Artificialis

Artificialis

contemporary art / history of art

The 60th Biennale di Venezia: Foreigners and Strangers

As already stated in our first article about the main exhibition in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, also the second part of “Foreigners Everywhere – Stranieri Ovunque” in the Arsenale gives the possibility to discover many – for the most part of the Euroamerican public – unknown artists. These “strangers” are often coming from the Global South, or they might be foreigners due to their migratory background. Moreover, there are several creatives coming from minorities like Indigenous people and Queer artists. Herewith, this years’ Biennale could be seen as an archive of, so far in the global perception, unrepresented groups and it enables a reconsideration of current history and art history in particular, which is overshadowed by centuries of political and religious colonialisation and masculine dominance.

In the following, we will make a tour through the main exhibition in the Arsenale, starting with the title giving neon by Claire Fontaine, a Refugee Astronaut and the installation of the Mataaho Collective, which was awarded the Golden Lion. The next hall features various artists from around the world with monumental works and smaller creations. Later, artists from New Zeeland, Australia and Bolivia are glancing to the colonial past of their countries, ensued by the “Disobedience Archive”“. Furthermore, artists from Angola, Palestine and Lebanon are dealing with war, fear and the healing of the thereby caused wounds. The Columbian artist Iván Argote presents a utopian Fiction around Christopher Columbus. Bouchra Khalili’s “The Mapping Journey Project” illustrates journeys from migrants to Europe. The Nucleo Storico, Italians Everywhere shows paintings and sculptures by migrated Italians in various parts of the world. Susanne Wenger’s oeuvre underlines how integration in a new culture could be. Other creatives are trying to break up traditions of their culture and US-American artists WangShui even wants to blur boundaries to activate our senses. At the end of the main exhibitions, we once more met Claire Fontaine with a multilanguage installation.

 

Warning and Reconciliation

Claire Fontaine’s title giving neon, already seen in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini, could be interpreted as a familiar welcome or a kind of warning. Here it is coloured in red, instead of green in the Giardini, which in common life often has the function of a signal colour to indicate people to pay attention. Still, Yinka Shonibare’s life size sculpture is almost overlooked by the entering crowd. First on view from the back, it might be a person carrying worldly possessions on his back. The “African” pattern on his overall could recall an African refugee at first glance. While approaching one might recognize the heavy shoes and finally the spheroidal dome helmet to identify a space suit. Shonibare’s “Refugee Astronaut VIII” (2024) is not a “usual” migrant, but someone condemned to leave his home planet. It is the British–Nigerian artist’s warning of the potential effects of inaction regarding climate change and the consequence of uninhabitability of the earth. At the same time, the refugee astronaut refers to the will to conquer world and space and the consequence of oppression and exploitation of other humans.

In contrast to this alarming scenario stands the installation “Takapau” (2022) by the Mataaho Collective in the next hall. Roof-like spans the installation of straps over the visitor. It seems to give shelter and creates an interplay of light and shadows. The weave and the title derive from traditionally finely woven mats, employed during sacred ceremonies in the Māori world, in particular for moments of transition like weddings and childbirth. Will the visitor be transformed by the following exhibition? Moreover, the used material tie-downs refer to often-overlooked labourers, who secure cargo with them. Herewith, the four Mataaho women, Terri Te Tau, Bridget Reweti, Sarah Hudson, and Erena Arapere-Baker connect the tradition of their community with the present world.

 

Artworks from around the World

After this three-dimensional installation, the exhibition turns to two-dimensional depictions. Two monumental works by Bordadoras de Isla Negra (Embroidered canvas by the Chilean artist group) and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger build a rectangle space with “smaller” depictions by Pacita Abad and paintings by Naminapu Maymuru-White. While the Australian Maymuru-White features the Maŋgalili Country from above and at the same time the stary firmament in monochrome greyshades, Abad dealt in her colourful mixed technique pictures with immigrant’s problems. In doing so, she reflects her life experience by traveling and living in many countries and continents. The Mexican artist Toranzo Jaeger not only exceeds the limits of form and size, but also of current societies. She highlights a future with queer freedom, harmony of people and nature, living in a joyful and convivial environment. Additionally, she ironies the dominant masculine authorship by her oversized signature. In doing so she occupies her place in art with her queer female position.

