The Biennale di Venezia 2017 curated by Christine Macel appears „faceless“ and this is not about quality.
a short visit to Venice, by Joja
Wheater be it the white digitally embodied avartars stuck in Russia's pavilion, the plastic family without faces in the South-Corean one, or Japan where the missing part to finish the installation is the visitors head. In the Arsenale I saw this theme in Chinese Artist Guan Xiao's video installation “David”.
This topic also underlays strongly my favorite work by South African Artist Candice Breitz with “Love Story” for which she took portrait interview shots in front of a green screen.
The spacial realisation of this piece is done very well. You enter through a molleton curtain to be in a room with a big screen showing Hollywood Stars (Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin) talking about war, about being a refugee – it becomes clear quickly that this is staged. But there is a bench in the room and a carpet and people sit down to watch. Then you move on through another molleton, it is hung in a circle, so that one has to pass the curtain twice. You arrive in a room with multiple flatscreens, benches to sit down in front with headphones. There is different people telling their stories, this time it is not staged. This room is not as crowded as the one before. The work is about how empathy is created, and who we are willing to feel it for / to listen to .. “At the same time, it reflects on the callousness of a media-saturated culture in which strong identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures runs parallel to a widespread lack of interest in people facing real world adversity.”
Also right before you enter “Love Story” there is another beautiful video installation by Mohau Modisakeng called “Passage”, it shows three projections of a small boat each with one person inside, slowly the water enters and makes it sink. It is about “transient bodies belonging to no particular state”, about slavery and the Cape Colony from 1652. I also could not help but have formation come to mind.
It goes perfectly well for the second main topic of the show that I experienced: WATER.
The Italian pavilion is outstanding for the experience. As one will enter a huge dark space nerved by scaffolding, eyes slowly readjusting after the bright daylight from the outside before.
Then you have to wait in line (no surprise – waiting lines everywhere ….) and can see full width-stairs at the end of the room, you see people who are already up there looking back into the space, above your heads. Once you come to see it is a huge “Mirror” (very likely a couple of centimetres of water) doubling the roof framework. It's beautiful and there were no pictures allowed, but it is the effect that Adia Trischler and Andreas Waldschütz created for BREATHE in 2014 - with a different very well staged approach though. Another connection to BREATHE was the fact that Mickey Mahar performs in the German Pavilion.
V ARE BREATHE . A multimedia project by Adia Trischler & Andreas Waldschütz. Vienna 2014. Photo by Faruk Pinjo
The water comes through the roof in Georgian Vajiko Chachkhiani's house, and drops down eroding a heap of instagram photos with “Aqua Alta” by Michel Bazy.
Aqua Alta was also real to happen in Venice when the water is so high that it will flood parts of the city, it is a normal thing to happen in Venice linked to the phases of the moon, but this time of the year it is not so likely .. it made me question the flood of tourists and to Venicians it does not make any difference if we are flushed into their city by a huge cruise liner or the Biennale.
The best show is definitely done by Anne Imhof for the German Pavilion.
The Biennale itself is somewhat a big theater, part of being there is all the people from many different places huddling around to see art. Expectations are high. The German pavilion with its big fences on the outside, dogs behind them, barking. It is the raised floor, glas, that gives you a weird feeling the moment you enter the German pavilion, then everyone is looking around trying to figure out what is going on, it is confusing, a big space, sparsly things to look at and imagine what possibly could be happening. Then there are the performers, slowly around, being watched, watched from above, we are walking over them, trying to capture the best images, circles around the different spots where something is happening. It is a great installation i am happy to have been in.
On a big show like the Biennale or any art fair, to me, it is always about those works that make you feel something immediately, since there is so many art works it is crucial that they work quickly in a way. The Brasilian Pavilion with the Stones in the floor does that very well i.e..
