Venice Biennale National pavilions at the Arsenale and offsite

Once we had finished slogging through the national pavilions and first sections of the Viva Arte Viva at the Giardini and Viva Arte Viva at the Arsenale, we still had some 23 national pavilions at the Arsenale and what we could see of the national pavilions tucked away in palaces, apartments, and other venues around Venice. We only got to ¼ of the 32 off-site pavilions. On the way to the Arsenale from our hotel is a building that always houses one of these. This year it was Cyprus and the subject was pigment. Unfortunately, my images do not convey the subtlety of color in the nearly abstract canvases on view there, works by Polys Peslikas (b. 1973 Limossol, Cyprus, lives in Berlin and Nicosia).

Polys Peslikas

At the Arsenal, I was at first put off by the New Zealand offering of a very long panoramic animated history that started with images that reminded me of the movie “Moana,” which I had just watched on the airplane. Then as the Europeans arrived, it seemed likely to erupt in conflict, but it didn’t and we left well before the end, again our impatience with time-based art manifesting itself. In retrospect, it seemed a contemporary version of the historical painted panoramas that were popular in the 19^th century in Europe and the United States, the history gradually emerging on a very long screen.

  

The Italian pavilion was completely different from its previous two iterations, focusing on only three artists rather than the dozens we’d seen there before, and titled Il Mondo Magico, (The Magic World). One installation created a sort of tunnel of translucent material, with side passages that led to little rooms with cadaver-like sculptures on tables. At the end of the tunnel was a workshop, where the figures were supposedly made, and a wall with many figures hanging against it. It felt rather creepy, something about death, degeneration, maybe crucifixion, since some of the forms were posed as if taken from a cross. The artist’s statement, by Roberto Cuoghi (b. Modena 1973) calls it a factory for turning out devotional figures.

Roberto Cuoghi 

Another space was a large substructure, which I didn’t understand; it looked like some kind of warehouse, bare metal columns and wood. At the end was a bleacher-like set of stairs we were encouraged to climb. It was quite dark. From the top one looked back and saw that the substructure supports a reflecting pool that provides a mirror image of the vaulted roof of the building. The effect is something like an infinity pool and a bit disconcerting and pretty cool, but reminded me of other similar water illusions I’ve seen. My main memory is of my own unsteadiness going down the stairs, which must be traversed at an angle, and of some concern that the heavy water would break the substructure. The label explains that the artist, Giorgio Andreotta Calo, intended the substructure to be read as a church and the upper area to refer to something called the mundus Cereris, a mythical pit near Rome that served as a door between the underworld and heaven. The work is titled Sensa titolo (La fine del mondo)

Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Sensa titolo (La fine del mondo)

Years ago, when the Chinese first had a pavilion in the Arsenale, it was in a space filled with huge drums, a dark place with relatively narrow passageways between the drums. Creating art for that space was an interesting challenge. Now all but one of the drums (symbolic of the past, I assume) are gone and the pavilion is light and spacious with white walls. And the art seems more ordinary as a result. Several artists were included and it was not very easy to distinguish who had done which objects. The guide indicates that the pavilion combines folk crafts with contemporary artists. There was an investigation by Wang Tianwen of the concept of shadow puppets, including very intricately cut sculptural forms suspended from the ceiling - one of these was also on view outside the gallery - plus shadow puppet contraptions. Large videos, I think by Tang Nannan, of things happening in the sea caught my attention. I never really figured out what they were about but found the scale of the images memorable.

Wang Tianwen

Tang Nannan video, showing scale

We used to hunt for the Mexico pavilion when it was located in a palace or church somewhere in Venice. For the past couple of Biennales, Mexico has had a relatively small space in the Arsenale and its offerings have been less intriguing to us. Perhaps the act of hunting for the pavilion increased its previous interest. In this case Carlos Amorales had created his own alphabet in order to tell a story of the lynching of an immigrant in Mexico. At least that’s what the label says. I was unable to make anything of the letters, so the label seemed to define the conceptual artwork.

Speaking of immigration, a video of Alec Baldwin and Julianne Moore caught my attention for a surprisingly long time. Eventually I ascertained that they were speaking the first-person experiences of various migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and I was surprised that my response to their reports of the experiences were more moving to me than the reports given by the actual immigrants, which appeared on videos in the next room. It’s mortifying but informative to realize how one responds to “the other,” as opposed to one’s “own kind.”  Titled “Love Story,” by Candice Breitz, (b. Johannesburg, 1972), it was an extremely effective work of political art, at the South Africa Pavilion, in the Arsenale.

Julianne Moore in "Love Story" by Candice Breitz

      Not far from Piazza San Marco were a small group of particularly effective spaces, in various parts of a small palazzo. In the palazzo courtyard, the path to the Mongolian Pavilion was lined with birds, cranes, actually, bronze sculptures cast as if from rifles by Chimeddorj Shagdarjav (b. 1954).  The flock, I Am a Bird, increases inside the pavilion, for a total of 60.  Cranes represent happiness and eternal youth in Asia, and the concept of the beautiful and graceful birds suggests an alternative to guns. Another Mongolian sculptural project, Karma of Eating, by Munkkh Munkhbolor-Ganbold (b. 1983)  is a kind of shamanistic gathering of the skulls of a few of the millions of animals that died in exceptionally cold winters and droughts in 2010, a disaster exacerbated by the overbreeding of goats for the cashmere business. The other three projects also address environmental degradation and exploitation.

Chimeddorj Shagdarjav, I Am a Bird

Munkkh Munkhbolor-Ganbold,  Karma of Eating

Nearby, the Mauritius pavilion proclaimed a dialogue among international artists, including work by Robert Rauschenberg, on the principle that it recreated the Edenic unity of the prehistoric Gondwanaland, one of the prehistoric supercontinents, which contained most of the southern hemisphere land mass. Traces of the continent were recently found under Mauritius. The Rauschenbergs were wonderful, better than much of the recent Rauschenberg retrospective at the Tate and MOMA. Of the other artists, I was most struck by the day-glo abstract utopian visions of SEO (b. Gwangju, Korea, 1977).

One of my very favorite pavilions was that of Andorra. Titled Murmuri, and by the ceramicist Eve Ariza, the room had black walls covered with hundreds of ceramic vessels ranging in color from black through brown and cream. The attendant explained that the vessels were the colors of human skin and that each of the vessels makes a sound if you listen quietly, i.e. they murmur, as the title suggests. Looking more closely, the bowls are crimped at the bottom, making a form that suggests lips. If I had one pavilion to recommend in Venice, this would be it.

Murmuri, detail