AT THE HEART OF ART
The pieces to appreciate and the names to know—Diana Campbell Betancourt rounds up the best from the 55th Venice Biennale
THE 55th VENICE BIENNALE, The Encyclopedic Palace, curated by Massimiliano Gioni has raised the bar in terms of defining what constitutes a high-quality exhibition. This was not a show of famous names, but rather an in-depth exploration of artists who “try to fashion an image of the world that will capture its infinite variety and richness,” says the Biennale office . While India lacked a pavilion, the talent of artists of Indian descent at the Biennale was unmistakable and shone through Prabhavathi Meppayil’s works in the Arsenale, Simryn Gill’s project for the Australian Pavilion, and Dayanita Singh’s works in the German Pavilion. This celebration of artistic excellence from around the world is open until November, and should not be missed. With an encyclopedic number of works and exhibitions, here is a guide to must-sees at the Biennale.
Collateral exhibitions which revisit history
THE RESTAGING OF LEGENDARY EXHIBITIONS AND MATERIALS
Prada Foundation
One of the most talked about and celebrated parts of the Venice Biennale was the Prada Foundation’s restaging of
Harald Szeeman’s seminal 1969 exhibition from the Kunsthalle Bern,
Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form. When Attitudes Become
Form Bern 1969/Venice 2013 was curated by Germano Celant in dialogue
with Thomas Demand and Rem Koolhaas, and the architects rebuilt the physical space of the Kunsthalle Bern
within a Venetian Palazzo, complete with the flooring, radiators, and wiring.
Many of the priceless, fragile, and original works were brought to Venice, and it is amazing to see where we stand
now in the context of this founding element of contemporary art history.
Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia
While Massimiliano Gioni’s exhibition and the national pavilions attempted to highlight the best of new thinking, several spaces in Venice restaged historically important works, and even complete exhibitions. The newly-opened Espace Louis Vuitton has also begun a commendable effort to restore historic paintings in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE). In the current exhibition Where Should Othello Go, Louis Vuitton enabled a dialogue between the restored masterpiece
The Death of Othello by Pompeo Molmenti, and a contemporary interpretation by Tony Oursler, one of the most important video artists today.
The Palazzo Fortuny
The Palazzo Fortuny hosted an incredible exhibition of the work and collection of the Catelan artist Antoni Tàpies, and it was enlightening to experience the artist’s work in the context of the other artists he considered important to collect. The Rothko painting, installed on an exposed brick wall, was breathtaking.
The Pavilions
AUSTRALIA, BELGIUM, GREECE, FRANCE Belgium: Berlinde De Bruyckere (1964), lives and works in Ghent
According to the South African Nobel Prize-winning novelist JM Coetzee, De Bruyckere’s “sculptures explore life and death… in the most intimate and most disturbing way. They bring illumination, but the illumination is as dark as it is profound.” De Bruyckere invited Coetzee to be her curator for the Belgian Pavilion, not to help in the working or decision making-process, but rather as a source of inspiration. In Kreupelhout–Cripplewood, De Bruyckere transformed an enormous knotted, tangled, and unrooted elm tree into homage for Saint Sebastian, a figure celebrated and explored by many Venetian old master painters. Rather than being tied to a tree as in most depictions, De Bruyckere’s Saint Sebastian becomes a tree in this work, the gnarls of the tree resembling his muscles, the red paint depicting his blood, and the pillows and blankets being offerings of comfort to soothe his painful body.
Greece: Stefanos Tsivopoulos (1973), lives and works in Amsterdam and Athens
Given current events, it is only fitting that Stefanos Tsivopoulos’s exhibition for the Greek Pavilion, History Zero questions the homogenising power of a single currency, and probes viewers to think of new forms of exchange to fuel the future. At the centre of the pavilion is an archive of non-monetary exchange systems, followed by a three-episode film that brilliantly ties together the pursuits of a homeless African immigrant, an artist, and an elderly art collector. Be sure to watch all three episodes from start to finish— this is not a film that can be experienced in part.
Australia: Simryn Gill (1959), lives and works in Sydney and Port Dickinson
In Here Art Grows on Trees, Simryn Gill transformed the Australian Pavilion by removing the roof and challenging the notion of art as a commodity by leaving her sensitive works completely open to the elements for the duration of the exhibition. According to the curator Catherine de Zegher, Gill creates a “space of negotiation between the small and the global… as it reveals an understanding of all the world in flux.” Look out for Let Go, Lets Go, 2013, a monumental collage made from torn words from books pasted on 12 paper and wood panels.