WINDOW ON THE WORLD
The only Australian to show at this year’s illustrious Venice Biennale, multimedia artist Angelica Mesiti’s powerful and immersive installation shines a light on modern-day democracy.
Multimedia artist Angelica Mesiti’s powerful and immersive installation shines a light on modern-day democracy.
Angelica Mesiti was wandering around a flea market in Rome when her attention was caught by a curious object that looked like a 1980s electric keyboard but was in fact a vintage Michela machine. Similar to a typewriter, the Italian invention is used to note down official proceedings in the Senate of Rome. To her eternal regret Mesiti didn’t buy the rare device – she had travelled to Rome from Paris by train and needed to keep luggage light – but made a note of it in her journal.
Little did she know then the significance of that moment. Fast-forward three years and the Sydney-born, Paris-based multimedia artist was back in Sydney in 2018 when her phone rang. Fellow visual artist Callum Morton was calling to tell her she had been selected as Australia’s representative at the 2019 Venice Biennale, one of the most
prestigious and influential arts festivals in the world. “I think I went white, then red and my husband was mime screaming in the background, because he could hear what was going on. It was one of those heart-racing moments. I never even thought: ‘One day that could be me’, but, of course, you always watch how it goes. It’s one of those things that only happens in your wildest dreams.”
Now in its 58th incarnation, the six-month-long Venice Biennale presents the world’s best contemporary art, with each nation’s artist exhibiting in their own pavilion or purpose-built gallery. Previous Australian artists include Shaun Gladwell, Tracey Moffatt, Arthur Boyd, Patricia Piccinini and Sidney Nolan. And now Mesiti.
Speaking in Sydney, where she divides her time between Paris with her Canadianborn artist husband Mathew McWilliams, Mesiti says her Venice work is a multiscreen, three-channel video and installation that will completely surround the audience. Titled Assembly, it explores humanity’s need to gather for political rallies, celebrations, even rock concerts. The idea developed living in République, the Parisian epicentre for public demonstrations, clarifying for her how the public expresses their dissent or approval by assembling, whether it’s to protest Brexit in Britain, the Women’s March in America or Australian students expressing concern over climate change.
A third-generation Australian-Italian and now an immigrant grappling with a foreign language, Mesiti is intrigued by different forms of communication. Her 2015 work The Colour of Saying saw her collaborate with a sign-language choir in Sweden; while the 10-minute silent video Rapture
“It was one of those heart-racing moments. I never even thought: ‘One day that could be me’”
(silent anthem) from 2009 depicts the fervent response of young adults in the mosh pit of a rock concert, worshipping their rock gods. It won the 58th Blake prize for religious and spiritual art.
“I often think about alternative methods of expression, the ways people find to communicate, often if there’s some kind of constraint,” she says.
For Assembly, she has turned to the deeply moving poem by celebrated Australian poet
David Malouf, To Be Written in Another Tongue.
Mesiti had the privilege of meeting with Malouf, who explained the poem was a requiem for his late grandfather and the non-verbal language they devised, as neither spoke the other’s language (his grandfather spoke Arabic). “The poem is all about translation, this lost connection across generations,” she says.
With Malouf’s blessing, Mesiti had a stenographer record his poem on the Michela – the device she’d had to abandon at a flea market in Rome years ago – then had the text transposed into musical notes using the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) system, which Australian composer Max Lyandvert adapted into a musical score for viola, clarinet and pianist.
Assembly also features a strong choreographic element devised by Mesiti – a former dancer – and former Bangarra Dance Theatre dancer Deborah Brown. The 20-minute work utilises up to 40 musicians, dancers and filmmakers.
Australia’s Biennale entry this year came about via an open call for artist-curator teams to submit their ideas to the Australia Council for the Arts, who appointed an independent panel of local and international arts professionals to select the representative. Mesiti was approached by Juliana Engberg, the respected Melbourne curator who directed the 2017 European Capital City of Culture in Aarhus, Denmark, featuring Mesiti as one of only two Australian artists; curated the 19th Biennale of Sydney in 2014, again featuring Mesiti; and was for many years the artistic director of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
“Juliana is someone I can test my ideas with: it’s a very honest relationship and I trust her opinion hugely. She’s frighteningly intelligent and really experienced,” Mesiti says.
Despite her experience exhibiting all over the world, from a recent solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris to her award-winning 2012 Citizens Band, which toured biennales in Istanbul, Sharjah and Aichi, Mesiti says the Venice Biennale presents a unique opportunity to exhibit before a truly international audience. She’s hopeful Assembly will provoke viewers to consider some of the most pressing issues affecting all global citizens today.
“I don’t want to be didactic … but I think there’s some kind of crisis point that’s making us think about democracy and whether it’s working, its failings and features. We need to think about that.”
The 58th Venice Biennale is on from May 11 to November 24, 2019. For more information, go to www.labiennale.org/en.
“I think there’s some kind of crisis point that’s making us think about democracy and whether it’s working”