tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/venice-biennale-16858/articles
Venice Biennale – The Conversation
2019-08-30T09:09:37Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122654
2019-08-30T09:09:37Z
2019-08-30T09:09:37Z
Venice International Film Festival is paying lip service to its pledge on gender transparency
<p>Things are really bad for women filmmakers at the 76th Venice International Film Festival with its poor record on female representation. Of the 21 films in competition, only two are directed by women. The appointment of the female Argentinian director, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/lucrecia-martel-venice-film-festival-jury-president-argentina-director-1203251250/">Lucrecia Martel</a>, as jury president is a step in the right direction but she cannot solve the issue alone – especially when some of her views on female-only quotas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/28/jury-members-clash-over-roman-polanski-as-venice-film-festival-opens">appear to be ignored by the men in charge</a>.</p>
<p>In part, the entertainment media are to blame. It was widely reported that Venice had <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/spotlight/venice-film-festival-signs-gender-parity-pledge-1202922995/">signed up to the gender parity pledge</a>, known as <a href="https://site.5050by2020.com/">5050 by 2020</a> – but only a few reported that this was a modified version, and no report so far has scrutinised how and if the pledges are being met.</p>
<p>Also, there has been a huge outcry about the under-representation of women directors. But then it stops and things move on to the usual reporting on the great films in competition – by men. </p>
<h2>A modified pledge</h2>
<p>Overall, Venice’s record on women is dismal. The Golden Lion award has been given <a href="https://www.imdb.com/list/ls020806626/">70 times so far</a> – but while 62 male directors have won it (some twice), only four women have. Among the 11 Italians who have won the Golden Lion, not one was female.</p>
<p>Last year, the festival only included <a href="https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/one-female-director-in-competition-at-venice-film-festival-37154478.html">one female-made film in competition</a> (Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale). Controversy ensued, so the festival reluctantly followed in the footsteps of Cannes and signed up to the gender parity pledge – but not before amending it. </p>
<p>The original pledge called for full <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/news/venice-film-festival-sign-gender-parity-protocol-pledge-1202921620/">statistics-based transparency</a> on the submissions, for dissection of the gender bias in programming, and for instituting strategies that would lead to the dismantling of male-dominated power structures. But Venice <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/venice-film-festival-chiefs-signs-gender-parity-pledge-call-it-a-step-forward/5132174.article?referrer=RSS">amended all three pledges</a> and only committed to general talk of “transparency” related to film selection, programmers and management.</p>
<p>Speaking at the time, <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/news/venice-film-festival-chiefs-signs-gender-parity-pledge-call-it-a-step-forward/5132174.article?referrer=RSS">festival president Paolo Baratta</a> said there were “fundamental differences to be taken into account” and as such the Venice version of the pledge uses wording that suggests the festival needs to continue its practices, implying that it is already making efforts to reach gender parity and that fundamentally the problem is not with the event itself. “We are ahead, what we have been doing up to now is a starting point,” he commented.</p>
<p>Looking at the state of things a year later, it does not appear that even the amended pledges have really been kept. Unchanged from last year, the festival is still governed exclusively by men. Assisted by three male board members, the president and general director have been in position since 2008 and the <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/features/alberto-barbera-talks-venice-logistics-vr-and-his-future-as-artistic-director/5142321.article">artistic director, Alberto Barbera,</a> since 2012.</p>
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<p>According to Barbera, this is not a problem as <a href="https://variety.com/2018/film/spotlight/venice-film-festival-signs-gender-parity-pledge-1202922995/">75% of its employees are women</a>. The festival seems to believe it has done a lot to improve gender balance. </p>
<p>As to the pledge for transparency on selection committees, nothing is available on the festival website on this matter. Unlike other festivals that regularly publish information on their selectors or have profiles available online (Rotterdam, Berlinale, Locarno), Venice only lists regulations and gives generic email contacts. No names. All it says <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019/regulations">regarding selection</a> of the films submitted is that the festival director will be “assisted by his staff of experts, as well as by a group of correspondents and international consultants”.</p>
<p>The festival also pledged to hold a “gender seminar”. After an extensive search, one finds an event on “<a href="http://veniceproductionbridge.org/programme/seminar-gender-equality-and-inclusivity-and-film-industry">gender equality and inclusivity</a>” scheduled in September. But there is no information on who is on it – just sponsors. If the festival is serious about the seminar, it could have commissioned participants and reports in advance and publicised accordingly. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cannes-is-not-a-film-festival-its-a-club-for-insiders-96651">Cannes is not a film festival – it's a club for insiders</a>
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<p>The worst is, of course, the absence of female-made films. Two out of 21 titles in competition are by women. Compare that to seven out of 16 films in competition at <a href="https://www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival/festivalprofil/dates/index.html">Berlinale in 2019</a>. According to the pledge, there was meant to be “transparency about film selection”. Barbera apparently believes he has met it by disclosing that about <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/venice-director-alberto-barbera-responds-bullishly-to-provocative-competition-selection/5141532.article">24% of submitted films</a> were by female directors.</p>
<p>But he did not explain why and how this 24% has shrunk down to 12% in the final competition cut. Had the gender distribution of the submission been replicated, about five films by women would have ended up in competition. As things stand, three extra slots have gone to films directed by men. There is no particular transparency here.</p>
<p>Barbera, as the only identifiable selector, is seemingly opposed to any quotas for women. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/28/jury-members-clash-over-roman-polanski-as-venice-film-festival-opens">The quality of individual films</a>” is the only possible criterion. Plus, women should not feel left out – some of the films in competition, he pointed out, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/26/venice-film-festival-gender-disparity-roman-polanski-nate-parker">reveal a new sensibility geared toward the feminine universe</a>” – even if they are directed by men. Why would women directors bother making films when men already address “the female condition”?</p>
<h2>An exclusive club…for men</h2>
<p>The Venice International Film Festival is nowhere near to accepting change. Change would mean destroying its own model, built on male privilege in the world of cinema and perfected over nearly 80 years of existence, operating like <a href="https://theconversation.com/cannes-is-not-a-film-festival-its-a-club-for-insiders-96651">an exclusive club</a>. Programming for its main competition is not done through a submission process, which it runs but does not rely on.</p>
<p>It is done by working with a cohort of “auteurs” who happen to be predominantly male. Of the <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019/venezia-76-competition">19 male directors in competition</a>, all but four are known entities. At least 15 of them already have Venice pedigree and include Todd Phillips (Joker), Roman Polanski (An Officer and a Spy), Stephen Soderbergh (The Laundromat) and Yonfan (No. 7 Cherry Lane). Their films have featured at various strands of the festival and one (Roy Anderson) is a past winner of the Golden Lion.</p>
<p>Some of the others were nominated or received secondary other awards. Quite a few of these directors are famous worldwide, in Europe or in their respective countries. Their films spell “quality” by default – as the “quality” Barbera means is somehow a characteristic of their personality. Some – like Roman Polanski – possess the “quality” of keeping the world media’s attention on the festival, through notoriety. </p>
<p>Venice cannot possibly say it is transparent with such a selection process. Yes, it formally welcomes submissions by women and it does have women on staff. But the true programming for the festival is done by male selectors schmoozing with the established “auteurs” who the festival continuously works with. The only thing I wonder is why women directors bother submitting their films in the first place?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Iordanova’s research into Italian film festivals has been funded, in part, under a collaborative grant of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.</span></em></p>
Pledges on gender parity are not worth the paper they are written on if selection processes remain secret.
