Since its inauguration in 1895, the idea of national representation at the Venice Biennale has gained increasing prominence. The architecture of the pavilions in the Giardini was built on the basis of national characteristics. But what role does “the national” play in contemporary art today? Can we speak of national art in the 21st century? Although the idea of national pavilions may seem anachronistic, in Venice, a city outside of time and space, everything can be negotiated and rethought.
At the 2013 Venice Biennale, some pavilions touch on this theme both in substance and form. The French and German Pavilions have decided to exchange spaces. In an attempt to reflect that the dialogue between cultures goes beyond national borders, Anri Sala, the artist representing France, is shown in the German Pavilion and the artists Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng and Dayanita Singh, curated by Susanne Gaensheimer, are exhibiting in the French Pavilion.
The Cyprus and Lithuanian Pavilions are also collaborating on a common project, curated by Raimundas Malašauskas. The project is called Oo and is not based on any pre-established concept. The curator held a competition open to Cypriot, Lithuanian and international artists and proposes a sequence-based exhibition to be presented in a modernist building close to the official spaces of the Biennale.
The transnational theme is also evident in the choice of prestigious curators from a different country than the pavilions they represent. This is the case of Jonathan Watkins in the Iraq Pavilion where he presents a collective exhibition or Udo Kittelmann in the Russian Pavilion, where he has worked with Vadim Zakharov. The Estonian Pavilion, curated by Adam Budak, shows Dénes Farkas’ project Evident in Advance, which reflects on the elusiveness of language and the impossibility of translation. Another example: Kathrin Rhomberg, the Austrian curator who in 2010 curated a magnificent Berlin Biennale based on the theme of “reality”, is responsible for the Kosovo pavilion where she has worked with Petrit Halilaj, an artist who explores the notions of reality and memory.
Continuing with this tour of Venice 2013, we highlight a pavilion that always creates expectation, the British pavilion, which features the presence of Jeremy Deller. Deller works with “the real”, often through the confrontation of different facts or situations. The Spanish Pavilion presents a project curated by Octavio Zaya with Lara Almarcegui, which is based on the investigation of the contemporary city and its modern “ruins” (wastelands, unoccupied spaces, etc.).
In the Austrian Pavilion, Mathias Poledna presents his usual interconnections between art and entertainment and the mechanisms of image creation. The micronarratives of Mladen Miljanovic are also noteworthy in the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Danish Pavilion proposes an experimental collaboration between an artist, Jesper Just, and an architecture and communication team, Project Projects.
Sarah Sze is the protagonist of the United States Pavilion. Sze modifies the architecture of the pavilion and connects the interior and exterior, by creating a sequence of installations specifically designed for the space in which she incorporates continuous jumps in scale and size.
Another interesting project is Kata Mijatovic’s Between the Sky and the Earth / Tra il cielo e la terra, at the Croatian Pavilion. It is based on a Facebook profile The Dreams Archive, in which anyone can participate by archiving their dreams, and which takes the form of an installation in the Tiziano Room of the Don Orione Artigianelli cultural centre.
The Finnish Pavilion is based on an event that occurred last year, the fall of a tree that destroyed part of the pavilion and forced its renovation. Antti Laitinen presents Falling Trees, which speaks of art and nature, exploring the unpredictability and destructive force of the event, but also its transformative impulse.
At the Argentine Pavilion, Nicola Constantino proposes four installations on the figure of Eva Perón, a woman who was many women and who also functions as a metaphor for her country.
And we end the tour with the logical expectation created by the countries that are participating for the first time in this biennial, such as the Maldives, the Bahamas, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Bahrain and, curiously, the Vatican.
[Article published in Bonart, 2013]
