of the Biennale. Instead, what one encounters on entering is a room filled with comfortable seats and headphones. Rather than the visual, auditory stimuli provide the experience here, as the exhibit focuses on both the music and other ‘noises’ that form the soundscape of Taiwan.

Playing through the headphones in the ‘Sound Library/Bar’ are songs, either politically or socially-orientated, which form a historical context for the rest of the exhibition. Recycled furniture is placed invitingly around the space, offering the listener a place to sit and take in the atmosphere. While much of this music will pose a problem to foreign speakers, this language barrier does in some ways allow the music to become an abstract representation of the issues considered by the songwriters.

However the exhibit also features two other major works. Hong-Kai Wang’s Music While We Work is a video similarly exploring the social spheres of Taiwanese society through sound, but via a less direct, lyric-driven approach. For this project, Wang invited retired sugar-factory workers in her home town to re-visit their former workplace, and personally record the sounds of their old environment. In post-production these sounds were then edited, allowing the resulting work to combine both the original soundscape and its artistic interpretation. Sounds of Nothing by Yu-Hsien Su, on the other hand, relates more to the initial Sound Library, with the musical traditions of ordinary people explored through subtitled videos.

As an experience, the relegation of the visual here does make for an interesting experience within the Biennale context. Being primarily focused on sound and music, this exhibition gently reminds the viewer that there is more to life than ‘looking’.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago 1 note

Title: Starie Novosti (Old News)

Artist: Organization: Anastasia Khoroshilova

Curator: Moscow Museum of Modern Art

Venue: Biblioteca del Temanza, Dorsoduro 1602, Collateral Event

Taking as its subject matter the 2004 terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, Starie Novosti is not an easy exhibition to encounter. Despite featuring nine large-scale portraits of mothers taken hostage during the crisis, the exhibition has a definite installation feel, as huge containers are propped open to allow a view of the women inside. Yet opposite these detailed prints, news footage of the conflict plays on small television screens, also contained within the box. These oppressive ‘cabinets’ give a sinister edge to the works, as one has the impression that when the doors closed these mothers – many of whom lost their children during the event – will be forced to stare at this footage forever.

And yet while one can sense immediately that the resonance of that terrorism will last with those women forever, at the same time this exhibition deals with the generally fickle public imagination after such a crisis. For the rest of the population, i.e. those not directly affected by the events, the 2004 deaths are now history, no longer a day-to-day burden. The cargo-like nature of these boxes thus draws attention to this unfortunate (but perhaps inescapable) consequence of time passing, as one again has the sensation that these distressing events have been ‘packed up’ in society’s memory, to be filed away and forgotten along with those involved. Khoroshilova’s installation, then, is like peering into a forgotten collection of past tragedy – but still manages, through the conjunction of video and photograph – to make these events fresh and affecting once more.

Jennifer Owen

1 year ago

Title: Mexico, Cuadrado rojo, rosa imposible (Red Square Impossible Pink)

Artist: Melanie Smith, Rafael Ortega

Curator: José Luis Barrios Lara

Venue: Palazzo Rota-Ivancich, Castello 4421

An ambitiously-worded press release may have greeted you on discovering Red Square Impossible Pink at the Mexican Pavilion. For example, this exhibition declares one of its intentions to tackle ‘the issue of the transformation of utopias as artistic projections into heterotopias as productions of social and political experience in Latin America’. However, this mixed-media exposition in the Palazzo Rota Ivancich does prove rather more accessible than its rather impenetrable description may suggest.

The series of Bulto videos, for example, focus on absurdly large, fuchsia-pink packages transplanted into some commonplace scenarios. And as one watches the figures struggle to move these objects, strapped to vehicles or dragged through post-office queues, one is simultaneously aware both of the juxtaposition of the nonsensical and the quotidian – but also the burdens one places on others, and how they attempt to navigate around these obstacles. As metaphors for the structures of modern interactions, these packages illuminate the everyday procedures of society by displaying the converse – farcical scenarios created within the artistic sphere causing trouble for their participants. In an extension of the project, the ‘Package’ mass was also transported to Venice for five days, extending the scope of this problematic blockade to a city where navigation is already hindered by multiple waterways, here specifically illuminating the complications of modernity in an outdated etting.

