BIENNALE GUIDE 2011 - The Art Newspaper

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GIARDINI ● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS Giardini: nature and nationalism The original seat of the biennale, the Giardini are still at its core; the question of whether national pavilions are appropriate in a globalised world is often a source of inspiration for the artists within Giardini: Palazzo delle Esposizioni Venue information Giardini & Arsenale Previews: 1-3 Jun 2011 Open to public: 4 Jun-27 Nov 2011 Opening times: 10.00-18.00 Closures: Both venues closed Mondays (except 6 Jun and 21 Nov) Tickets: Available at all entrances to Giardini and Arsenale plus Ca’Giustinian (San Marco 1364/A) Price: Adult €20, valid for one entry to Giardini and Arsenale (concessions available); pass €70 Facilities: Bar, restaurant, toilets and bookshop Website: www.labiennale.org Other venues Check listings and individual venues for details Viale Giuseppe Garibaldi Arsenale Riva dei Sette Martiri ROB BOYNES Entrance The Giardini’s pavilions are the unique and most controversial element of the Venice Biennale: to many, dividing artists by nationality is an anachronism, a lingering vestige of proud, colonial nations. But equally, the 30 national pavilions play into contemporary artists’ hands: they are architect-designed and explore nationhood, echoing two of the most prevalent themes in recent art, namely architecture and identity. Artists love awkward contradictions and historical complexity, and the pavilions provide those in spades. Much of the resulting work, then, directly challenges the buildings and the past and present of the countries they supposedly evoke. At the centre of it all, meanwhile, is the imposing Palazzo delle Esposizioni (previously the Italian Pavilion, which in 2009 was rehoused in the Arsenale) containing one half of Bice Curiger’s signature ILLUMInazioni exhibition. WC 18 WC 4 23 Giardini ACTV stop 2 THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011 1 25 14 WC 22 9 5 19 20 10 15 28 8 27 30 21 Austria 17 12 26 Serbia ILLUMInazione Egypt Netherlands Cafe / bar Brazil Belgium Finland Hungary Spain Israel Poland USA Romania Uruguay Denmark Australia Sweden Thailand Switzerland Czech & Slovak Venezuala Republics France Russia Japan Korea UK Germany Canada Books 3 Snacks 24 16 Viale dei Giardini Pubblici Viale 4 Novembre 29 Greece 13 2 7 11 6 VICI MACDONALD 1 54th International Art Exhibition: ILLUMInazioni —ILLUMInations ★ Palazzo delle Esposizioni (also at Arsenale, p9) Artists: Group show of over 80 artists across two sites ● Bice Curiger sets the bar high for contemporary artists by opening this part of her 82-artist show with three late works by Renaissance master Tintoretto (see panel, p17), chosen for their ecstatic light. Where the Arsenale offers the industrial context appropriate for certain artists’ work, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni provides more conventional, “white cube” gallery spaces. Among the works is Chinese artist Song Dong’s “parapavilion”, one of four artist-curated spaces commissioned by Curiger to break up the flow of the main exhibition. 2 Australia National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Golden Thread Artist: Hany Armanious ● Armanious casts all manner of found objects in resin and places them in enigmatic tableaux which often include references to other art, from Picasso to ancient totems. Here, he shows 11 works, most created especially for the pavilion. http://venicebiennale. australiacouncil.gov.au 3 Austria ★ National pavilion, Giardini Artist: Markus Schinwald ● An installation that promises to turn the viewer into a performer. Schinwald splits the pavilion space along vertical axes, and has spoken of the division of the space in psychoanalytic terms, musing that he places “the mind in neurosis, the crotch in psychosis”. www.labiennale.at/2011 4 Belgium ★ National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Feuilleton Artist: Angel Vergara ● Vergara’s work sits between painting and performance. Most recently, he has begun painting over video images, responding quickly to the movement within the film sequences. This show, with the august Luc Tuymans as curator, focuses on the seven cardinal sins. 5 Brazil National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Registros + (Ex) Tensões y Pontos Artist: Artur Barrio ● Barrio’s selection is an attempt to present a broader picture than that offered by the dominant Brazilian academies of neoconcretism and modernist architecture. The veteran maverick presents a “dirtier” alternative, curators say: his performances feature blood, meat and other foodstuffs. 6 Canada National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Exhume to Consume Artist: Steven Shearer ● One of the Giardini’s most dramatic moments, a giant mural, inspired by the language of death metal music, sits in front of the pavilion. Shearer’s work varies but he is best known for channelling popular imagery from fanzines and online communities via the fauves and the symbolists. 