The picturesque island city of Venice was all I expected it would be and much more. This famous European gateway to the Orient has thrived on trade, wealth and power since the 13th century, and of course it is the birthplace of the famous explorer Marco Polo. The immense wealth of this city has been celebrated in art and architecture since Medieval times. A tour along the Grand Canal takes you past buildings and artworks commissioned in an era of wealth and grandeur as diverse as Islamic, Romanesque and Baroque.
Visiting Venice and experiencing a Biennale has been a dream of mine for many years. One, I must confess, that I doubted I would ever fulfill. Arriving by water bus on a beautiful September day I was charged with anticipation and excitement. I expected diversity in the artworks from countries which were as demographically removed from each other as Spain, Iceland, Venezuela and Japan. I expected innovation and experimentation but how would such a huge exhibition coming from a diverse range of artists actually present to such a wide audience.
The 51st Exhibition of the Venice Biennale was opened on June 12, 2005. The main exhibits are on two main sites with many other smaller exhibitions held at various locations scattered around the city. I Giardini Della Biennale is the garden and park setting where many of the 70 participating countries have pavilions exhibiting selected artists works. The Giardini (garden) as a whole felt like a huge indoor-outdoor gallery where you could wander and view exhibits at your own pace resting and reflecting at the many strategically placed coffee spots. The second site was a converted wharf area called the Arsenale. The atmosphere at this site was a lot more dramatic than the Giardini as it was set in an industrial wharf area using abandoned warehouses, store rooms and appropriately for Venice, canal and harbour frontage as exhibition spaces.
I am only able to comment on a small number of the huge variety of artworks exhibited so I have chosen a few of my personal favourites encompassing both sites. The Uruguay Pavilion at the Giardini site was represented by the work of Lucy Duarte. To enter the pavilion you had to walk up a set of 4 steps but to do this you had to walk across a hand made quilt placed across them. I, like most people, stood for a moment and contemplated my options. The dilemma went something like this: this is an artwork in an exhibition therefore not touchable, but I can't get inside without walking on this quilt! The artist challenged us to enter her space and become intimately connected with her work, and that is exactly what did happen. Immediately you walked across the quilt you changed from merely viewing, to experiencing the work on a much closer level. This is actually quite difficult to explain as it is about a part of us that is removed from reasoning a nd much more closely aligned to feeling and experiencing. Duarte explored memories of her childhood in a small rural community in Uruguay through dolls, toys, quilts and other objects relating to that time and place.
Ricky Swallow represented Australia with an installation of wooden sculptural pieces that recall the 17th century Still Life tradition. His work was intriguing and skillfully executed .... in short, it was quality and made me proud to be Australian! The use of natural colour enabled closer interaction with the work and encouraged enjoyment of its tonal nuances and surface quality. Killing Time, 2003-2004 is constructed using laminated jeluton, and maple. I don’t pretend to understand the process he has used but the result is a series of sculptural pieces which from a distance impress with their realistic interpretation, with closer scrutiny they intrigue both with detail and delicacy of definition.
Rebecca Blemore, Canada, exhibited a wall sized projected image of land, air, water and fire, behind a very impressive wall of water cascading between the viewer and the images. In the Russian Pavilion a group of artists had created a wind tunnel with sound effects reminiscent of sitting inside a plane engine about to take off. The viewer was required to walk through this tunnel – if they were game! Being forced into a screeching storm was not a pleasant experience but one I remember! Wandering into the pavilion the empty untouched Romanian pavilion titled “European Influenza” left viewers skeptical and annoyed. It had been painted black, perhaps at last years Biennale, but was now empty except for walls of peeling paint and holes where previous artworks had been exhibited. It was a cavernous, depressingly empty area!
A short walk from the Giardini takes visitors to the Arsenale exhibition site. The exhibits at this site were curated by Rosa Martinez under the title “Always a little further”. The site was a disused wharf containing various warehouses. The largest warehouse held the work of around 50 various artists, with further exhibits outdoors around the harbourside and canal areas. These artists were chosen by the curator rather than by their country. Visitors are invited by Martinez to accomplish a journey from the belief that art still holds a promise of transformation.
The artworks exhibited were varied and often challenging or at least intriguing. The Guerilla Girls wall sized banners with titles such as, “Where are the women artists of Venice? Underneath the men”, 2005, berated the unequal representation by woman artists compared to male artists at the Biennale. This made a challenging entrance to the main exhibition area further enhanced with the backdrop of a gigantic ceiling to floor chandelier, tied and knotted completely using tampons, also created by The Guerilla Girls.
One of my strongest impressions was the huge number of video installations over a wide range of countries revealing a huge amount of accumulated angst! When faced with a smorgasbord of artistic experiences I found I had minimal patience to sit in darkened rooms for protracted periods of time (one was 40 minutes long) to try and work out what the artist was trying to communicate. At times I wondered if that was even clear to the artist. Many installations were constructed to incorporate the viewer at an early stage. The best managed to do that before you realized what was happening. One I particularly liked was a tunnel of teabags made to be walked through stimulated by the gentle reassuring smell of tea. As you strolled through this light, airy teabag tunnel you had to stoop and stretch to enjoy the images on miniature screens discreetly placed between the teabags at strategic points.
The sight of a life size hippo mud sculpture by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Porto Rico as you turned a corner inside the vast expanse of the largest pavilion was intriguing and contrasted to so many screens and moving images. It was so personable and so amazingly endearing. A series of large cardboard packing boxes arranged in semi circles and meandering lines enticed us to rise up on tiptoes and peer inside…not sure what to expect. The reward was a series of screens showing various groups of people talking – dramatised, colourful, interesting, but with limited appeal.
The installation in an abandoned dock area by Laura Belem, Brazil, of two row boats tied bow to bow with timed spotlights reflecting the strangely quiet and tranquil surroundings, was a refreshing experience after such a visual overload. The Chinese exhibit in a messy, smelly, abandoned oil storage warehouse consisted of two monitors showing a crowded platform in a train station with people talking loudly. Suddenly an unseen group of people simultaneously yelled at the top of their voices, the commuters stopped and looked at them nervously and expectantly……….the yellers did nothing else so gradually the talking began again, then when you thought it was over ……. the whole cycle began again. A hugely irritating experience and one I couldn’t wait to get away from.
As I wandered away at the end of the day I was impressed with the variety of ideas and exhibits, the adventurousness of some and the honestly and integrity of most artists. While there was cultural diversity I was not surprised to find that the universal issues of the human condition remain the same despite the variety of locations and influences. The whole experience was worth the effort and expense and one I hope to repeat again in the future.