Dina Iordanova, Professor of Global CInema and Creative Cultures, University of St Andrews
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117078
2019-05-17T01:15:57Z
2019-05-17T01:15:57Z
As we face pressing global issues, the pavilions of Venice Biennale are a 21st century anomaly
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274763/original/file-20190515-69189-9a0les.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the most powerful images at this year's Venice Biennale is Christoph Büchel's
Barca Nostra, 2018-2019,
Shipwreck 18th of April 2015.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Biennale di Venezia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019/information">58th Venice Biennale of Art</a> opened last weekend, the world’s first and still largest biennale exhibition in a field that now numbers over 100 major events internationally. It is often referred to as the Olympic Games of art, a comparison grounded both in its establishment and repute.</p>
<p>While the selection of artists for Venice is a much more subjective process than the selection of athletes for the Olympics, both see each nation put forward its “best” practitioners for a once-in-a-lifetime event that is anticipated worldwide and watched by millions.</p>
<p>When it began in 1895, the Venice Biennale aimed to reestablish the city as a fixture on the Grand Tour by drawing visitors away from the foul-smelling canals around San Marco to the Gardens to the east of city. With the Salon exhibition in Paris becoming increasingly conservative and less fashionable by the 1890s, it was also an opportunistic moment for Venice to reclaim its artistic renown in Europe.</p>
<p>This year the international exhibition is curated by New York native, London-based curator and Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff and contains the work of 79 artists. However it is the national pavilions, of which there are 92 this year, that make up the majority of the Biennale in terms of real estate, volume and public interest.</p>
<p>The pavilions require each of the participating countries to assume curatorial, production and funding responsibility for their exhibition, which typically feature just one or a small number artists’ work. In addition to its long history and colossal scale, it is this national pavilion format that distinguishes the Venice Biennale from the scores of biennales elsewhere.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274765/original/file-20190515-69182-ovxafp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Felicity Fenner</span></span>
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<p>In times of global conflict, the Venice Biennale, like the Olympics, offers an opportunity for nations to come together in a spirit of shared participation and dialogue. Unfortunately, however, the national pavilion model discourages cross-cultural dialogue, instead fostering a separatist mentality that inevitably results in competition between nations. (Indeed, the most sought after prize at the Venice Biennale is the Golden Lion Award for the Best National Pavilion, won this year by Lithuania.)</p>
<h2>A glamorous graveyard</h2>
<p>The international art world’s glamorous graveyard to national cultural identity, the Biennale Gardens are an anomaly in our globalised 21st century. The perpetuation of this Victorian era perspective of the world is in part due to architecture: within the Gardens, the historic centre of the exhibition, 30 nations each have a discrete gallery (“pavilion”) to house their biennial art exhibition. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274770/original/file-20190516-69174-1gu59gf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Giardini at the Venice Biennale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Felicity Fenner</span></span>
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<p>When the Gardens were deemed fully occupied a generation ago, countries seeking to exhibit at the Biennale commandeered spaces in the event’s second venue, the sprawling Arsenale complex of former shipyards, or rented spaces in deconsecrated churches and palazzi across the city. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274764/original/file-20190515-69174-1dgslkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Arsenale complex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Biennale di Venezia</span></span>
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<p>Australia was one of the last nations to be granted a plot in the Biennale Gardens, in 1988. Since then, a succession of mostly one-person Australian pavilion exhibitions have demonstrated the international calibre of Australian art, or have attempted to convey a sense of Australian culture, or both. </p>
<p>The cultural background of this year’s representative, Angelica Mesiti, typifies that of many international contemporary artists today. She is of Italian heritage, lives in Paris and makes work across the world, most recently in Aarhus, Denmark for her piece in last year’s Adelaide Biennial, and in Rome and Canberra for her current Venice Biennale work.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274766/original/file-20190515-69189-ic5iz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Angelica Mesiti, ASSEMBLY, 2019, (production still) three-channel video installation in architectural amphitheater. Commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts on the occasion of the 58th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Bonnie Elliott Courtesy the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Mesiti is exhibiting an immersive video installation on the subject of democracy, a fitting subject given the state of global politics today and the promise of the Venice Biennale as a forum for open dialogue. Filmed inside the senate chambers of both countries, “Assembly” is viewed from inside an amphitheatre constructed within the pavilion. The audience looks across to each of the three screens in an architectural design that in its circularity and red palette evokes a legislative assembly.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angelica Mesiti, ASSEMBLY, 2019, (production still) three-channel video installation in architectural amphitheater. Commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts on the occasion of the 58th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Bonnie Elliott Courtesy the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In deploying the pavilion as a conversation pit, Mesiti not only refers to the ties between Australia and Italy – both personal and in the setting of the Biennale – but also to the idea of a pavilion itself. Traditionally a pavilion is a place of shelter, a temporary structure offering respite on a journey or refuge from the elements. </p>