In return, Greta Schödl’s works appear delicate. The Austrian adopted Italian artist deals like Toranzo Jaeger with writing, but in a very different way. On partly smoothened natural stone, silk or French canvas, she unfolds her visual poetry. By repeating the name of the material like marbro (marble), granito (granite) or quarzite (quartz) highlighted with gold leave on her support, she creates vibrations. At the opposite wall are the poetic abstracted landscapes in yellow-orange shades by Emmi Whitehorse, an indigenous from the Diné tribe (United States). In between ceramics by Julia Isídres and the smaller ones by Juana Marta Rodas.

A Glance into the Colonial Past

With Brett Graham’s sculpture “Wastelands” (2024), we return to Māori art from New Zeeland. However, Graham’s pātaka (storehouse) on wheels, doesn’t have the airiness of the Mataaho Collective’s “Takapau”. The mobile storehouse bears no food and treasures, like it is traditionally used by Māori, but refers to the New Zeeland’s Waste Lands Act from 1858. Here the government declared the Māori livelihood to wasteland, in order to drain it for its agricultural use. Since the former large swamp lands were rich in eel, a precious source for the Māori, Graham covered the storehouse with these ray-finned fishes instead of the traditional ornate carvings. Herewith he wants to point to injustice during the colonial time.

Also, Marlene Gilson deals with the colonial past. With her multi-figure paintings she rewrites the Australian history, by including the Wathaurung people into historical events. Formerly unnoted, she depicts their participation in order to rewrite history and art history. In the picture showing the Eureka Stockade (1854), an uprising of gold miners, the Wathaurung people are present like in the image featuring a marked day and the daily life of her ancestors and the early European settlers in the early 1900s. In “William Buckley, Interpreter” she refers to the escaped British convict, who lived during 32 years with the aboriginal tribe.

The Bolivian photographer River Claure has a different approach. In “Warawar Wawa” (Son of the Stars), 2019 – 2020 he proposes an alternative image of themselves to the Aymara in addition to the prevalent western narrative. He photographed an adaption of the novel “The Little Prince”, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, including the contemporary Andean culture. Film still alike, many photographs have a surrealistic manner.

A User’s Guide to Disobedience

Conceived as a kind of collected memory of social resistance, the “Disobedience Archive” initiated by Marco Scotini assisted by many others, shows in hundreds of documentary videos forms of protest considering the relationship between artistic practices and political action. Since 2005, it has been presented fifteen times in different countries and it is in constant development. Installed in Venice in form of a Zoetrope, the archive functions as an atlas of contemporary resistance tactics and could be seen as a “user’s guide” to social disobedience. For the Biennale, two new sections were added. One focusses on Diaspora Activism, questioning the concept of citizenship, due to the transnational migration processes in the context of hegemonic neoliberalism. In consequence, it features the research of new ways inhabiting the world. Gender Disobedience wants to break down the dominant heterosexual binarism, pointing to critique of capitalism and the worldwide emerging LGBTQ+ movements. Due to its wide range of films, the archive is somehow an exhibition within the exhibition and the visitor has to decide which video to see. Herewith, it breaks with the linearity of the before seen works, where the spectator could stroll between the single artworks.

War, Fear and Healing

With his three interconnected works presented in the Arsenale, Kiluanji Kia Henda bridges time, space and media. Entering the hall, there is the iron sculpture “Espiral do Medo” (The Spiral of Fear) from 2022. It is the installation of used metal railings contrasted by Dana Awartani’s yellow to orange fabrics, suspended from the ceiling behind. The origine of the fences becomes perhaps a little bit clearer, looking at the photos besides: there are two connected photo series. For “The Geometric Ballad of Fear” (2015) the artist grouped nine photographs showing white painted metal railings in Angola. These lattices, typical for the Global South, introduced by the colonists, in this case by the Portuguese, were installed to protect the habitants. It was a kind of shelter in times of social disparities and particularly during the civil war in Angola, which broke out after the independence from Portugal four years before the artist’s birth. In the images, the railings resemble white grids overlayed to the pictures of the buildings. In 2019, Kia Henda applied these grits to photographs of the Sardinian landscape, but this time the nets are in black and more delicate. This second part of “The Geometric Ballad of Fear (Sardegna)” translates the Sardinians fear of what might come through the sea to them, due to the historical experience of invasions. Moreover, the introduction of the Angolan railings refers to the barriers Europe build to prevent migrants from the south to enter the continent.(1) With this knowledge, it is interesting to look back to “Espiral do Medo”, where the railings do not seem protective, but fragile and unqualified to preserve from fear. However, all this background is not revealed directly by the works. Only the comment besides them explains the intentions of the artist. Similar pieces of art from other artists might have a totally different interpretation.

