BIENNALE GUIDE 2011 - The Art Newspaper

GIARDINI
● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS
Russia: Collective Actions
Moscow conceptualist in the
Soviet Union in the 1970s,
brings with him Collective
Actions, with whom he has
regularly collaborated over
the past 35 years. The group’s
performances, which they
call Trips to the Countryside,
are usually absurd, like
pulling a seven-kilometre
length of rope through a
forest to no apparent end.
www.ruspavilion.ru
22 Serbia
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Light and
Darkness of the Symbols
Artist: Todosijevic
Dragoljub Rasa
● A tripartite installation
from the Belgrade-based
conceptualist. One part
features his “journal”: objects
produced over a long period
as experiments with ideas or
materials. The second shows
installations he has created
in recent years, including 50
teapots filled with cement,
while the third is a potted
history of his career.
www.pavilionserbia.org
23 Spain
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: The Inadequate
Artist: Dora García
● Uneasy at being the
official Spanish artist, García
presents The Inadequate, a
© THE ARTISTS
biennale-long performance
piece. A “backstage” area
contains vitrines and tables
with props relating to writers
such as James Joyce and
Robert Walser, which García
and various collaborators
will use in performances on
a central stage.
http://theinadequate.net
24 Sweden ★
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Borderless Bastards
Artist: Fia Backström
Exhibition: Windows, Trees
and Inbetween
Artist: Andreas Eriksson
● Two explorations of the
pavilion’s Giardini context.
Backström looks at ideas of
nationhood, working with
other artists appearing for
their countries to create
representative figurative
sculptures. Eriksson reflects
on the parkland setting with
paintings of trees and
sculptures of birds that died
by crashing into the Nordic
pavilion’s glass walls.
25 Switzerland ★
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Crystal of Resistance
Artist: Thomas Hirschhorn
● In a long and eccentric
outpouring describing this
installation, Hirschhorn
writes that he wants it to be
“an indestructible and
earthly dwelling of the gods”
which recalls, among other
things, a B-movie film set, a
crystal meth lab and “a
cheaply decorated provincial
disco”. Love, philosophy,
politics and aesthetics are
the grand themes.
www.crystalofresistance.com
26 Thailand
Paradiso Gallerie, Giardini
della Biennale, Castello 1260
Exhibition: Paradiso di Navin
Artist: Navin Rawanchaikul
● Though not usually a
Giardini pavilion, this year
the café at the Giardini’s
entrance houses the latest in
the Thai artist’s Navinland
productions. With the artist
always at the centre of the
proceedings, Rawanchaikul’s
colourful oeuvre takes a
tongue-in-cheek approach to
his personal history.
27 United Kingdom ★
National pavilion, Giardini
Artist: Mike Nelson
● Nelson was holed
up in the pavilion
for three months in
preparation for his
latest installation. As
he proved in a lauded
2001 work on the Giudecca,
Venice is the perfect location
for his networks of fantastical
rooms, creating atmospheric
labyrinthine narratives from
his quirky historical musings.
http://venicebiennale.
britishcouncil.org
28 United States
of America ★
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Gloria
Artists: Jennifer Allora and
Guillermo Calzadilla
USA: Allora & Calzadilla
6
THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011
All
exhibitions
run 4 Jun -
27 Nov 2011
unless stated
otherwise
© THE ARTISTS
● The Cuban-American duo
reinforce their neo-surrealist
credentials in a wry look at
military, sporting and artistic
glory. Gymnasts and athletes
will perform routines on
wooden versions of the latest
in business-class airline seats,
while an overturned tank
becomes a treadmill outside.
A satirical highlight.
29 Uruguay
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Un Lugar Común/
A Common Ground
Artists: Alejandro Cesarco,
Magela Ferrero
● Two Montevidean artists:
Ferrero has painted
and written over
photographs she
has taken, a process
she likens to writing
a map of what she
sees. Cesarco’s very
different oeuvre leaps
between disparate media
according to each individual
concept, but much of his
work is concerned with
language and translation.
www.labiennaleuruguay. gub.uy
30 Venezuela
National pavilion, Giardini
Exhibition: Spaces
Artists: Francisco Bassim,
Clemencia Labin, Yoshi
● Post-pop art dominates
the Venezuelan pavilion:
Bassim reworks devotional
images and the old masters
in a lurid cartoonish style
and Labina creates soft
sculptures from vividly
coloured and patterned
materials. Yoshi’s origami
experiments offer a subtle
and intricate counterpoint.