<p>It implies safety and sanctuary, a meaning complicated at the Venice Biennale by the word “national”, which in current times evokes “nationalism” and its associated extremism. Mesiti has created a forum for exchange within the confines of the Australian pavilion: the challenge for the Venice Biennale is to overcome the existing disconnection between national pavilions to make the event more conducive to genuine exchange.</p>
<h2>Greed and trauma</h2>
<p>It was noted at a symposium in Venice last week that if all the countries in the world had a pavilion in the Gardens, it would be more densely populated than Hong Kong. Given that the world’s population has more than quadrupled since the Biennale began, it makes sense to invite all the world’s countries into the Biennale Gardens. A densely populated community of shared pavilions would better reflect modern times, while also offering the potential for collaboration and exchange between nations.</p>
<p>Like Australia’s entry, very few of the national pavilions in this year’s Biennale claim to embody the national character of their country. Venezuela is one exception: the political unrest in that country has rendered its pavilion empty, the artworks having failed to arrive. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274773/original/file-20190516-69209-1ywujbl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Venezuela’s pavilion: stands empty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Felicity Fenner</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another exception is Ghana, one of a handful of first-time pavilions at this year’s Biennale. Designed by London-based, Ghanian architect David Adjaye in a style that references African vernacular architecture in its sand-coloured walls, this unusually expansive pavilion accommodates the work of six artists across three generations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274768/original/file-20190515-69169-11fwnoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Just Amongst Ourselves (2019), series of paintings, oil on linen and canvas. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist; Corvi-Mora, London; and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by David Levene</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The outstanding work is filmmaker John Akomfrah’s sweeping visual narrative depicting violence in Africa over generations, including the mass slaughter of elephants, and breathtaking footage of threatened natural land and marine environments. It is a scathing indictment of human greed and malice that has global resonance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274762/original/file-20190515-60537-r5jyta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Akomfrah, The Elephant in the Room – Four Nocturnes (2019), Three-channel HD color video installation, 7.1 sound. Four Nocturnes is a new commission for the inaugural Ghana.
pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia. Co-commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture of Ghana, Sharjah Art Foundation and Smoking Dogs Films with support from Lisson Gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: David Levene</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At a time when sovereignty of international waters is contested, it can be difficult to define where nations and their concomitant responsibilities begin and end. As part of the curated international exhibition, Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel has towed to Venice an infamous Libyan fishing vessel that in 2015 sank between Libya and Lampedusa, killing up to 1,000 migrants trapped in its hull. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274473/original/file-20190514-60529-1chwedk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christoph Büchel Barca Nostra, 2018-2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">La Biennale di Venezia.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The title, “Barca Nostra (Our Boat)” refers to the Italian government’s 2013 Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) policy, instigated in response to the number of doomed migrant ships. </p>
<p>The sight of the rusted vessel in the Arsenale, surrounded by military and recreational watercraft on one side and by cappuccino-sipping Biennale visitors on the other, has a powerful impact on those few viewers cognisant of its story.</p>
<p>More than any artwork in the exhibition, by rendering visible what is generally hidden from public view, its presence encapsulates the danger, tragedy and trauma of forced migration.</p>
<p>It is these global issues that find shared platforms in this year’s Biennale and that make for the strongest and most relevant works – themes around political, refugee and climate crises abound. These are the new thematic “pavilions” of the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Fenner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Often called the ‘Olympic Games of art’, the Venice Biennale’s national pavilions are an outlier in a globalised world. This year’s strongest works explore global issues like refugees and climate change.
Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97366
2018-05-30T02:47:59Z
2018-05-30T02:47:59Z
Cross-pollination, migration, adaptation: Australia’s fragile grasslands at the Venice Biennale
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220870/original/file-20180529-80658-2k4c8r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ten thousand native grassland plants were grown in Italy for Australia's national pavilion at the Biennale. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Venice Biennale (Architecture)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The 16th International Architecture Exhibition, the Venice Biennale, is now open. With 62 countries represented, the Biennale is a demonstration of “how the world might be perceived differently from diverse parts of our planet,” as described by the event <a href="http://www.graftonarchitects.ie/">curators</a>. </p>
<p>This year’s theme, Freespace, is about the potential of architecture to be perceived beyond face value. With a somewhat romantic undertone, the <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/16th-international-architecture-exhibition">curatorial statement</a> emphasises the physical building. This is in clear contrast to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/venice-biennale-an-exhausting-beautiful-attempt-to-relinquish-architecture-60789">15th Biennale in 2016</a>, curated by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, which foregrounded social and political issues. </p>
<p>There are 62 national pavilions mostly in or around the Giardini, Venice’s parkland. The pavilions, with curators selected from each respective country, provide great insight into the current state of the architecture profession. </p>
<p>Repair, Australia’s Pavilion, curated by Baracco+Wright Architects in collaboration with artist Linda Tegg, constructs an immersive sensory experience for visitors. Repair aims to reclaim endangered grasslands that existed pre-European settlement.