7 Czech Republic and Slovak Republic National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: The Sleeping City Artist: Dominik Lang ● The source of much controversy in the Czech art world, Dominik Lang’s Sleeping City project draws on personal and cultural memory. He takes sculptures made by his father in the 1950s and 60s, ignored during his father’s lifetime due to strict communist-era aesthetic policies, and creates contemporary environments for them. www.54venicebiennial.cz 8 Denmark ★ National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Speech Matters Artists: Agency, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Robert Crumb, Zhang Dali, Stelios Faitakis, FOS, Sharon Hayes, Han Hoogerbrugge, Mikhail Karikis, Thomas Kilpper, Runo Lagomarsino, Tala Madani, Wendelien van 3 THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011 GIARDINI ● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS Austria: Markus Schinwald © THE ARTIST All exhibitions run 4 Jun - 27 Nov 2011 unless stated otherwise Oldenborgh, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Taryn Simon, Jan Svankmajer, Johannes af Tavasheden, Tilman Wendland ● A group show about freedom of speech, notable for featuring only two Danish artists: architecturally- minded FOS and video and performance artist Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen. The honorary Danes veer from surreal Czech animator Jan Svankmeyer to satirical Iranian painter Tala Madani. www.danish-pavilion.org 9 Egypt ★ National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: 30 Days of Running in the Space Artist: Ahmed Basiony ● Ahmed Basiony was shot dead in January amid the protests against the Egyptian government. This tribute includes footage of a 2010 performance where he jogged for an hour each day for 30 days in a suit measuring sweat levels and distance travelled, and converted them into a digital display. It is shown alongside footage he shot amid the revolution, just before his death. www.ahmedbasiony.com Egypt: Ahmed Basiony © THE ARTIST
GIARDINI ● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS 10 Finland National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: And All Structures Are Unstable 2011 Artist: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko ● Taking as a starting point the tiny wooden Finnish pavilion, designed by Alvar Aalto and intended to be temporary, Rannikko creates an “imaginary exhibition” including paintings, sculpture and architectonic elements that explore Aalto’s structure and question the notion of a national presentation of Finnishness. www.frame-fund.fi 11 France ★ National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Chance Artist: Christian Boltanski ● A sombre amusement arcade, with many interactive elements. A journey through Boltanski’s familiar territory of memory, history and fate includes gliding on moving sidewalks past portraits of children; a chaotic blur of images which can be paused to form a composite portrait; and relentless electronic All exhibitions run 4 Jun - 27 Nov 2011 unless stated otherwise counters computing births and deaths across the world. www.boltanski-chance.com 12 Germany National pavilion, Giardini Artist: Christoph Schlingensief ● A posthumous survey of the work of the film-maker and director of opera and theatre. Schlingensief had made plans for the pavilion before his death from lung cancer in 2010, but they are not carried out here; rather, a selection of works gives an overview of the career of this polemical polymath. www.deutscher-pavillon.org 13 Greece National pavilion, Giardini Artist: Diohandi ● A total revision of the pavilion’s exterior and interior: a new outer shell gives glimpses of the faux- Byzantine building, while the interior is remodelled with water and sound elements. Diohandi actively addresses the ILLUMInations theme: a walkway transports viewers from darkness to light. ESSENTIAL VENICE Christian Boltanski Artist, French Pavilion ● A Bellini at Harry’s Bar (p41). ● The Locanda Montin (p29). ● The Lido beach (p35). ● Il Nuovo Galeon, in via Garibaldi (p23). ● Baccalà mantecato, the Venetian salt cod recipe. Hungary: Hajnal Németh 14 Hungary National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Crash—Passive Interview Artist: Hajnal Németh ● An installation focusing on car crashes: a video of an experimental opera based on car crash testimonies; the opera’s libretto, recounting the stories of those involved in the crashes; and the mangled car that resulted from one of the incidents. www.velenceibiennale.com www.crash-passive interview.c3.hu 15 Israel National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: One Man’s Floor Is Another Man’s Feelings Artist: Sigalit Landau ● After years of research into the Dead Sea, Landau creates a meditation on this natural phenomenon and deep divisions within the region. In a redesign of the pavilion, the once-hidden courtyard becomes the entrance into an installation whose constituents are water, soil and salt. 16 Japan National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Teleco-soup Artist: Tabaimo A return to Venice for this artist, whose installations of 4 THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011 © THE ARTIST video animations, evocative of traditional Japanese ukiyoe wood block prints, featured in the 2007 international exhibition. This time around her characteristic mix of the everyday and the surreal are based on a theme she terms “Trans-Galapagos Syndrome”. www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale 17 Korea, Republic of National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: The Love Is Gone But the Scar Will Heal Artist: Lee Yong-baek ● Lee promises to grapple with the glass-walled Korean pavilion—no easy task when you are a video artist. New works are shown alongside revisions of two previous videos, including Angel Soldier, in which soldiers in flower-patterned fatigues march in slow motion. 