BackA guide to the Biennale Arte 2015
The world's grandest art event is on in Venice. Among the things to see are a three-screen film, a ladder-like chair and a room that represents the effects of global warming
Premium
There is something about Venice that makes you lose track of time. Even when it is at its most bustling, like it was last month, when the whole art world descended on it for the opening of the 56th Biennale Arte, part of the Venice Biennale. The Venice Biennale is the oldest and most haloed contemporary art exhibition in the world—the first edition was held in 1895. The biennale now also has exhibitions of architecture (Architecture Biennale), music (Biennale Musica), cinema (Venice International Film Festival), dance (Biennale Danza), theatre (Biennale Teatro) and historical archives (Biennale Library), but it is the art biennale that remains its signature.
We had arrived in the midst of it all, as we always do, for this is a pilgrimage for us. We come to see the best of global contemporary art, but equally to experience the sense of slowing down that gives Venice the name La Serenissima, The Most Serene.
So, for the first day, we abandoned all our lists of shows to see and instead whiled away our hours ambling through the narrow alleys of the city and stopping for an espresso break every time we saw a café we liked.
Only after we had adjusted to this Venetian pace of life did we head out to The Giardini, which hosts the main section of the biennale. The Giardini is a public garden created by Napoleon Bonaparte, who drained an area of marshland in order to create a park for the people of Venice. This year, the Central Pavilion at Giardini has been curated by the celebrated Nigerian-born curator and art critic Okwui Enwezor; it is titled All The World’s Futures. In this section, we lingered long at Bangladeshi artist Naeem Mohaiemen’s video installation; at New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective’s sculptures, interspersed around the gardens; at the US-born, Berlin-based Adrian Piper’s blackboard works; and at the amazing three-channel video installation of the sea by the London-based John Akomfrah.
Akomfrah shows a spectacular new three-screen film, Vertigo Sea, which combines BBC Natural History Unit’s footage of oceanic life with old footage of the barbaric whaling industry and black bodies washed up on the beach. “Flenched blubber and human corpses lie under wheeling flocks of seabirds, while pods of whales call and blow in the waves." As writer Adrian Searle fittingly said in The Guardian, “Akomfrah’s film is a pained lyric to a passing world."
Adrian Piper’s series of school blackboards that repeat the phrase “Everything will be taken away" carries not only potent, even ominous, possibilities contained in the biennale theme of All The World’s Futures, it also strings together a lot of other works at the exhibition, creating an overall context within which the audience sees the main exhibition.
“Everyone is working happily. The sun is shining all the time. It’s totally awful," says a voice while visitors recline on white sun-loungers in a dark space illuminated by a grid of blue light. Up on the screen people are dancing, joking and pretending to be killed. Enter the German pavilion and at once Hito Steyerl’s video-game motion-capture studio draws you in. The audio, in a nod to the keynote of All The World’s Futures, says: “I’m not sure where the game ends and real life begins. It turns out you are your own enemy and you have to make your way through a motion-capture studio gulag."
From the Giardini we take a water taxi down to the Piazza San Marco, a place of many wonders. There are boutique shops and designer stores, family-run hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and the spectacular Doge’s Palace that was once the home and court of the supreme authority of the Republic of Venice. The Palazzo Fortuny, an art museum, is close to San Marco and we recommend spending at least an hour to enjoy the wonderful exhibition there, titled Proportio, about the concept of proportions through the centuries. Our favourite here were two absolute black discs by Anish Kapoor and a fabulous Alberto Giacometti sculpture placed in the same room.
To end the day we arrived at the opulent St Regis Venice San Clemente Palace, tucked away on a private island in the Venetian lagoon, to celebrate Mohaiemen and Raqs Media Collective’s participation at the biennale. The evening and dinner was hosted by Dhaka, Bangladesh, based Samdani Art Foundation, which also announced the dates for the Dhaka Art Summit (5-8 February).
On our second day, we turned to the Arsenale, a massive structure that once held boats and warships. This is the second venue of the biennale and meant for large exhibitions. For us, one of the highlights this year was Katharina Grosse’s Untitled Trumpet (2015). “A marvel of sweeping, bright, spray-painted colours," writes Gregory Volk in the magazine Art In America, “mixing with objects and materials, including draped fabric, mounds of soil and aluminium parts. It’s an enveloping, transformative, even ecstatic work but with a rough streak, hinting at landslides, entropy, and environmental disaster."
