Venice Biennale, Collateral Exhibition from Ukraine

Going through my photographs, trying to get organized, I found the image of another work by Wilfredo Prieto, the subject of the Cuba Pavilion. This was in a special pavilion from Ukraine - not the Ukraine Pavilion - sponsored by the Viktor Pinchuck Foundation and housed in the Palazzo Contarini Polignac in the Dorsoduro district.  The exhibition is titled "Daring to Dream in a World of Constant Fear," and the blurb for the show characterizes the works not as specifically relating to Ukraine and the war there, but more universal: "We are at a crucial moment where the future is hidden while fundamental changes are on the horizon."

The Wilfredo Prieto, which amused me at first, is Untitled (Globe of the World), 2002 (Collection of Jesus Villasante) and consists of a dried chickpea drawn with an ink map of the world, attached to a yellow/gold wall.  This small-world image first reminded me of all the artist miniaturizations that have amazed viewers for centuries, but the chickpea, a grain that is common virtually throughout the world, can refer to both the universal need for food and to globalization in a world of global warming.

A few other works in this large exhibition caught my interest. Yarema Malaschuk and Roman Khimei, You Shouldn't Have to See This, 2024 is a group of six videos of children sleeping. They are among the estimated

20,000 to one million Ukrainian children who have been deported to Russia during the war, and among the few who have been  able to return. 

Yana Kononova's Izyum Forest, 2022 is one long composite black and white photograph of the exhumation process of mass graves found in the city of Izyum after the Russians were driven out. Most of the dead were civilians and there was evidence of torture.

In the articles about the Biennale, I remembered the image of Fatma Bucak's Damascus Rose, 2016 ongoing, a pile of soil with green plants emerging from it, somehow a hopeful image. The artist acquired Damascus rose cuttines from Syria (where they are a symbol of the threatened city of Damascus), grafts them onto other rose plants, and plants the seedlings in other countries, as in Venice. If they survive, the plants remain in the country of the exhibition  Apparently, in Venice they didn't.

Toward the end of the exhibition, there's a large room with blossoms strewn across the floor. This installation is by Allora and Calzadilla, artists based in Puerto Rico who represented the United States in the 2011 Venice Biennale and had shown in the Biennale exhibition earlier. I remember getting money from the musical cash machine in that installation. 

The blossoms are actually made of handpainted recycled polyvinyl chloride, depicted in various stages of decomposition. The flowers depicted are from the Baobab tree, which is sacred in Africa, and called 'the Tree of Life," because it can sustain entire ecosystems. The trees can live up to 2000 years but apparently 9 of the oldest and largest 13 trees have perished due to climate change. The flowers also trace colonial trade routes that brought the trees from Africa to the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent.  Visitors are encouraged to walk carefully through the installation, which I did. 

This last installation, with its multiple elements of lovely but low value items and colonial ramifications, seemed related in meaning to the Venetian beads of the Canada pavilion I described earlier. Similarly, connections across the multiple venues in Venice make a full explanation of the richness of the experience there difficult to transmit. One never knows which venue will offer some new revelation.

The online description of the exhibition offers photographs and discussion of all the various offerings there.