Furthermore, Smith’s wholly immersive environment manages to envelop the viewer in a space where art and reality overlap, allowing both the fulfilment of the conceptual framework articulated in the press release, as well as a successful, engaging experience for the viewer. Whether it is the collaborative (but cacophonous) creation of seminal images in the video Estadio Azteca, Proeza Maleable, or the physical paintings merging with the interior decoration of the Palazzo, Smith’s work manages to be artistically and socially relevant – regardless of whether one understands every pronouncement of its accompanying statement or not.

Jennifer Owen

Interview with Melanie Smith

Questions by Denise Kwan and Jennifer Owen

How has your relocation to Mexico influenced your practice, and in what way has it influenced your perception of culture?

My moving to Mexico implied a 180 degree shift in my approach to making and thinking about art. As an art student formalism and minimalism were important influences, whereas in Mexico I was immediately taken with the baroque elaboration of the city itself and structures of power, and the way in which abstraction fitted in in Mexico was very different to my mind. There is a sort of corruption and bending of minimalist forms here that cannot be avoided. It is not a culture of reductionism, totally the opposite, and so these were two counterpositions that I have always worked with : the impossibility of the insertion of the history of art from a European perspective into the living experience in Latin America. Being from England, one of the biggest colonial countries of the world, has also marked my experience in Mexico. I’m interested in the post-colonial debate, but as an idea that fragments culture, and something that can speak of histories in a more complex way than just periphery versus centre.

How does the role of collaboration function in your practice?

Rafael and I collaborate on the the film productions, and I have a separate practice in the studio, but the two are interconnected and most of the images of the paintings come from filmic ideas or sometimes even as precursors to film projects. Rafael comes from film and his framing and timing are some of the most vital elements of the films, without losing the pictorial sense which is where I come from. But Rafa also works with other artistas and I think this sets us aside from a normal pair of artists. I think our independence is important to the input of the projects; the fact that there is always some external input is key. I’m even interested in the idea of collaborating with curators or writers and right now I’m working on a project with a friend who works in restauration. We are interested in that breaking down of barriers which may not necessarily happen as a full-time dual team.

Ideas of anonymity and identification within places appear in your work, could you explain your ideas?

There is always a reference to the body in my work, but as you say in a very anonymous way. This is clear in the video work of Spiral city for example, - the city becomes the anonymous, post human body – the same applies to Tianguis II – there is always an off-frame, almost spectral, quality. Aztec Stadium also clearly brings together the collective ordered body that dissolves into chaos – or the mass as a revolutionary force that has the potential to tear apart the frame. I think the anonymity has more to do with the action happening off the frame or somewhere else – an almost fugitive quality which eludes explanation. But I think it’s something I’m looking for in the work. This fugitiveness leads to the idea of heterotopic place assuming its own quality. Xilitla for example is a very off-the-map place that assumes its own irrationality, and non-functionality. I think this identification of places that you mention is about the impossibility of representation – the places I choose are perhaps part of a larger concern about abstraction.

Some may argue that abstracted art and politics are distinctly separate; how do you view their roles with one another?

For me they can respond to each other, and more importantly agency runs between them. Perhaps it’s easier to see it inversely: I do not see the function of art to be some sort of moral consciousness of politics and neither do I think of abstraction being purely about abstraction. In the best of cases the intersection of the two should open up a third space, but not a space that necesarily gives answers. A common thread in my work for example is the boundary between the physical frame (as in painting) and its extension into the political frame and a re-reading of formal structures or abstraction in social/public space. This is evident in the last scene of the Aztec Stadium where Malevich’s Red Square, already divided in a thousand small rectangles by the students stunt cards, is dispersed all over the football pitch into a sort of irresolute provocation, doubting the purity of the square.

Do you feel the relocation of the ‘Package’ to Venice radically altered or extended the concept beyond its initial staging in Mexico? How, if at all, did you feel this changed the meaning of this project?

Jose Luis and I talked a lot about how this project could insert into the context of Venice. Infact the Bulto (package) was first presented, and shot, in Lima, as a 43 minute film, but this, we decided would have been too long for Venice, particularly as there were already two other film works. So we decided to fracture and edit certain scenes, placed on monitors throughout the palazzo that the spectator would walk through with. Also there was a simultaneous action on the opening days of the Biennale – whereby we took the Bulto through the small streets of Venice, around the Palazzo. It was used as a kind of blockage device amongst all the tourists and locals and day to day movements within the city. People did get angry when they found that they couldn’t pass in certain streets, and in a way it was about that. On certain occasions I went out with the two people who were carrying the Bulto, and I could see people looking and asking themselves what was that thing, and what was inside. I think the Bulto has its own agency and this was one of the points we wanted to explore in Venice. In Lima people automatically associated the Bulto as a bomb, going back to the threat of terrorism. In Venice I think it we used it more as a subliminal signage for the Pavilion and also to make reference to the way in which the Bulto was just going round and round on itself in the laberinths of Venice – a kind of parallel narrative between the Italian and Latin American experience of circulation and chaos.