More than 10,000 plants, including 65 different Victorian grassland species, fill a black cube designed by Denton Corker Marshall architects.</p>
<p>Only 1% of these grasslands remain in Victoria. The <a href="http://wp.architecture.com.au/venicebiennale/wp-content/uploads/sites/71/2017/09/venice-biennale-repair-creative-director-launch-speech.pdf">Australian curators explained</a> that the reclamation of grasslands is “a sort of reverse order of urban sprawl”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220872/original/file-20180529-80637-1l0ggrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Projections in Australia’s national pavilion show other buildings that have incorporated nature.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ecocheck-victorias-flower-strewn-western-plains-could-be-swamped-by-development-57127">EcoCheck: Victoria's flower-strewn western plains could be swamped by development</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The plants are arranged in sporadic densities throughout the space. I yearned for the room to be filled even more as the smells, which are ever present, brought a familiarity to a foreign place. Artificial lights above illuminate and protect the interior landscape. Every so often the lights dim and two perpendicular walls project videos of 15 Australian architecture projects that address the environmental issues posed by the curators. </p>
<p>At face value, the pavilion can be seen purely as a comment on the environment, but more important is the process the curators took to construct the exhibition. The 10,000 Australian plants were “lovingly nurtured from seedlings to maturity in Sanremo, Italy”. </p>
<p>Like Australian gum trees that have made their home in California, these Victorian grasslands in Venice represent a successful model of migration and adaptation, just as the ritual of this Biennale represents at best, moments of productive displacement and cross-pollination.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220892/original/file-20180530-80653-obl412.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Switzerland’s national pavilion, winner of the Biennale’s Golden Lion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, the grasslands pavilion left open the question of what would happen to these exiles after the Biennale. Would they be returned home, and at what cost? In our era of mass migration and high carbon footprint transport and agriculture, I wondered what fate would be most fitting. </p>
<p>This year’s Golden Lion Winner, the top award at the Biennale, was awarded to Switzerland for House Tour. In perfect Swiss style, the exhibition creates domestic spaces at multiple scales using materials and fittings commonly used in new-build housing or rented apartments. Curated by Alessandro Bosshard, Li Tavor, Matthew van der Ploeg and Ani Vihervaara, the exhibition aims to question the acceptance of banality.</p>
<p>The British Pavilion, Island, constructs a scaffold around an existing building, providing access to the upper roof structure where the 1909 building pokes out at the centre of the terrace, a literal island. Inside, the pavilion remains empty, void of an exhibition. As the <a href="https://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/2018-exhibition">British curators</a>, Adam Caruso, Peter St John and Marcus Taylor, describe</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The state of the building suggests many themes; including abandonment, reconstruction, sanctuary, Brexit, isolation, colonialism and climate change. It is intended as a platform, in this case also literally, for a new and optimistic beginning.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220877/original/file-20180530-80661-1suiqy2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The British pavilion constructed a scaffold around an existing building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the entry to the Arsenale, the centrepiece of the Biennale located in a 13th century Venetian shipyard, curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara have hung what feels like hundreds of strands of rope. Here begins the showcase of 71 architects from around the world, each responding to the event’s theme. </p>
<p>The space is filled with a beautiful, yet erratic, set of architectural models, full-scale constructions and interactive media. The Central Pavilion, the Biennale’s other major venue, has a similar sprinkling of work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220722/original/file-20180529-80640-1sz7rjr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The entrance of the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 71 participants have each built an object of delight, transforming the 200m hall into a street scene with a series of micro buildings along its sides. </p>
<p>Australian architect John Wardle’s popular installation, Somewhere Other, is an optical machine, or as the placard describes, “a portal, an elaborate window, a calibrated device, a long lens between Venice and Australia”. Australia is also represented by Tasmanian architects Room 11.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220721/original/file-20180529-80633-d9703v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Somewhere Else designed by John Wardle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Somewhere Other is a beautifully made native timber object generating a range of experiences for its users. It is poetic in both description and construction, a striking demonstration of Wardle’s work and a strong representation of a continent about as far from Venice as you can get. </p>
<p>Other highlights include the a model of the Fuji kindergarten designed by Japanese firm Tezuka Architects. Projected drone footage shows children running free around the school’s circular roof. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220720/original/file-20180529-80629-1eid7o1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tezuka Architects’ kindergarten with projections of children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dane Voorderhake</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ricccardo Blummer and team’s Automatiche E Altri Esercizi (Italy), is “a walkable machine that continually builds minimal surfaces, composed of water and soap which only the reflection of light makes visible”.</p>
<p>Other projects to note were PROP/GLOBAL’s (Portugal) interactive media projected onto a curtain of fine grain tassels that form an enclosure; Valero Olgiati’s (Switzerland) intervention of 33 white slender cylindrical columns producing what he describes as “an intensified spatial experience”; and Kazuya Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s (Japan) acrylic, almost invisible, layered circular space. </p>
<p>Despite the beauty and poetry of many of the works aligning the Arsenale, one cannot deny their indulgence. In 2016, curator Alejandro Aravena asked if exhibitions would widen their scope beyond cultural and artistic dimensions to <a href="https://theconversation.com/venice-biennale-an-exhausting-beautiful-attempt-to-relinquish-architecture-60789">social, political, economic and environmental ideas</a>. It’s not clear to me that many of the exhibitors at the current Biennale have done this.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en">Venice Biennale</a> is on until November 25 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Feuerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sixty two countries are represented at this year’s International Architecture Exhibition. In the Australian Pavilion, 65 species of grassland plants fill a black cube.