Also at the Arsenale, you can see Steve McQueen’s two-channel video Ashes (2014–15). One side of the screen shows a tombstone being made; on the other is Ashes, a Grenadian boy, piloting a boat on the open sea, footage shot for a McQueen film more than a decade ago. Ashes was murdered after discovering a stash of drugs on the beach.
Architects Rupali Gupte and Prasad Shetty present a series of bizarre, hybrid objects in Transactional Objects, for instance, a tall, life-size, ladder-like chair that one has to climb to sit on and a series of miniature maquettes. Imbued with a certain sense of humour, these objects are tinged with a slight taste of what intense urbanization, redevelopment and rehabilitation can throw up.
Adrian Piper’s The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules Of The Game #1-3 has reception desk-like kiosks at which people can choose to sign contracts agreeing to live by one or more of three rules: “I will mean everything I say"; “I will do everything I say I will do"; and “I will always be too expensive to buy". The Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin will store these contracts for 100 years. Although rather far-fetched in its practicality, we liked the idea of an invitation to engage in a life-long performance of personal responsibility.
At Arsenale, which is done up in flickering lights by French artist Philippe Parreno, it’s worth your time to look past the art and marvel at the architecture, some of which dates back around 900 years.
After lunch, we made our way to the Punta della Dogana art museum, or old customs office, home to the permanent collection of French art collector and fashion baron François Pinault. This is also the triangular point where the Grand Canal meets the Giudecca Canal and is in many ways a point of convergence for most of the visitors to the biennale. The building, originally built between 1678 and 1682, was extensively renovated by architect Tadao Ando in March 2009, keeping the stuccoed brick extensions intact.
The non-profit arts organization Gujral Foundation has hosted an official collateral event at the Palazzo Benzon, and we headed there to see India’s Shilpa Gupta’s and Pakistan’s Rashid Rana’s exhibition My East Is Your West about borders and nations. We then crossed over to the other side of the Rialto Bridge—the oldest among the four that span the Grand Canal—and emerged into a market full of shoe stores and fashion boutiques.
Having spent much of our two days among the main exhibits, we slowed down on the third day and made our way to the island The Lido, where you can sit by the sea and stick your feet into the warm sand of the beach. Only after a big lunch did we seek out the shows scattered across other islands of the lagoon. We found the highlight of our day in San Lazzaro degli Armeni, where the Armenian pavilion showcased its national presentation Armenity, which, in fact, won the Golden Lion this year for the best national pavilion. Do not miss the works of Hrair Sarkissian and Haig Aivazian.
We then wandered into pavilions that we had missed seeing, including Azerbaijan’s, Iran’s and artist Graham Fagen’s work at the Scotland presentation. We then headed back to the Giardini for a short revisit.
Towards the end of the biennale’s closing hours, we found ourselves among friends and espressos, all of us talking about what we saw and felt about the show. The shows in general were all fantastic, and we really liked the main exhibition. It was criticized by some for being too large with too many artists and for being unreasonably anti-capitalist in its approach. To us, these challenges and contradictions were the very essence of what the curator was trying to say. As someone said, curating “all the world’s futures" would probably be the job of God, and not of a curator, but to see the expanse of what was attempted was extraordinary.
The Biennale Arte offers a glimpse into the minds and practices of some of the most exciting artists reflecting on our society, providing almost a snapshot of the world ensconced in its contemporaneity. It is a pleasure, and a privilege, to be among its riches. What better way to spend a week than to pause and experience the greatest works of art, in the biggest show in the world, in the most serene city of all.
TRIP PLANNER
Go: The biennale will run till 22 November. Venice is connected by stopover flights from Mumbai and Delhi. You will need a Schengen visa.
Stay: We recommend the Bauers L’Hotel, San Marco (tel. 39-041-5207022; www.bauervenezia.com) for an unforgettable Venetian experience, especially if you are in town for the biennale. Rooms start at €468 (around ₹ 33,228) for a night for double occupancy. The magnificent St Regis Venice San Clemente Palace is located on a private island, Isola di San Clemente (tel. 39-0414750111/000-8006501404; www.stregisvenice.com). Rooms start at €490.
Eat: Try handmade pasta at Trattoria Da Arturo, and the cuttlefish spaghetti at the Bistrot de Venise.
The Biennale Arte 2015, Venice, continues till 22 November.
Prateek Raja and Priyanka Raja are founder-directors of Experimenter art gallery, Kolkata.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
