Opinionated Biennale Rant
Biennale Souvenirs #3
Hello everybody! Another belated newsletter! A few weeks ago I was in Venice (finally) and it was so dense I needed some time to digest the exhibitions and all the artworks that were on show. And again, I know many things have happened in the meantime: Art Basel week to name one (an attempted robbery at TEFAF to name another), so probably your attention is elsewhere, but I feel this is still relevant and I want to give a (my) opinion.
A non-exhaustive summary of what I liked: Arsenale, central pavilion & co
The Arsenale was in many ways the most accomplished part of Alemani’s project, and most of the rooms were cohesive, beautiful, and problematic (in the way that they really raised an interesting problem).
The difficulty Alemani had to face was to conceive an exhibition that needed to be both specific and extensive on a multifaceted subject, yet to make it accessible to two (very different) kinds of public. On the one hand, the professionals, collectors, advisors, buyers, gallerists, and curators (insert here any other interesting art career, you name it) have already a clear idea in mind of what is interesting or good (to them and their peers ça va sans dire). On the other, a more amatorial public made of students, tourists and people who are sensitive to the works exhibited but don’t have the same preconceived opinion/knowledge about them.
The exhibition begins with two very impressive rooms, where Gabriel Chaile’s monumental sculpture-ovens Rosario Liendro (2022), portraying the artist’s family, stand. Sadly, the dense display that follows doesn’t benefit the works. In fact, where “air” is given, the installations appear clearer and more powerful. That is the case of the immersive Delcy Morelos’ Earthly Paradise (2022), where the soil rises in a maze, immersing the visitors who can smell the earth’s aroma mixed with hay, cassava flour, cacao powder, cloves and cinnamon.
I also particularly liked Igshaan Adams's beads work, tracing the invisible roads he calls “lines of desire”: dirt lines of improvised paths walked by black communities to get from the Bonteheuwel train station in Cape Town to Epping, one of the city’s industrial neighbourhoods, where many seek work. Linked to this was Ali Cherri’s Of Men and Gods and Mud (2022), a series of videos where the artist imagines the punishing construction of a dam as a portal to a fantastical world: absolutely piercing.
Time Capsules
The time capsules were generally good (shoutout to Studio Formafantasma exhibition’s design), but they sometimes missed congruity with the surrounding exhibition. While their aim was to disclose the “vocabulary” used, the source code of the Biennale, they were still quite difficult to deontologically approach without the help of curatorial texts and mediators.
It is the case for the section that included Accardi, Dadamaino and Apollonio’s works, called optical enchantment. Although I was glad to see their works, their presence seemed almost forced, which is rather sad as they are brilliant artists that need more recognition (side note: if you want to learn more about them, you may find a catalogue on Accardi and Dadamaino I collaborated in making at the Arsenale bookshop).
National Pavilions
I have to say that I was very moved by the French pavilion “les rêves n’ont pas de titre” (dreams have no title) de Zineb Sedira at the Giardini. Although I didn’t see the performance (which was executed uniquely during the opening) the projected movie completed the installation and it was both funny, heart-warming and politically relevant.
I also liked the Polish pavilion: twelve tapestries (arazzi) reference Palazzo Schifanoia’s frescos (Ferrara, Italy) and the links to astrology which connect the Renaissance work to the Polish–Roma identity, the iconography of vernacular historical experience and today’s Astro hysteria (a - prophetic - article by The Newyorker reported how people get interested in Astrology as uncertainties rise).
Finally - and I might be biased - I adored the Italian pavilion. After a short queue that allowed only a few visitors to enter the installation at once, we were transported in a post-industrial fairytale. Gian Maria Tosatti's poetical installation invests the space by creating different subsequent settings: “History of the night” and “Destiny of comets”.
In the first, a deafening silence covers the industrial factories like a blanket. Abandoned machinery, old posters, and work tables witness the traces of the workers. It is a tale of the Italian Miracle’s (the economic boom that followed WWII) decadence. The sewing machines, once active and industrious, lie like the magnificent ruins that quilt Italian cities, a reminder of a bygone era.
In the darkness of the last room, one can perceive what is a small landing on the water, where lights that look like fireflies appear, bearers of a message of hope and rebirth (partially also related to nature's reappropriation of man-occupied spaces, just as with the Roman ruins).
A (realistic) metaphor for a country of ruins, bearer of beauty, builders, great minds and workers both referencing Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah, Ermanno Rea’s novel La Dismissione and the human legacy of Italian industry.
A final special mention goes to the scenographic Malta pavilion Diplomazija Astuta by artists Arcangelo Sassolino, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, and Brian Schembri. Molten steel droplets fall from the ceiling into seven rectangular basins of water each representing a subject of Caravaggio’s seminal Maltese altarpiece The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist resulting in a kinetic, sculptural and immersing installation that fascinates the spectators.
Proust’s Madelaine
A few weeks ago I saw (and got obsessed with) an artwork that would perfectly fit in my (ideal-imaginary) collection: Pietro Consagra, Welcome to Italy, 1974 which was sold at Christie’s for the astounding price of 63.000 €
The interesting thing about this work is the artistic reflection on a very common object and the recognition of its beauty. Consagra was an Italian Post-War sculptor who worked in Rome where he founded the abstraction group Forma 1. The work represents 10 “Paracarri” (bollards) and started as a prelude to his seminal essay titled “La città frontale”. Fascinated by the explicit ambiguity (they refer by their shape to the male sex and thus represent the symbol of power) of these everyday sculptural objects found in every Italian city, he discovered that some of them had in fact been designed by great masters such as Bernini and Borromini. In 1972, he selected bollards found in Como, Milan, Siena, Rome, Naples and Palermo. The series was presented to the public for the first time in April 1974 with a dedication: "to his architect friends".
On Bollards, the Twitter page @theculturaltutor highlights:
Who knew that bollards could be that interesting ?!
That is all for today! The next episode will arrive earlier than you might imagine.
Alice