I wonder what they would have thought of this year's Biennale, where the radical decision was taken to have the event managed, for the first time, by two directors? One was responsible for the programme in the Giardini and the other for the programme in the Arsenale, the two official locations of the Biennale. The appointment of these two particular directors also represented another radical change in that both are women - María de Corral and Rosa Martínez will be two unforgettable names in the history of the Biennale.
María de Corral gave her exhibition in the labyrinthine space of the Italian pavilion. The title, 'The Experience of Art', emphasises the fact that she wants the Biennale visitors to feel as if they have been invited to make a journey through the exhibition, experiencing an unfinished story, free of dogma and certainty. She wants them to regard the artists she had chosen as capable of providing a vision, rather than a point of view. It was not the exhibition of an historian and it had no linear development, focusing upon artists of different generations. The title of the exhibition clearly indicates that the visitors are being invited to experience the artists' ideas, particularly the human capacity for nostalgia when we feel a sense of loss of an unrecoverable past, and to share the artists' concerns for the misuse of power leading to violence in our present-day life. Much is made of the varied manifestations of the human body expressed by the artists. The artists' use of filmic imagery suggests that we are on the verge of having to deal with an immense archive recording our own place in recent history. The indestructibility of the act of painting is emphasised and the viewer given reassurance that mark-making with a pencil or brush can be expressed through other disciplines, such as photography and video. The visitor is invited by the artists to consider the overwhelming facts that have transformed the lives of individuals through the fast-changing cultural and economic restructuring of a post-industrial society.
At the heart of the Italian pavilion is a room devoted entirely to the films of the South African artist, William Kentridge. It is the summation of all the aspects of the Biennale that de Corral wished the visitor to consider and it provided me with my most enduring memory of the Biennale. Twenty years ago, Kentridge was inspired by his reading of Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno. He was intrigued by the attitude of an Italian writer considering Trieste in the 1920s. His account of Trieste expressed Kentridge's own experience of the 1980s in Johannesburg. Kentridge is fascinated with the imagery of shadows and how, by using jointed, torn paper figures in creating collage, he could create a kind of filmic opera with figures appearing and disappearing at speed. On entering the room, you find on all four walls an insight into the mind of an artist at work.
'Always a Little Further' is the rather more enigmatic title chosen by Rosa Martínez for her exhibition at the Arsenale. The title, like the exhibition, was inspired by the adventures of Corto Maltese, a fictional character created by the Venetian writer and cartoonist, Hugo Pratt. Corto Maltese is the personification of the romantic traveller, always independent, forever open to new adventures and unafraid of moving across frontiers, including those that separate low and high culture. It underlines the inescapable fact that Western culture has depended on an enduring series of narratives defining heroic journeys. From those of Ulysses and Don Quixote, to Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama, the journey has been celebrated in fact and fiction. Rosa Martínez believes that exhibitions can take the form of a metaphor inspired with the concept of a journey, replete with all aspects of the unexpected and the impossible. In this way, her exhibition succeeds in providing new ways in which, in global terms, even the most remote communities can find lines of communication. She was also inspired by the plays of Samuel Beckett, particularly 'Endgame' and 'Breath', so that through the exhibition she could stress her desire to see art as Beckett considered it, 'Weary of puny exploits, weary of pretending to be able, of being able, of doing a little better the same old thing, of going further along a dreary road'. Her exhibition in the cavernous spaces of the Arsenale endeavours to question all known ideas of art and direct attention towards new concepts.
Also among these new concepts is the work of the Guerrilla Girls, a group of American artists formed in New York, in 1985, to bring attention to the irrefutable fact that there is an imbalance between the male and female means of artistic expression. Humourous poster and billboard imagery alerts the visitor to the ways in which the contemporary art world deals unfairly with issues of colour and gender. Their contribution is an examination of the Biennale itself in the form of a multimedia installation entitled 'The Guerrilla Girls: Strange But True Facts About Biennale de Venezia'. It is, thus, homage to the first Venice Biennale to be directed by women.
As a result of the combined efforts of these two remarkable directors, the Venice Biennale was undoubtedly bigger and better than many I have experienced since the 1960s. The stuff and substance of art seemed to be more in evidence. Certainly, in the Italian pavilion, there seemed to be more paintings capable of making a lasting impression. It was reassuring to see a large selection of paintings by the 20th century masters, Antoni Tapies and Philip Guston, and an extraordinary suite of recent paintings by Marlene Dumas, reflecting upon the mysterious point in time that separates the living and the dead. All these artists expressed a deep compassion for the human condition. This compassion was also found in the installation of Helena Almeida in the Portuguese pavilion, located in the Scoletta dei Tiraoro in the San Stae district of the Grand Canal, a good half-hour journey by vaporetto from the Giardini. Through the use of her body, Helena Almeida makes visible an almost religious and sacramental dimension in choreographs of slow and small movements. Her work reveals the human body as a house and a home. This element of compassion was found equally in the sculpture of Ricky Swallow within the walls of my favourite pavilion in the Giardini, that of Australia. There, in the shape of exquisitely carved wooden sculptures, you could see again the human dilemma expressed clearly in the form of a memento mori, reminding us of the ineffable mystery of time passing through any human lifetime. His exquisitely carved sculptures are inspired by 17th century Dutch still life paintings that expressed the transience of life and material possessions. These artists all set their sights high upon the unchanging verities that cannot be touched by the passing fancies of artists trying overanxiously to make art that has an impact. These artists have made no recourse to the electronic machinery that has the power to seduce all too many artists, who suffer from a distinct lack of compassion and an overwhelming concern to express egocentric views of the world.