William Feuerman, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60789
2016-06-12T19:40:06Z
2016-06-12T19:40:06Z
Venice Biennale: an exhausting, beautiful attempt to relinquish architecture
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126105/original/image-20160610-29205-1aggwbv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Venice's Arsenale holds a curated display from the 15th International Architecture Exhibition.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bas Boerman</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From now through November 27, architects and enthusiasts from around the globe will descend upon Venice, Italy, for the <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/exhibition/">15th International Architecture Exhibition</a> organised by La Biennale di Venezia. The Venice Architecture Biennale is like the Olympics for architecture, bringing together a global perspective and dialogue. </p>
<p>It occurs every two years, alternating with the world-renowned International Art Exhibition organised by La Biennale di Venezia, with the objective of celebrating, summarising and addressing the current state of architecture and the most pressing issues in the profession. The growing success of the Venice Architecture Biennale has inspired a range of spin-offs including the recent <a href="http://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/">Chicago Architecture Biennial</a>.</p>
<p>The centrepiece of the event is a curated exhibition in Venice’s Arsenale, a 13th century former shipyard, showcasing 88 participants from 37 different countries. In addition, there are 62 individually curated national pavilions mostly located around the nearby Giardini, and a range of off-site events and exhibitions. The overall production takes over the entire water city, turning Venice into a hub of cultural production, discussion and discovery.</p>
<p>This year’s curator, Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, is no stranger to the Venice Biennale. In 2008 his “do tank” <a href="http://www.elementalchile.cl/">Elemental</a>, won the Biennale’s Silver Lion, the second place prize for Promising Young Architects for their <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/10775/quinta-monroy-elemental">reinvention of social housing at Quinta Monroy Housing</a> in Iquique, Chile, and their focus on community engagement. </p>
<p>Only eight years later, Aravena was awarded the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the industry’s most prestigious prize, along with his appointment as curator of the 2016 Venice Biennale. A big year for Aravena, indeed.</p>
<p>The 15th International Architecture Exhibition theme, “Reporting From the Front”, brings social consciousness in architecture to the forefront, responding to a turbulent time when many countries are suffering economic unrest, an ongoing refugee crisis and political discord.</p>
<p>Aravena wrote <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/news/18-07.html">when he was nominated as director</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are several battles that need to be won and several frontiers that need to be expanded in order to improve the quality of the built environment and consequently people’s quality of life. </p>
<p>This is what we would like people to come and see at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition: success stories worth being told and exemplary cases worth being shared.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the main entry to the Arsenale, a large sign painted on the wall explains that “the introductory rooms of the Biennale Architettura 2016 were built with the 100 tons of waste material generated by the dismantling of the previous Biennale”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126051/original/image-20160610-10706-m3s0mg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The entry to the Arsenale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The vast reception space of the Arsenale is filled with a curtain of standard metal studs hanging from above. It makes noticeable light patterns on the surfaces below, surrounded by walls made of stacked plasterboard. The plasterboard, piled at a range of depths, produces a changing surface with varied openings. </p>
<p>Arriving at the actual entry to the exhibition, one questions if the next curator will reuse the materials required for Aravena’s exhibition?</p>
<p>What follows is a broad range of dislocated projects from around the globe which as Aravena describes in his curatorial statement,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>will widen the range of issues to which architecture is expected to respond, adding explicitly to the cultural and artistic dimensions that already belong to our scope, those that are at the social, political, economic, and environmental end of the spectrum.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But beyond the visual propaganda that seems to be populating the 300 meter-long Arsenale (and beautiful and intelligent propaganda it is) one might question where the architecture resides. It appears that the curator has made an attempt to relinquish architecture (the building form) in order to visualise social and political issues. </p>
<p>Signage reading “Does permanence matter?” or “Is it possible to create a public space within a private commission?” further reduces architecture to slogans and one-liners.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126057/original/image-20160610-10715-18x9nje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But of course within this mix, a range of stand-out projects begin to demonstrate that design can be socially active and play a significant role in the reshaping of the environment. For example, <a href="http://www.nleworks.com/team-member/kunle-adeyemi/">Kunle Adeyemi</a>’s Makoko Floating School, a prototype for a floating community in the rising waters of the Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria, was reconstructed and docked in Venice. The project uses only local materials such as reused plastic barrels for floating. It was the deserving recipient of the Silver Lion award. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.designboom.com/architecture/rural-urban-framework-venice-biennale-settling-the-nomads-06-05-2016/">Rural Urban Framework</a>, looking at the conflict between the nomadic nature of the past and the sedentary nature of the present, develops housing prototypes for those left out of the urbanisation process in Mongolia.</p>
<p>In the Giardini exhibition, which breathed a bit more life compared to that of the Arsenale, <a href="http://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures/w-eizman/">Eyal Weizman</a>’s Forensic Architecture uses architectural design logic working from images, films and satellite footage to trace wrongdoings, such as a drone attack in an Afghan building made legible by video footage from a neighbouring building.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126054/original/image-20160610-10736-dox1h8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond Aravena’s exhibitions in the Arsenale and Giardini, the individually curated national pavilions offer a wide range of insight into the current state of architecture. The intensity and variation can be overwhelming. </p>
<p>At one end of the spectrum are pavilions that are overloaded with information, such as the deconstructed German Pavilion, which has literally removed four of its walls so that it is always open. Inside, documents that demonstrate how cities and buildings have been transformed with the recent influx of refugees cover the walls from floor to ceiling. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126053/original/image-20160610-10715-f2i6rj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image from the Belgium Pavilion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum you have Australia’s “The Pool”, an immersive sensory experience where curators <a href="http://wp.architecture.com.au/news-media/making-a-splash-creative-team-selected-for-2016-venice-biennale/#sthash.8ZNGDqrQ.dpbs">Michelle Tabet, Isabelle Toland and Amelia Holliday</a> have designed a swimming pool surrounded by seating so guests can sit back or even take a dip while listening to interviews about the pool and its influence on Australia’s cultural identity. </p>