How important is the context of the Palazzo Rota Ivancich to these works? Were they specifically created for the space or merely situated there after their creation?

I think the Palazzo becomes like a big installation for the exhibition. No, the works weren’t made for the space but – particularly in the case of Xilitla and the paintings there was a fortunate mimesis between the space and the conceptual origins within the work. The paintings looked like they had been made for the space (they are actually part of a series that links to the video projects) as there was a constant dialogue between the wallpaper and the way the paintings sunk in to their backgound. Sound was an important factor. We had to isolate the electric guitar of the Aztec Stadium from the rest of the space, hence the double door entrance and exit to the piece, but this helped the sensation of delirium and isolation from the rest of the installation upstairs which really worked as a mimetic representation within the decadence of Venice. We really worked on the walk-through of the exhibition, together with Rafael – the sensorial experience of the whole space was really important, hence the different colours and temperatures, together with the sound led the viewer into the melancholic space of Xilitla at the end of the show.

Was the curation of the space a collaborative effort for the Biennale?

Jose Luis and I have worked together over the last couple of years on the production of the Aztec Stadium. This was an enormous piece that took over a year to produce and finally make happen. So over that time frame we talked a lot about common threads in my work and concepts that had been interesting him in his work. I had also been working on Xilitla with another curator Paola Santascoy, in a similar way for a long time. So they are projects and ideas that had been brewing for a while, but their insertion in the Palazzo was crucial in taking the projects out of a local condition. Finally I think they way in which they function is all set off by the projects’ juxtaposition with the Palazzo as a decadent European ruin. In a way I think it was a culmination of a series of ideas from both of us that came together at one moment.

Your work at times shares concerns – primarily those related to modernity – with the work of Francis Alÿs; do you feel there is a dialogue between your artistic investigations and Alÿs’ work?

Yes, we have known each other for over twenty years and there is a strong connection of where the works come from and at the same time the critique, not to mention that we both work with Rafael. We have worked in the same city and there are connections I think in the way in which we go about the investigation of a project or subject, and the perhaps our pictorial interest, although my interest in painting stems back to the avant–garde as a trigger more than anything else. Fundamentally I think Francis’ work goes from him, as a subject, to the exterior, and mine goes from the exterior to the subject or interior, and I’m thinking about abstraction in quite a different way. Francis’ work has more concerns with the failure of modernism, whereas, particularly in the Biennale presentation, my work is more concerned with fragmentation as a kind of constellation of modernism; slippage, grey areas and circulation are all important to me. It’s less about periphery and more about alterity.

1 year ago 4 notes

Title: Lithuania, Behind the White Curtain

Artist: Darius Mikšys

Venue: Scuola S. Pasquale, Castello 2786

The concept behind the Lithuanian pavilion is, arguably, more important than the works on display – but therein lies its brilliance. Consisting of works by multiple artists, the concept ensures that (unlike similar, artistically-diverse exhibitions) the presentation remains strikingly lucid and approachable.

Faced with the challenge of representing an entire country, Darius Miksys (responsible for the concept), invited artists who had received an artistic grant from the government to submit a work from the period the endowment covered. Yet rather than display these works simultaneously in Venice, Miksys’ concept – Behind the White Curtain – extends the scope of Lithuania’s presence at the Biennale to question traditional museum presentations by heightening viewer participation and choice.

On entering, one is subjected to a rather sparse, gallery-like environment, with the majority of works stored behind the eponymous curtain. In front of the curtain, a temporary display of works is placed according to the whims of visitors to the space. Catalogues line the edges of the room, and once asked, staff will collect the works for the viewer and place them according to their specific wishes. The spectator then is empowered, resulting in both a very exciting, but also very unusual experience.

