Exploring Dreams and Conflicts

Now half a century old the famous Venice Biennale weaves into the city in full force

The opening of Venice's 50th International Art Exhibition Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer began with a heat wave and hundreds of people who flocked from around the globe to absorb the immensity of works representing the contemporary art world from the four corners of the globe.
Directed by Francesco Bonami, the biennale is found throughout the Arsenale, Giardini della Biennale, the Museo Correr in San Marco square and various projects within the city of Venice.
Vaporetto #1 is the most popular vaporetto that takes you to the Arsenale or Giardini stop to start the crusade. However, leaving from any of those stops turns out to be a nightmare. The tourists entering by the Uscita to get on the vaporetto home outrage residents on their way. Italians are screaming "Rules are made for everyone and you should wait in line like the rest of these humans."
Bonami's intent to show an "exhibition of exhibitions" has brought in a lot of emptiness and metres of work that if best get a one-second side glance. The idea to sprawl and take over various Venice structures and filling it with contemporary art is tantalizing, however the long voyage in the Biennale's historical spots at the Arsenale and the Giardini, are disappointing this year. Instead some of the best works are found in the various churches or buildings within Venice and the Guidecca.
The Giardini is host to the majority of country pavilions. Performances are occuring on the trails, and even prior to entering. The curated exhibits at the Giardini include "Delays and Revolutions" in the Italian Pavilion by Bonami and Daniel
Birnbaum. It is the pavilion that always has interesting works to offer. Also in the Giardini is The Zone by Massimiliano Gioni.
The Arsenale features Clandestine by Bonami, Fault Lines by Gilane Tawadros, Individual Systems by Igor Zabel, Z.O.U by Hou Hanru, The Structure of Survival by Carlos Basualdo, Contemporary Arab Representations by Catherine David, The Everyday Altered by Gabriel Orozco and Utopia Station by Molly Nesbit, Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Bonami also curated Pittura/Painting at the Museo Correr that is one of the few painting exhibits that is worth seeing. Here the paintings represent artists who have previously exhibited at the Biennale. Beginning with Robert Rauschenberg's "Kite", 1963, the rooms follow with Gerhard Richter, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, and Takashi Murakami which are some of the few artists that enchant this wonderful museum. History of art as a simple example is what the viewer gets.
Other paintings worth the watch are of course Chris Ofili in the British Pavilion that scream colour (and possibly a bit too much). Five large new paintings of red, black and green sit on two sparkly balls of elephant dung. They resonate African freedom and unity. The pavilion walls are transformed painted in hues that are typical of Ofili's work and his continued investigations.
Jana Sterbak in the Canadian Pavilion was able to cover up the ugly architecture that artists continually have to struggle with and presented something cabin-like. There is not much room for viewing the six-channel video projection that shows a journey in Northern Quebec from the view of a Jack Russel terrier, Stanley. He has been rigged with a wireless camera, which is the ingenuity within this work. Looking up from below, the film travels in a car, plays here and there, has an encounter with a porcupine, and in the end is alone. Captured from a dog's view perspective, there are some amusing moments and in the end the experience is empty, lost maybe even forgetful. Sterbak's installation "From Here to There" is maybe just simply Canadian. It is seemless and articulate, but has lost that umph that is engaged in her previous works that have been controversial.
Water, being UNESCO's international thematic this year, is also found. "Archive - endangered waters" by Rúri represents Iceland. A beautiful steel cabinet holds verticle, sliding panels. Each panel contains an image of a waterfall from glacial torrents printed on transparency film between glass. When pulled open, the action triggers an audio track of the actual water current. As more than one panel is opened at a time, the sound is layered as are the images. The sculpture is pristine and a clear databank of the fantastic sense of nature unfolds. Through technology she has made tangible the physical and strong presence of water, without losing its ephemerality.
Floor to ceiling one-inch die tiles the walls of the Polish pavilion by Stanislaw Drózdz. The spectator can participate, roll the dice on the table and try to find the matching combination. There are 46,656 combinations which are possible. It is about chance, that which confronts conflict and is inherent in the pursuit of dreams. However at the Holland Pavilion, the work is even more participant-orientated. You can actually sit down, trace a shoe design and sew it together which Carlos Amorales has created in "Flames Maquilodora".
Ironically in relation to the theme of conflicts censorship is found a mist where Venezuela decided to withdraw their official participation, their building remains dark and empty. After the first artist declined to participate, Pedro Morales was the next artist chosen. However, the Government of Venezuela censored him and his work and sent him a letter reasoning that because his work could be viewed via the internet, it was thus unnecessary to exhibit it in a permanent space. The artist then found his own way to Venice in protest of this decision and posted information about what occurred and took to a manifestation in front of the pavilion. An example that shows that art is above censorhip and that such spaces, like that in Venice, are for the freedom of speech, thinking, creativity and expression of one's ideas. To view his intended project see www.cityrooms.net.