In Dana Awartani’s already noticed installation “Come, Let Me Heal Your Wounds. Let Me Mend Your Broken Bones” (2024) it is similar. Without knowing title and background, it could be a beautiful assemblage of curtains. However, like Kapwani Kiwanga’s contribution to the Venice Biennale 2022, Awartani’s medically dyed silk draperies refer with its darns to the devastations in Gaza. For the Palestinian-Saudi artist, every hole stands for destruction and every reparation by her is an attempt to heal the physical and mental wounds.

At first, Omar Mismar’s mosaics seem to be traditional since they recall the aesthetic of ancient versions and inspired by them. Nevertheless, his contents are contemporary. Exemplary is “Ahmad and Akram Protecting Hercules” (2019-20), where he depicts a scenery originally taken by a mobile phone at the Ma’arra Mosaic Museum in Syria. Two men are protecting a mosaic of Hercules facing a military operation with barrel bombs in June 2015. Herewith, he points to devastations of cultural heritage in Syria provoked by looting, dispossession and bombings. Even though, the context of destruction by war is similar to Dana Awartani’s subject, the Lebanese artist has a different approach, which allows an easier access to the work. Also in other mosaics, like in “Two Unidentified Lovers in a Mirror” (2023) this becomes evident.

Utopian Fiction in Public Space

Once more, the visitor enters the subjects of colonialisation by the video “Paseo” by Iván Argote. Here, the Colombian artist features a city tour on a truck of the Madrid’s fallen Columbus statue as last farewell before leaving the town forever. It is a utopian fiction of transforming the public space and with that the perception of the public. The fallen hero of colonialisation points to the possibility that this could happen now or in the near future. And indeed, during the Biennale the statue lies in the Giardini, broken and overgrown by plants brought from the Americas, Africa and Asia in colonial times. In this decolonial narrative, Columbus becomes the victim of his own actions.

Long and complicated Journeys to Europe

Like the “Disobedience Archive”, Bouchra Khalili’s “The Mapping Journey Project” takes the space of an entire hall and obliges the visitor to choose which journey to follow. Refugees and stateless citizens from North and Eastern Africa, the Middle East and South Asia recounting their stories of how they reached Europe. The reports are illustrated by videos, projected on large scale screens with maps, where the ways are retraced by permanent marker. Additionally, these journeys are transformed into “The Constellations”, eight silkscreen prints on paper. Looking like stellar constellations, which might help to find the way in unknown regions. Following these astounding journeys, one might get an idea what people undertake to have a better life or even to save their lives and how many obstacles lay in their way.

Italian Artworks from Everywhere floating in the Room

Also, the third Nucleo Storico, Italians Everywhere situated in the Arsenale breaks with the linearity of the biggest part of the exhibition, since it employed Lina Bo Bardi’s glass easels. Originally designed for the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) in 1968, the Italian-Brazilian architect hung the artworks onto thick glass plates inserted into concrete cubes. Therefore, the pictures don’t need to be mounted on the wall, but they can freely hover in space. This allows to position them nonlinearly in the room like a forest of artworks. With these glass easels Adriano Pedrosa, the current artistic director of the MASP not only honours Lina Bo Bardi, but as intended by the architect, the paintings can be perceived without contextualisation, since the labels are attached to the back. Regarding many other of the already reviewed artworks this is remarkable, because most of them are only understandable knowing the artist’s approach by reading the labels.

Looking back to the other Nuclei Storici in the Giardini, we remarked influences of classical art-movements, beyond the historic time scale. This might also make the nonlinear presentation of the 40 Italian artists from abroad more understandable. In the 20th century, they travelled and moved to Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as to the rest of Europe and the United States, taking their original culture with them and adapting to the local cultures. There, the first or second generations of Italians continued and developed their forms of expression. Besides, the installation of the oeuvres in the famous glass easels allows the visitor to have a glance to their provenience, since authentications and lending notes are often mentioned on the back. Additionally, it becomes manifest that not only the artists travelled, but also their work, which underlines their influence on other cultures.