18 Netherlands National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Opera Aperta / Loose Work Artists: EventArchitectuur (Herman Verkerk and Paul Kuipers), Yannis Kyriakides, Maureen Mooren, Joke Robaard, Johannes Schwartz, Barbara Visser, Sanneke van Hassel ● A dense piece using “the methodology of the opera”, in which the Netherlands’ infrastructure for visual art is the blueprint for a work by photographers Robaard and Schwartz, conceptualist Visser, author Van Hassel, graphic designer Mooren, composer Kyriakides and exhibition designers EventArchitectuur. www.venicebiennale.nl ● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS 19 Poland ★ National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: …And Europe Will Be Stunned Artist: Yael Bartana ● Israeli-born Bartana shows three films based on her invented group, the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, which calls for the return of millions of Jews to their Polish homeland. The latest in her weighty trilogy, imagining the assassination of the movement’s leader, is premiered here. 20 Romania National pavilion, Giardini (also at Istituto Romeno di Cultura e Ricerca Umanistica, Cannaregio 2214, p15) Exhibition: Performing History Artists: Ion Grigorescu, Anetta Mona Chisa, Lucia Tkacova ● Ambitious project aiming to redefine western views about the art of the former communist bloc, through a “dynamic visual assemblage” created by Grigorescu, who pioneered conceptual and performance art even during the austere communist years, and younger Prague-based duo Chisa and Tkacova, collaborators since 2000. 21 Russia National pavilion, Giardini Exhibition: Empty Zones Artists: Andrei Monastyrski and the ‘Collective Actions’ Group (Nikita Alexeev, Elena Elagina, Georgy Kizevalter, Igor Makarevich, Andrei Monastyrski, Nikolai Panitkov, Sergei Romashko, Sabine Hänsgen) ● Monastyrski, a leading ● If you arrive into Piazzale Roma or the train station, vaporetto stop Ferrovia, it is often quicker to get to San Marco by taking vaporetti numbers 41, 51 or 2 travelling to the right, along the Giudecca Canal, than it is to go down the Grand Canal. Save that for the evening, without your bags or the massive crowds. ● Vaporetto stops are mostly in pairs. To work out the correct one: face the water, put out your hands to point to the stops, then cross your arms for the direction of travel. ● Make sure you pack the following: a detailed, plastic-coated, folding map; a fold-up umbrella; antimosquito pills and repellent (if you are very allergic to bites, see your doctor before you travel); trainers; a sunhat and suncream. If you are travelling in late October / November, which is a great time to see the biennale, bring wellies if flooding is predicted. There can be sudden heavy downpours even in the summer. ● Venice is tiny but it takes a long time to get around, and it is incredibly easy to get lost (hence the map. You will be counting off the sidestreets and turnings). Good planning will mean you get much more out of your trip, however unromantic this sounds. ● A compass is surprisingly useful for orientation in confusing corners. ● Use this guide to work out what to see area by area; visit media sites 5 THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011 GIARDINI Biennale for beginners Practical tips for first-time Venice visitors from old hand Jane Morris (left), editor of The Art Newspaper such as www.theartnewspaper.com, www.artforum.com, African / Asian / Latin American art specialists www.universes-in-universe.org or try the new Christie’s Biennale App for iPhones (www.christies.com) to work out what everyone’s talking about. ● Allow three full days if you want to cover most of the Biennale. Allow a week if you want to fit in the main historic cultural sites. ● However much you like recent art, try not to neglect the historic version. The list of “must-sees” is long, but try at least to visit the Accademia gallery and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. ● There are many wonderful churches, some in the Chorus Pass scheme (available in churches, €10 for 16 venues, www.chorusvenezia.org). My current favourites include San Giacomo dell’Orio, San Giovanni Elemosinario and Sa n Stae. ● If the crowds, narrow streets and tall buildings are getting to you, go to the cemetery island, San Michele; or the Lido (for a proper Death in Venice experience, visit the Hotel des Bains); or make the trip to Sant’ Erasmo, where Venetian fruit and veg are still grown. ● Consider renting a flat for a week, especially if you like cooking. Even the more expensive ones (such as at www.venice-rentals.com) compare well with hotels once you avoid the cost of eating out, which is often overpriced and underwhelming.
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