50th Venice Biennale

Su-Mei Tse's "Echo" was awarded the prestigious 'Golden Lion’ award. Courtesy photo, Venice Biennale

Art dances with politics at the Venice Biennale

By Catherine Szacka

(Venice) It was parching heat and an almost unbearable humidity that invaded Venice this summer: but nothing could hold back the crème de la crème of the world’s artistic community at their bi-annual gathering in the enchanting and serene city of canals and gondolas. More than a simple artistic gathering, every two years the Venice Biennale literally brings together artists from over 60 countries in what has become the most important event for the contemporary arts.

It is a social, and even almost political pulpit for contemporary cultural dialogue. This year, with the Biennale celebrating its 50th year, organizers optimistically touted the event as the ‘Mecca of all exhibitions.’ However, notwithstanding the glitzy opening in June, this year critics remained reserved, and the feeling in Venice was that even with all the hype, they had been over-sold.

The Venice Biennale, the largest contemporary art exhibition in the world, officially opened its doors June 12, under the theme ‘Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer.’ The current director of the biennale, Francesco Bonami, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, looked to creativity to illustrate the absurdity of war, violence and discrimination. In a nutshell, it was a question of using creative forces to counter the folly of world conflicts, and using the Biennale as a symbol and potential catalyst for solutions.

All this, while maintaining a space for diversity, contradiction and a multiplicity of viewpoints. This lofty adventure turned out to have perils of its own. Many pseudo-diplomatic incidents and protests were the talk of the town, and there was even dissatisfaction on the part of their much touted ‘viewer’.

An important aspect of the exhibition is the garden of various national pavilions, a privileged space for those looking to get their messages across. With national pavilions, each state sought to make itself noticed, to be one up in the crowd, and perhaps even win the prestigious ‘Golden Lion’ award.

In total, some 60 countries were represented, some in the permanent garden area, with other ‘squatters’ in and around the most notable Venetian palaces.

This year, the most popular pavilions were: Great Britain with its gigantic paintings in the colors of the pan-African flag, by Chris Ofili; the United States with small stories of the struggles of black people in Venice, by Fred Wilson; Denmark with its impressive giant kaleidoscopes by Olafur Eliason; Canada with the canine film by Jana Sterbak, who made good use of the long lines to get in, to increase the popularity of the venue; and Luxembourg, which took the Golden Lion prize for the highly-colored films by Su-Mei Tse. These were only some of the pavilions, which in their own fashion, became the talk of the town.

The Hungarian pavilion, with the work of the Little Warsaw group, ended up causing a stir this year. In creating their piece, the artists ‘borrowed,’ while shooting a short film, the bust of Queen Nefertiti, sculpted some 3,300 years ago. Since the beginning of the century, the bust has been housed in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The bust was placed on a bronze body. The resulting artwork consisted of the official Hungarian presentation at Biennale.

This is where art became a question of national pride and controversy. The director of the museum in Berlin claimed that the resulting work of art was a contemporary homage to Queen Nefertiti, while officials in Cairo claimed that the whole affair seemed more like a calculated insult directed at Egyptian heritage and Islamic morals. Egyptian Minister of Culture Faruq Hosni went so far as to condemn the Hungarian artists, qualifying their antics as unethical, and called for action by the foreign affairs minister. This was where art and politics met, where a complex diplomatic row quickly became a grand publicity coup.

The artists of the Spanish pavilion opted for another tactic, that of selective viewer-ship. Artist Santiago Sierra undertook what some considered more of a statement than artistic representation. Sierra erected a brick wall at the entrance of the Spanish pavilion, and as a result, unless you had a Spanish passport in hand, it was impossible to visit this pavilion. As an overt position on the immigration policies of the government of Jose Marie Aznar and his good friend George W. Bush, Sierra’s installation and its statement did not go unnoticed.

While it didn’t take the coveted Golden Lion, the Israeli pavilion would likely have deserved a public appreciation prize, or even better, a prize for sportsman-like gestures. Artist Michal Rovner was apparently uncomfortable about representing her troubled country on her own at the Biennale. It was with modesty and openness that Rovner proposed to share the pavilion with a Palestinian artist. However, her attempts were aborted at the refusal of Palestinian authorities. Working alone, Rovner went on to create a video installation on issues surrounding mass culture, individuality, science and morality. The work ended up revealing tensions comprised by fundamental values, and conditions necessary to basic survival.

The Venice Biennale has, at times, also been known for even more radical protests, and even sometimes troubling or painful sacrifices in the name of art or statement. This year, Venezuelan artist Pedro Moral, who was officially designated to represent his nation, chose a silent protest in the face of the difficult political situation in his country. He chose not to participate at all. Ergo, the Venezuelan pavilion will remain closed until the end of the Biennale.

In the end, as with contemporary art in general, even if the message is communicated, it can very well remain misunderstood, lost in the mix of crowds and spectators. The 50th edition of the Venice Biennale presented over 300 works of art dispersed over a dozen venues throughout the city.

As per tradition at the Arsenale, an old Venetian factory converted into a giant gallery, an international exhibition was put up under the auspices of the director and the chief curator. This year, tradition was put aside, with Francesco Bonami opting for a slightly different choreography. Bonami chose a more democratic route, separating the exhibition into eight sections, appointing young, dynamic and avant-garde curators for each section.

A total 12 conservators were asked to present works dealing with issues of urgent concern to humanity. They included the clandestine, individual systems, urgent zones, structural crisis, contemporary Arab representation, altered daily existence and utopia. While the results of this experiment did show some interesting results, there seemed to be too many essential themes, too many individuals fighting in what seemed like total chaos. What was supposed to be the dictatorship of the spectator, ended up being, according to some, the tyranny of curators.

The Venice Biennale is, therefore, more than just artistic forays. It is also highly political. During these days of openings and speeches, the Biennale an immense social event with cocktails, rumors and invitations left and right. It is the place to be, with internationally renowned artists, journalists and stars from different walks of life. From Yoko Ono to David Rockefeller Jr., for those few glitzy days, the ‘in’ are called to Venice.

The normally calm and quiet city becomes an overpopulated river of an elegant, well-to-do, snazzy crowd that seems to wear a sign that says: ‘Have you seen me here?’ This begs the question as to whether it is for art or for glamour that this event has become over a half century, a magnet for the cultured masses.

After 50 years, the Venice Biennale is perhaps now at an important milestone to take stock. As Fiachra Gibbons of The Guardian wrote, this event is to art, what the Olympics are to sport. As the glorious epitome of competition in sport, the Biennale has also become associated with big money, media, national pride, and even questions of how this money is spent. This brings us back to the eternal, and perhaps effective question: What is the role of art in society? If in its early days the Biennale was to be a laboratory of artistic experimentation and a glimpse into the art of tomorrow, was Francesco Bonami perhaps over-enthusiastic in hoping that, this year, he could take art as a starting point and arrive at an interpretation of reality, the world, society and politics?