<p>Little written or visual information is provided in the pavilion but a take away leaflet expands on the relevance of the swimming pool, addressing issues such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a backdrop to the good times, the pool is also a deeply contested space in Australian history, a space that has highlighted racial discrimination and social disadvantage.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126050/original/image-20160610-10703-1ckx8al.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other pavilions that should not be missed include the British pavilion and its show <a href="http://design.britishcouncil.org/venice-biennale/VeniceBiennale2016/">Home Economics</a>, exploring new models for domestic life based on hours, days, months, years, and decades. The Russian pavilion exhibits the wild <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/784716/russian-pavilion-at-2016-venice-biennale-to-examine-the-vdnh-nil-moscows-soviet-amusement-park">Urban Phenomenon</a>, which examines the Exhibition of Attainments of the National Economy, a 1939 Soviet exhibition and park complex reincarnated as a public multi-format cultural and education space.</p>
<p>Belgium’s Bravura Pavilion investigates, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>what craftsmanship can mean during a period of economic scarcity as, according to the curatorial team, dealing with scarcity demands a high level of precision.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Spanish Pavilion’s show Unfinished was the winner of the Golden Lion, the top award at the Biennale. Spain presents a survey of photos and drawings of incomplete construction projects prompted by its 2008 economic crisis alongside 55 recent buildings that demonstrate innovative solutions or responses based on economic constraints.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126061/original/image-20160610-10700-1q76a35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Spanish Pavilion show Unfinished won the Golden Lion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But one of the most powerful and thoughtful installations came from Ireland with its project titled “Losing myself.” Offering insight into the unimaginable – the experience of dementia – the project works directly with patients suffering from the disease. It explores alternative ways of redrawing a building collectively witnessed by sixteen people throughout one day, based on subjects that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>cannot use memory and projection to see beyond their immediate situation and can no longer synthesise their experiences to create a stable model of their environment.</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126055/original/image-20160610-10729-idgw06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Irish Pavilion, Venice Binnale 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The results are beautiful representations of a very real and frightening experience but more importantly, returning to Alejandro Aravena’s curatorial statement, this is a project that is an “exemplary case” where architecture made a difference.</p>
<p>Last stop on the Biennale circuit was the off-site Zaha Hadid retrospective at the <a href="http://www.fondazioneberengo.org/">Fondazione Berengo</a>, an homage to the late architect who <a href="https://theconversation.com/zaha-hadid-an-exceptional-complex-and-inspirational-person-to-work-with-57138">died in March at the age of 65</a>. While the exhibition has a strong focus on the late architect’s current projects, (which are really the brainchild of Zaha Hadid Architect’s Director Patrik Schumacher) a large portion of the space displays some of Hadid’s most influential works.</p>
<p>These include her large scale paintings in which architecture grows out of the surface of the canvas, as well as models in paper relief and 3-D printing, line drawings, photographs, and videos. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zaha Hadid retrospective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The work celebrates the role form plays in the production of space. Here, the architect, unlike many witnessed at the Arsenal and Giardini, truly manifests the role of both the public intellectual and a maker of space. </p>
<p>The dichotomy between social activism and Architecture with a capital “A” is blurred here. Certainly refreshing following days of sensory overload.</p>
<p>In 2000, I visited the Venice Architecture Biennale for the first time. It was 7th International Architecture Exhibition directed by formalist Massimiliano Fuksas, with a title “Less Aesthetics more Ethics”. It also claimed to abandon previous Biennale structures, “no longer based on architecture as buildings.” </p>
<p>Fast forward 16 years and we seem to be approaching a similar cycle. The big question is: has architecture made a substantial contribution over the past 16 years, or are we just experiencing a case of déjà vu? Is architecture more innovative today? </p>
<p>We cannot deny the amazing array of talent and work presented at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition but did I leave feeling that when it comes to solving the world’s problems “architecture makes the difference”, as Aravena puts it?“ It would be almost impossible for any exhibition to live up to the expectations of its own publicity. </p>
<p>I leave the Venice Architecture Biennale thinking more about the world in its current state. The problems. The issues impacting our profession. I think that we can all learn a lot from the late, great Dame Zaha Hadid whose seminal work, along with her fearless attitude, challenged the state of architecture through design. </p>
<p>But I also leave inspired (and exhausted) by the amount of work I have been exposed to, and optimistic that we can continue to ask the same questions while challenging them through new paradigms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Feuerman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From now through November 27, architects and enthusiasts from around the globe will descend upon Venice, Italy, for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition organised by La Biennale di Venezia. The…
William Feuerman, Course Director (B Des Arch), Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/41068
2015-05-19T05:10:59Z
2015-05-19T05:10:59Z
Sarah Lucas gives the Venice Biennale its just desserts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82204/original/image-20150519-30548-1rufuz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sarah Lucas, I SCREAM DADDIO, British Pavilion 2015.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Cristiano Corte © British Council</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale sits at the top of a man-made hill at the eastern end of the Giardini, a park laid out during the Napoleonic era and a venue for the International Art Exhibition in Venice since 1895. Opened in 1909 for the 8th biennale, the original building was a café-restaurant converted into an exhibition space by British architect EA Rickards.</p>
<p>This year, for the 56th Biennale, Sarah Lucas is representing Britain in the pavilion with an exhibition titled I SCREAM DADDIO. “Getting” Lucas’s trademark pun requires a basic knowledge of the history of the pavilion and its previous occupants. The dessert in the title – ICE CREAM DADDIO – is an echo of the building’s origin as place of leisure and pleasure. </p>