Such a level of decision-making usually rests with invisible chief-curators, so naturally this setup does take some getting used to – but in the immediate contemporary context, with museums competing ever-more ferociously for the attention of visitors in a world full of choice, the concept here is right up-to-date. Here, the typical exhibiting processes are reconfigured along the model of a selection-based interface where the visitor has complete control, questioning the relation of the viewer to the collection or institution and giving control to the primary consumer themselves.

1 year ago

Title: Latvia, Artificial Peace (Contemporary Landscape)

Artist: Kristaps Gelzis

Curator: Astrida Rogule

Venue: Palazzo Albrizzi, Cannaregio 4118

If one attempted to describe the characteristics of the Republic of Latvia’s Pavilion at the Biennale, it would be necessary to mention both “neon” and “fluorescent lighting”. Not phrases one might immediately associate with an exhibition entitled Artificial Peace, but all the same, Kristaps Ģelzis’ painted works remain astonishingly serene.

Introduced by a large-scale text work that hints little at the vibrant hues dominating the canvases beyond it, the principal room in the Palazzo Albrizzi is deliberately dark, allowing the lighting to transform the walls into a glowing panorama. The effect as a whole, with radiant vistas suggestive of dawn, midday and dusk, is rather surreal, as the neon does not detract but rather enhances the immediacy of the works. Although the colour scheme could easily have become garish, instead this signals a contemporary atmosphere within these landscapes, fulfilling the title’s promise to be ‘artificial.

While aspiring to little more than this transformation, and the creation of an electric vision of landscape both awakening and calming the viewer, Artificial Peace successfully transports the viewer, however temporarily, into a wholly immersive environment.

Elliott Goat interviews Kristaps Gelzis:

Elliott Goat: In an interview in 1993 you reiterated “the individual handicrafts must not be lost in contemporary expression, since they stay in mind for a long time.” Despite working in new digital media do you still feel the artist craft and hand are still paramount to his/her practice?

Kristaps Ģelzis: Even more. I feel tired of overwhelming amount of works created with methods of borderless brainstorming, to come out with arty “message” projects on A4, adding excel document with production costs. Latter in case of fortunate art promoter, passing it to craftsmen team. Frequently such an execution ruins my expectations. These art facts can be nicely read in seconds, quick access to the point with help of inner imagination, no particular need for real touch. As a professional of longer experience you feel a lack of particular need to see it. You can smartly pass the artwork idea further through “word of mouth” or spend 2 seconds on checking the documentation on the Internet. Yes, it works. I got it! Especially in Big scale. Thick books with annotations help with interpretations. Very contemporary.

This is sad. This is now too simple to me. Well-settled office work. Even in Big scale majority of cases I see only A4. I lose the artist’s personality; I see only calculations and play with impersonal context without the belief of true experience. Artists get anonymous, employees of industry. Also it sounds boring, but extremely contemporary.

Van Gogh was right- there is no need for ears to paint. Pain is needed! That is priceless action, pure individual. The way you buy more time for your art. Maximum personal presence, whatever media.

EG: From your days of Art and Film in the late 1980s what is your relationship to the urban setting? Following on from that, you have stated that the space where the exhibition is held is always most important. How does working in the rarefied atmosphere of the biennale affect the way your work is read?

KG: For me space is an undisputable part of my background. From the first day I have lived surrounded with people who organize air around me. My father was an architect, later also my older brother. Urban issues have always been a main menu in my visual and esthetical education. Despite to my protest against family tradition, choosing artists profession, I cannot escape from automatic habit restructuring the surrounding I have seen. Even if it is a simple painting, I always target the imaginary place or wall first, before creating the idea. That for sure raises some limitations in creative thinking. Later finding escape you expand it to structuring human material.

The same happened with the artwork in Venice. It was supposed to be for a large step, more dramatic. It was my strong feeling at home, but the outcome is infected with Venice city relaxing viruses. Honestly I’m happy that I used this opportunity. That strengthens the reason, why I was there. I could not prolong my political, economical etc. discomfort and emotionally export it. Because I did the whole painting on the exhibition spot. For many reasons there was not second painting shot possible.

I had to do it right, using the available energy of surrounded context. And as you can imagine, I seriously rebuilt the exhibition space, of course. Stage set matters to obtain the wished interpretation and emotional setup.

EG: In specific regards to your exhibition ARTifical Peace, how has your relationship with censorship changed given the varying contexts and changing settings your work has been viewed in over the past years?