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THE ART NEWSPAPER VENICE GUIDE 2011
GIARDINI
● NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS ● COLLATERAL EVENTS ● OTHER EVENTS ● CLASSICS ● FOOD & DRINK ★HIGHLIGHTS
ILLUMInazioni: shedding a little light
A look at Bice Curiger (left) and her central biennale show, ILLUMInazioni/
ILLUMInations, whose bilingual title plays on nationhood, light, and more
ice Curiger was by no
means an obvious choice B as artistic director of the
Venice Biennale: she is a big
player, but hardly the kind of
“supercurator” more often tasked
with the biennale’s central show.
Importantly, this is her first
biennial exhibition anywhere.
● There have been two discrete
strands to her career so far: her
editing of the influential Parkett
magazine, and subsequent role
as editor-in-chief of Tate Etc, the
in-house magazine of the Tate
family of galleries; and her role as
curator at the Kunsthaus Zurich. In
both, she has developed a
reputation for a serious approach
with a dash of quirkiness.
● In many ways, Curiger’s
Kunsthaus Zurich exhibitions
prefigure her Venice show: they
display strong commitment to
central European artists, like
Sigmar Polke, Fischli and Weiss
and Katharina Fritsch (all in
ILLUMInazioni), and over half the
artists she has selected for
Venice are European.
● She has also shown a talent
for original, ambitious themed
exhibitions, like “The Expanded
Eye” (2006), looking at vision
and perception in recent art, and
“Hypermental” (2001), exploring
the legacy of aspects of surrealism.
● Eighty-three artists feature in
the show, and more than threequarters
come from Europe or the
US. Alongside weighty lynchpins
of the European scene such as
Rosemarie Trockel and Franz
West, there is a deliberate
emphasis on relatively young
artists, among them wry British
conceptualist Ryan Gander and
anarchic Swedish multimedia
artist Klara Lidén.
● A catchy and translatable title
is an essential part of any Venice
Biennale, and with ILLUMInazioni,
Curiger provides a bilingual
punning name for her exhibition,
containing its two key themes:
light and national identity.
● Curiger conjures a wealth of
associations and meanings in
explaining her themes. On the
one hand, she sees illumination
as a key role of the Biennale—it
spotlights new developments in
contemporary art. It is also
central to the role of art itself: its
capacity to illuminate thought.
● Then, there are a number of
specific cultural references: the
Age of Enlightenment; the poetic
Illuminations of Rimbaud; the
Profane Illuminations of
surrealism as seen by Walter
Benjamin; medieval illuminated
manuscripts; and illuminationism,
a school of Persian philosophy
● Light is also key to the show’s
most novel idea: the inclusion of
three paintings by Venetian master
Tintoretto, who Curiger admires
for his “febrile, ecstatic lighting
and a near reckless approach to
composition that overturns the
well-defined, classical order of the
Renaissance”. He is thus an
emblem for contemporary artists.
● The nazioni part of the title is
explored through artists’ interest
in identity and heritage. Curiger
sees them as migrants through
culture, who use art to experiment
with new forms of community.
● To emphasise the art world’s
elastic approach to identity, and
subvert the national pavilions,
Curiger has asked Oscar Tuazon,
Franz West, Song Dong and
Monika Sosnowska to create
“parapavilions” which house
work by artists from different
nations. Chinese artist Song’s
parapavilion features Parisian Yto
Barrada, while Austrian West’s
structure houses a slide projection
by Indian Dayanita Singh.
● Ever the art magazine editor,
Curiger has sent five arch and
tricky questions to each artist,
including those in the national
pavilions. These include: “Is the art
community a nation?” and “How
many nations are inside you?” The
answers appear in the catalogue.