Living Abroad and Adapting the Culture

How living abroad affects artists and their receiving country also becomes evident in Susanne Wenger’s oeuvre, from which only one component is represented in the Arsenale. The Austrian born sculptor, painter, and graphic designer, moved to Nigeria at the age of 35. There, she familiarised with the religion of the Yoruba and finally became herself Yoruba priestess. Motivated by the reconstruction of the “Idi Baba” Shine, she initiated the renewal of the “sacred groves” in cooperation with many other artists and artisans. It is a symbiosis of architecture, sculpture, painting, spirituality, nature and art.(2) In the exhibition, there are six large-format monochrome batiks realised in in àdìrẹ ẹlẹ́kọ, a Yoruba technique of resist-dyeing. Before immersed in indigo dye, the artist painted her compositions with cassava-starch paste. The angular executed depictions of animals, mystical creatures and divine subjects cover the surface ornamental-like. They are inspired by the Yoruba cosmology. One of Susanne Wenger’s many adopted children was Sàngódáre Gbádégẹsin Àjàlá, Yoruba priest himself. He refined the wax-resist dyeing method with the result of single compositions using up to thirty-five colours. His depictions with extraordinary colouring and shading represent Yoruba ritual practice as well as everyday life.

Breaking Traditions

While Susanne Wenger revived traditions, the Chinese artist Xiyadie tries to break free from tradition and family pressure. In his early paper cuts, he depicts his difficulties accepting his homosexual desire during his heterosexual marriage, in a self-chasten manner. After his arrival in Beijing in 2005, his subjects became easier, due to the discovery of queer life in the capital. “With Don’t Worry, Mom is Spinning Thread in the Next room (A Love Scene When High School Student is at Home Writing Homework)” from 2019, his work gets even a humoristic touch.

In her first film “Pos‘ se acabó este cantar” (After the singing is over, 2021), Ana Segovia, also features homoerotism. However, while Xiyadie refers to his personal experiences, the Mexican artist critics the masculine domination and the narratives of masculinity. The close-up video is dominated by bright colours. The two performing charros (Mexican cowbays) are dressed in traditional charrería suits. Though Ana Segovia adapted her colour palette used in painting. Therefore, the charrerías are in bright colours and with that far from the traditional costumes. Herewith, she undermines established masculinity. This is underlined by the movements and the physical proximity of the protagonists. In pointing to the recurring stereotype in Mexican culture and taking it ad absurdum, she not only deprecates the role of the traditional Mexican macho but also its propagation supported by the film industry and the enduring Western influence.

Blurring the Boundaries

The almost last installation of the main exhibition in the Arsenale is “Lipid Muse” (2024) by the US-artist WangShui. It is a multi-channel video sculpture, which reminds an oversized moving, light and shadow covered reptile. This effect is obtained by interwoven LED mesh screens, though the distant contemplation does not allow to identify them. With this difficult detectable materiality, the artist wants to activate the hallucinatory states between detail and distance, transparency and opacity, knowing and unknowing.(3)

After several national pavilions in the Arsenale, the main exhibition finds its end with the installation “Foreigners Everywhere” (2024) by Claire Fontaine, already seen in the Giardini and the entry of the Arsenale. However, this time there are numerous neon scripts, suspended over the waters of the lagune and reflected by it. Furthermore, the Biennales title is translated in several languages, which are spoken in the countries where the artist collective members were born. This might underline that foreigners don’t have to stay strangers. In the best case, this could have happened also during the visit to the Biennale, and one learned about – until then – unknown artists and cultures.

1 https://www.mleuven.be/en/even-more-m/kiluanji-kia-henda-exhibiting-m (28/06/2024)
2 https://susannewengerfoundation.at/de/wolfgang-denk-ueber-susanne-wenger (04/07/2024)
3 https://www.kurimanzutto.com/artists/wangshui#tab:slideshow (04/07/2024)

The most important source has been the Website of the Venice Biennale 2024 https://www.labiennale.org/it/arte/2024 (Juin/July 2024)

Text: Astrid Gallinat
Photos © Astrid Gallinat & Stephan Goseberg