The Arsenale is really a coin toss. Video works are unmemorable, except for Yang Zhenzhong's "Let's Puff". The video has a girl blowing in sync with the facing screen where people begin to walk faster with each exhale. However, at the very end in the final two buildings is the gem of this site. Utopia Station has well over 50 artists, architects, writers and performers participating under a structure that is flexible and open for change. There are rooms, stages and also benches where visitors can sit, ponder and reflect on what is passing, on what is there and on what is missing.
Yoko Ono's contribution is "Imagine Peace" and her and John Lennon's "Declaration of Nutopia". Nutopia being a conceptual country that has "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people." Most importantly, "All people of NUTOPIA are embassadors of the country." To further peace visitors are encouraged to stamp "PEACE" on the wallpapered world map in places that need peace. If not visiting the Biennale, you can take part in the Peace Event record by visiting www.instantkarma.com.
Utopia Station has gathered some of the most celebrated contemporary artists around including: Martha Rosler who performs with Oleanna and FLEAS, Jimmy Durham, Tacita Dean, Louise Bourgeouis, Rodney Graham, Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Bruce Mau Design and many others.
Some of the better exhibits were found off the main Biennale sites. At the baroque Church of San Staë, Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger represent Switzerland with their installation "Falling Garden". It is breathtaking while at the same time captivating an atmosphere existing in this architectural site. Hundreds of real and artificial parts of plants (seeds, blossoms, twigs, petals) are suspended. All these parts have been collected through various journeys to which end has brought a mystical experience that in a variable degree relates to this church's patron saint St. Eustace. The artists have captured space as if the viewer is walking into a film still. The natural light accents this cosmic gesture, like dust magnified and frozen. At certain points, this rain of nature collects into colourful crystal lakes. A kidney shaped bed is made in the centre of the church where visitors can lie and absorb the view. A navel in the bed reveals the only visible surface of the original floor exposing a mosaic image of skull and crossbones. In response to Dreams and Conflicts emerges the in-between space between life and death within a site whose faith looks towards paradise.
In opposition to nature, "Cosmic thing", 2001, by Damián Ortega at the Arsenale confronts the everyday mechanism of a car. A Beetle 83 is used and taken apart and suspended with wire. Each part of the vehicle is separated as if a gentle explosion has disassembled it and allowed it to be viewed from the inside out, something that no one ever really thinks of doing. This also was in response to Orozco's curatorial rules where nothing was to be hung on walls or pedestals used.
Also in the city is the Luxembourg Pavilion, which won the Golden Lion for best national participation with Su-Mei Tse's air conditioned. She presents a scene whose passage journeys through temporal space in an analogy of sound. The first small room is covered with triangular foam that physically drowns out sound and leads to the next where the sand of hourglasses ticks away. In another room is the "The Desert Sweepers". It is a video projection of a beautiful desert where individuals in Paris street sweeper uniforms are sweeping sand into a pile, proposing an endless task. The sound is harsh and echoes the gesture on the dirty asphalt of city streets. Each part of this exhibition shifts in movement and in chord. A beautiful scene of a cello player sits at the cliff of a mountain and looks onto an Alpine range in the video "echo". She plays a small riff that reverberates forward as if the echoes of the mountain continue the resonance of the soliloquy. The simple gesture extends beyond pavilion space and into the everyday: one that is repetitive and pulsates in the air. [E:r] (phonetically in French refers to air) is the sign read before exiting into the streets of Venice.
Colombian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso's "Woven Water" is in the Istituto Italo-Latino Americano on the Giudecca Island. Bleached starfish are suspended in a geometric pattern that reflects its structure and brings this commodified object off the ocean floor and into the real.
Temporal is also something that weaves through Venice. During the opening days on a lost trek through the small corridors one might have stumbled upon Canadian Max Streicher's castrated unicorn floating on the side of a hotel near Galleria Traghetto. Lit in a window front were some other inflating sculptures. These inflatables connect themselves to what we most depend on: breathing. If you missed those, his figures of nylon that are animated with air are popping up in various places throughout Europe.
Dreams and Conflicts offer a multitude of experiences under the colours of a city that painters like Canaletto have captured. Although at the end of the day some works have people murmurring that age old question "What is Art?" or "Is this Art?", the Biennale is a privileged moment to see what the world is creating in one city surrounded by what connects us all: the boundaries of water where ideas of dreams and conflicts have been launched.
Dreams and Conflicts runs until November 2, 2003 and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Giardini is closed Mondays, Arsenale closed todays and Museo Correr is open daily. If buying the two kilogram catalogue, it's a good idea to buy it before leaving the grounds. Ticket prices begin at 10 euros. For more information visit www.biennale.org.

Publication Date: 2003-06-29
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2880