<p>Lucas takes this further with her concept of the exhibition itself as dessert. In particular the show has an affinity with the pudding <em>îles flottantes</em> (which translates as floating islands, like Venice) – meringues in a sea of custard. Crème anglaise of course: language is an important driver of Lucas’s art. <em>Îles flottantes</em> is also the favourite pudding of London architect turned celebrity chef Fergus Henderson, who contributes the recipe to the exhibition catalogue. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82057/original/image-20150518-25407-9lf9tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Lucas at the British Pavilion 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Cristiano Corte © British Council</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the idea behind the decision to paint the walls of the British Pavilion custard yellow, but Lucas also succeeds in her other aim with the colour, which was to “flood the pavilion with sunlight”, a welcome pleasure in a difficult space, in the past boxed in, blacked out or packed too full with artwork. </p>
<h2>Cheerful feminism</h2>
<p>So dessert is one meaning of the punning exhibition title, but it could also be interpreted as a cry of frustration at the exhibition history of the national showcase in the world’s oldest international art exhibition. In 1948, the first post-war British pavilion exhibition at Venice introduced, with sculptor Henry Moore, the tradition of showing the work of a single, established, mid-career artist each Biennale. Since then only four women before Lucas have been selected to exhibit in the building: Barbara Hepworth in 1950, Bridget Riley in 1968, Rachel Whiteread in 1997 and Tracey Emin in 2007. </p>
<p>That I SCREAM DADDIO comes down cheerfully on the ice cream side of the title is a measure of Lucas’s mature confidence. The big yellow, cast resin sculpture on the pavilion’s portico is a reclining male nude called Gold Cup Maradona. He waves visitors up the hill and into the building with a nine-foot erection, obviously pleased to see us. But also he waves back across the decades to all those sculptures of the reclining female nude by Henry Moore. This is an assured, amiable gesture from an artist with impeccable feminist credentials who has finally attained her rightful place in the history of British sculpture. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82051/original/image-20150518-25428-afcxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Lucas, I SCREAM DADDIO, British Pavilion 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Cristiano Corte © British Council</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gold Cup Maradona’s paler yellow double, Deep Cream Maradona, occupies the main space in the pavilion. His nine-food member is a satisfying formal solution to the impossible height of the room. Lucas calls it “the hand of God”, after the emotionally charged first goal scored by Diego Maradona with his hand in the Argentina versus England match in the finals of the 1986 FIFA World Cup, four years after Thatcher’s invasion of the Falkland Islands and Britain’s war with Argentina. Is Lucas tilting at English jingoism right at the heart of the national pavilion? </p>
<h2>Looking Forward</h2>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Lucas, Black Tit Cat Eames, British Pavilion 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Cristiano Corte © British Council</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is exhilarating about the exhibition as a whole is Lucas’s ability to think forward using her own longstanding formal vocabulary. Take, for example, the captivating, many breasted Tit Cats, cast in bronze, its surface a cross between black Murano glass and PVC fetish wear. </p>
<p>They are sophisticated and vaguely sinister Venetian cousins of her London domestic cat on an ironing board of 2012, as well as the Tit Teddies, all made of kapok, tights and wire. The idea more than survives the translation from cheap, domestic to costly, traditional materials and processes of sculpture, but sacrifices cute and cuddly in the process. </p>
<p>http://www.sadiecoles.com/artists/lucas#sl-situation-make-love-2012,courtesy Sadie Coles HQ</p>
<p>From the very beginning Sarah Lucas’s career has been supported and nurtured by remarkable women, foremost her London gallerist Sadie Coles, and Pauline Daley, Director at Sadie Coles HQ in London. They were in the pavilion on the opening morning quietly and efficiently doing their jobs. They are present as well in sculptural tributes as two in a series of “muses”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82055/original/image-20150518-25417-1c3fbac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Lucas, I SCREAM DADDIO, British Pavilion 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Cristiano Corte © British Council</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reversing the convention of the bust in sculpture, these are white plaster casts (meringues in the custard) of women from the waist down, leaning, squatting and reclining on furniture plinths, one on a white chest freezer big as royal sarcophagus. They all have real cigarettes inserted into the vagina or anus – “for titillation mostly” according to Lucas in the exhibition notes. It doesn’t do anything for me, except to disrupt the sculptures’ formal neoclassicism, but it wouldn’t be a Sarah Lucas exhibition without the fags, and how else is a girl supposed to have a celebratory drag when she hasn’t got a mouth?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Sarah Lucas’s <a href="http://www.britishcouncil.org/visual%20arts">British Council</a> commission is at la Biennale di Venezia until 22 November 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Rowley has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>
Sarah Lucas’s show is a (resolutely cheerful) cry of frustration at the overwhelmingly male exhibition history of the British Pavilion.
Alison Rowley, Reader in Cultural Theory, University of Huddersfield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40856
2015-05-12T14:00:48Z
2015-05-12T14:00:48Z
Venice Biennale 2015: the Arsenale stuffed with guns, stripped of hope
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81416/original/image-20150512-25044-1kb0vli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pino Pascali, Cannone Semovente (Gun), 1965.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Alessandra Chemollo, courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Venice Biennale is a kind of two-yearly Great Pacific garbage patch of art: a slick of official exhibits, national representations, collateral shows, non-accredited pop-ups, the old and the new, the brilliant and the dire, that sprawls over the city and spreads to nearby islands. This year’s edition is open to the public till November 22 and feels huger and more disorienting than ever before. </p>
<p>At the heart of the present-day Biennale is a themed exhibition organised by a star curator. This year Nigerian-born Okwui Enwezor, previously artistic director of the 2002 edition of Germany’s epic five-yearly <a href="http://d13.documenta.de/">Documenta</a> exhibition and present-day head of Munich’s <a href="http://www.hausderkunst.de/en/">Haus der Kunst</a>, has shouldered the task. Even before its public opening on May 9, his show All the World’s Futures was provoking complaints in print and online. “Brutal”, “<a href="http://www.artnews.com/2015/05/06/the-2015-venice-biennale-fixated-on-strife-and-struggle-is-a-deeply-uneven-affair/">didactic</a>”, “pedantic”, “<a href="http://artforum.com/diary/">morbid</a>”, “an assault course” and “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/10/venice-biennale-2015-review-56th-sarah-lucas-xu-bing-chiharu-shiota">a glum trudge</a>” were representative reactions. </p>
<h2>Combat and capitalism</h2>