KG: I lately have a feeling of serious revision in my creative “parking place”. Reason can be taking care of different auditory one can meet. It remains an important issue to me. In my position social activity, opinion statement is more fertile towards local, well known, targeted surrounding. Participating in the Biennale is professional and an art specific exercise to any present artists. Logically this time I focused on that. I wanted to personally execute - what is contemporary painting and where are its potential white spots in relationship with space, due to fact of absolute lack of experience in tradition of this particular media. I do not see big a difference between the way I previously approached methods of discovering other media or artistic content to myself. It always starts with restructuring the existing. It starts with the simplest elements, but trying to find an unexplored viewpoint on the problem. That has naturally become my characteristic recognition sign. That has helped critics, fortunately for a longer period, to keep confidence of discovery towards my activities as an artist. Hopefully.

EG: How did working in advertising for nearly 10 years affect your work? Do you believe you became more or less critical of consumerisms cultural influence?

KG: Yes I do. Naturally, washing dirty pottery develops thinking- that’s a valuable motto I received in my teenage years and past down to my children, promoting to discover the bright side in every surfaced misery you cannot escape in life. It is good that I had this particular experience. I selectively use it. That gives quite strong theoretical knowledge how marketing art works. Clearly, I am not interested in safe speedway, having now an opportunity to a second breeze as an artist. That sounds logic to an ex-advertisement guy. You get stronger to turn your activity against the mainstream. You do not care about fear for perception as a loser. In practice, discover the beauty of confidence towards a strong base in simple actions. It works for me.

Spin as one wishes, you have to acknowledge that we, East Europeans still always appear as visiting primates to the western cultural establishment. Realizing that never felt better and free. One gets more horizons, an increased importance of local, national background.

EG: It has been said in reference to your work, that “adults are often over-rational, wanting to receive everything readymade.” Can you elaborate on this, specifically in relation to your continued use of Mickey Mouse. Is this more a critique of corporate cultural consumerism or a reference to childhood?

KG: Not mine, but assisting to my children. I still wonder why I have such works? I think it was like a tool to speed up understanding what’s happening around me, in post soviet space. And it is somehow natural that in the last few years I have lost the intension to continue such type of expressions. Space has changed again.

Personal conclusion could be- it is a strange mixture of objective practical poverty, receiving quick, easy delivering symbolic dream messages and a naked sense of reality when you wake up. Perfect elements for borderless interpretations. I know exactly how I created them - cheep & easy for personal use. I do not wonder why readymade art installations establish their importance nowadays again. Same reasons.

EG: Do you ever have nightmares about Mickey Mouse?

Never! It is just my favourite stick to revise my creative garbage. Nothing personal anymore, but I love it!

1 year ago 2 notes

Bruegal Suite

Artist: Lech Majewski

Venue: Church of San Lio

Held in a church within Titian’s old parish, Lech Majewski’s Bruegal Suite is aptly placed for a film placed at an art-historical and religious intersection. Parts of his film The Mill and The Cross, based on Peter Bruegal’s The Way to Calvary, are shown on separate panels around the altar and nave. The film title (The Mill and the Cross) is taken from Michael Francis Gibson’s book of the same title. In Gibson’s book, Christ’s Passion is set in 1564 Flanders. The sections of The Mill and the Cross shown on the panels are a mix of near-twee three-dimensional animation and grotesquely vivid historical realism. The near-twee animation contains vignettes of pastoral Netherlandish life, mostly dynamic and playful but some saccharine, all of which are foregrounded by the painter’s profile, overseeing his creations. This part of Majewski’s installation is least likely to be of interest to the viewer, unless they are quite keen on distracted themselves from the gory cruelty of every other screen’s scenes of death and mourning.

Devoid as it is of in-depth explanatory texts, one draws the conclusion that either, as with most contemporary art, the prerogative of deciding ‘content’ is the viewer’s or, that maybe it’s conceptually a relatively straight-forward piece (which is not to detract from it). Emotionally powerful and historically acute, Majewski’s videos draw one to quite uncomfortable conclusions about how sanitized crucifixion is in religious iconography and how such an atrocious, tragic means of death could ever be justified, let alone placed at the centre of the world’s largest religion. Majewski strips back the metaphysical majesty of crucifixion, undermining it by forcing your eye onto the tragedy of such a senselessly brutal method of murder. Something one suspects is lost on most of Christianity.

João Abbott-Gribben

1 year ago 12 notes

A Virtual Biennale

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