<p>This general dismay perhaps won’t have taken Enwezor by surprise. His curatorial scheme is confrontational, global in its address, but also tightly site-specific. It delivers an undisguised history lesson about Venice’s past, re-stocking the Arsenale with guns, and bringing Marx back to the birthplace of the production line. Both the show’s venues – the labyrinthine Central Pavilion of the Biennale’s Giardini and the cavernous warehouses of the Arsenale – are studded with intentionally abrasive, disturbing objects. </p>
<p>The Arsenale’s entrance bristles with <a href="http://www.historynet.com/weaponry-the-caltrop.htm">caltrops</a> improvised from machetes (Adel Abdessemed’s Nymphéas, 2015), while huge, black, oily-smelling patchworked canvases (Oscar Murillo’s <a href="http://exploregram.com/signaling-devices-in-now-bastard-territory-2015-by-oscar-murillo-comprises-20/">Signaling Devices in now Bastard Territory</a>, 2015) droop over the Central Pavilion’s façade. Enwezor keeps the anxiety level high through most of the show. Scary, outsiderish drawings by refugee <a href="http://caacart.com/pigozzi-artist.php?i=Mansaray-Abu-Bakarr&bio=en&m=16">Abu Bakarr Mansaray</a> process his experience of conflict in Sierra Leone. Vietnamese collective <a href="http://www.the-propeller-group.com/">The Propeller Group</a>’s work The AK-47 vs. the M16 shows bullets from the two assault rifles smashing through transparent blocks of ballistics gel. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81359/original/image-20150512-22568-c270nb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abu Bakarr Mansaray, The Massaka, 1997. Matita e inchiostro nero e rosso su carta. 21 × 30 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Alessandra Chemollo, Courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Turner Prize-winner Steve McQueen’s video installation, <a href="http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/steve-mcqueen-film-ashes-broken-column-grenada">Ashes</a>, contrasts sunlit 2002 footage of a lithe young Grenadian fisherman sailing his boat, with recent film of the construction of the same man’s tomb, following his drug gang-related murder. Chinese artist <a href="http://www.caofei.com/">Cao Fei</a>’s animated allegory <a href="https://vimeo.com/101317234">La Town</a> entwines an enigmatic lovers’ dialogue with a vision of urban disintegration, and despite its quirkiness and exquisite craft it sometimes feels almost too sad to watch. </p>
<p>Or there’s Harun Farocki’s 1968 film <a href="http://www.harunfarocki.de/films/1960s/1968/white-christmas.html">White Christmas</a>, which pairs Bing Crosby’s schmaltzy hit with photo-documentation of the Vietnam war. It is utterly horrible; ditto the archive film of whaling and polar-bear hunting recycled by John Akomfrah in his 2015 installation <a href="http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2015/04/john-akomfrah-selected-for-56th-art-biennale-of-venice/">Vertigo Sea</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81358/original/image-20150512-22539-1xacz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cao Fei, La Town, 2014. Video in HD, colore, suono. 42’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Alessandra Chemollo, courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A tough stance</h2>
<p>But Enwezor isn’t mining this tough subject matter to strike a provocative pose. (That he can leave to bad-boy Swiss artist Christoph Büchel, whose <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/arts/design/mosque-installed-at-venice-biennale-tests-citys-tolerance.html">shallow gesture</a> of converting a decommissioned Venetian Catholic church into a mosque has in just a few days garnered more media chatter than Enwezor’s considered, effortful project probably will across its whole run. Büchel, bizarrely, is Iceland’s Biennale representative and his project is outside Enwezor’s remit.) </p>
<p>Enwezor’s rationale is certainly didactic. His history lesson aims both to survey recent politicised art globally, and needle the local facts of the Biennale’s site. In representation at least, he’s stockpiled the Arsenale’s halls with more weaponry than it’ll have seen since its decommissioning in the early 1800s. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81361/original/image-20150512-22545-w0l0f9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hiwa K, The Bell, 2015. Installazione con video a due canali, suono, colore, scultura.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Alessandra Chemollo, courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He’s also crammed his show with representations of labour: production lines, chain gangs, sex work, sharecropping, migrant labour, union activism. At times the two concerns coincide. Iraqi-Kurdish artist Hiwa K’s <a href="https://twitter.com/RuyaFoundation/status/596605917203927042/photo/1">The Bell</a>, 2015, juxtaposes film of a modestly matter-of-fact, truly heroic, Iraqi scrap metals expert recycling hazardous war waste, with footage of the same scrap being cast into a superb bell (also on display). </p>
<p>To frame this, Enwezor invokes the ideas of Karl Marx. Readings from Das Kapital (organised by UK artist Isaac Julien) will take place throughout the Biennale, in architect David Adjaye’s performance arena within the Central Pavilion. The readings are effectively indigestible, but their function is to remind. </p>
<p>Venice isn’t just the site of the world’s first ghetto – it also pioneered the production methods eventually exploited by Ford, the very foundations of the capitalist economy. In the Corderie or ropeworks – now stuffed with contemporary art – and across the Arsenale, standardisation, production-line methods and a workforce of thousands allowed the Renaissance Venetians to make in days, even hours, what other Europeans took months to manufacture.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81364/original/image-20150512-22563-14gxoxt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Isaac Julien, DAS KAPITAL Oratorio, Central Pavilion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Andrea Avezzù, courtesy of la Biennale di Venezia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A hard pill to swallow</h2>
<p>Enwezor is bringing it all back home, heaping Venice with testimony to the ruinous side effects of capitalist progress: pollution, slavery, exploitation, the arms industry, the mass displacement of peoples. His 2015 Biennale has to rate as the most precisely site-specific installation in the event’s history, and inevitably it’s a hard pill to swallow.</p>
<p>In sum, All the World’s Futures works brilliantly as representation, but it fails desperately as strategy. His show’s title feels cruelly ironic. Despite the inclusion of a live performance space, discussions, music, singing, screenings, and so on, few exhibits counterbalance Enwezor’s bleak panorama with models of hope or inspiration. </p>
<p>These have to be sought elsewhere – for example, in the German pavilion, where supercharged smarty-pants Hito Steyerl scores another hit. Weaving together historical fact and fantasy with imagination and fiendish digital skill, this German-Japanese artist’s video installation, <a href="http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org/2015/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/02b-Hito-Steyerl_Factory-of-the-Sun_CV_en.pdf">Factory of the Sun</a>, delivers a high-tech kick in the pants: think harder, get clever, understand the information war that’s underway right now. There’s a youthfulness here, an appetite for action, that’s missing from Enwezor’s exhibition, and is sorely needed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Withers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Okwui Enwezor’s central show delivers an undisguised history lesson about Venice’s past.
Rachel Withers, Senior Lecturer in History & Theory of Art & Design, Bath Spa University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.