'Poles Apart' is an exhibition presented by The International Artists' Museum, in which over 70 artists were invited to make use of the clusters of wooden mooring poles that characterise the Grand Canal. Among the artists contributing to this exhibition are Conrad Atkinson, Vito Acconci, Dani Karavan, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Denes and Sonia Rolak. The Israeli curator, Doron Polak, reassured me that this intervention in the visual reality of the Grand Canal could also be considered for the Edinburgh Festival, as a follow-up to the exhibitions he and I have co-presented over the last three Edinburgh Festivals. I envisage such an exhibition in Edinburgh's recently renovated canalscapes as a means of strengthening Italo-Scottish cultural dialogue, and providing the Edinburgh Festival with the much-needed energy of the Venice Biennale.
The main concourse of the Giardini was renamed in honour of the Swiss curator, Harald Szeemann, in acknowledgment of the fact that he was not only the first non-Italian to direct the Biennale, but that he was the only Biennale director to fulfil the role in two consecutive years. Rejoicing in this, the thought struck me that we should find a way to honour the contributions made to the Biennale of other stalwarts whose absence this year was strongly felt, and who are no longer capable of illuminating the Biennale with their presence. I was thinking of the doyen of French art critics, Pierre Restany, and the inimitable Joseph Beuys, who helped set much-needed high standards in the Biennales of the 1970s and 1980s.
The French pavilion was judged to be the best because it contained an extraordinary theatrical kinetic installation by Annette Messager, updating the story of Pinocchio to give it new meaning for our troubled times. This installation was, essentially, a theatrical event in three separate stages, without actors, in which a coup de théâtre awaited those who had stood patiently to enter the pavilion in a seemingly never-ending queue.
It is surely inevitable that the British pavilion must be renamed the English pavilion and, thus, face the inescapable fact that it is now in competition with a strong contribution in the name of Scotland, in a pavilion in Campo San Rocco in the historic Dorsoduro townscape between Frari and Academia.
The Welsh pavilion was, like that of the Scots, far removed from the official locations. It was on the island of Giudecca, installed on two floors of the large brewery recently converted into fashionable housing. It presented the work of four artists under the title 'Somewhere Else'. Laura Ford's 'soft' sculptures provided new imagery of Welsh folklore, both disturbing and amusing.
The pavilion that houses the exhibition of 14 artists from Northern Ireland was located much closer to the Giardini in a building next to the Metropole Hotel. This exhibition reveals a desire to see an end to the political unrest that has plagued Northern Ireland. Over the past three Biennales, this hotel has become a place of heated debate, where the future of the Biennale is questioned in the name of a three-day symposium entitled 'The Venice Agendas'. Every year, it brings together leading lights of the international art world: a combination of art gallery and museum directors, artists, critics, students and teachers. The Venice Agendas came into being as a direct result of the sterling work of Bill Furlong, the initiator and director of the contemporary arts magazine, Audio Arts, who linked what is essentially a unique sound archive to his role as a teacher and researcher at Wimbledon School of Art. The Venice Agendas, in its fourth consecutive year, is now firmly regarded as the main forum for the interchange of ideas generated by the Biennale. This year was particularly important because previously unheard voices were raised from the world of Islam, the Balkans and the frontiers of the former Soviet empire. It is now held on the three press days leading to the opening of the Biennale. This year, on the first day, the subject for discussion was 'Neighbours in Dialogue'. On the second day, the subject was 'Beyond the Pale', chaired by that champion of Irish contemporary art, Declan McGonagle, who managed to place Derry, during the worst day of The Troubles, into an epicentre for international avant-gardism in Europe. He stimulated speakers from Israel, Lebanon and Serbia with his profound experience of promoting exhibitions and initiatives. On the third day, the symposium considered 'The Janus Face of Venice' under the chairmanship of Bill Furlong and that irrepressible, most energetic and deeply questioning art critic and commentator, Mel Gooding.
This year, for the first time, the University of Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design joined the organising committee, representing not only the Wimbledon School of Art but also the Cardiff School of Art. My contribution to the Agendas was on the last day, when I voiced my disappointment that the American pavilion had been given over to the paintings of Ed Ruscha, depicting the bland and uninspiring architecture spawned by the world of the American supermarket and mall culture. Surely events in 2005 provided the American government with the opportunity to offer their pavilion to the newly established Iraqi government, to present the work of contemporary artists from Iraq? I had also hoped that the Israeli pavilion could have presented an exhibition of Palestinian artists.
There were two pavilions that did question their function and physical reality. The Austrian pavilion caused the very external architecture of the building to become an Alpine mountainscape and the Romanian pavilion was presented as an empty space without a trace of any art, and without any apology for the fact that since the last Biennale, Romania had lost, through the death of Paul Neagu, an artist who had earned the reputation of someone who could take upon himself the mantle of Constantin Brancusi. Paul Neagu was the teacher of Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, and did more than any other Romanian artist to develop a cultural dialogue between his beloved Romania and Britain, the country in which he found refuge from the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.
Another exhibition that challenged the official British pavilion was entitled 'God is Great'. It could be regarded as complimentary to that conceived by Gilbert and George to transform every available square inch of exhibition space of the British pavilion into a celebration of the exotic low life of London's East End. 'God is Great' was aimed at a higher level, questioning the very tenets of Christian and Muslim views of the Godhead. The exhibition was housed in a school gymnasium, a less than satisfactory setting for a highly sophisticated and serious collaboration between the indefatigable octogenarian, John Latham, and two much younger artists, Anish Kapoor and Douglas Gordon. John Latham had filled a large part of the floor of the gymnasium with what, at first glance, appeared to be a sea of aquamarine ice. In fact, it was shards of broken glass, upon which 'floated' copies of the Koran and the Bible. On the ceiling and the walls were imprinted statements by Douglas Gordon considering the hand of God in the act of Creation and the immeasurable aspect of time. Anish Kapoor had strategically positioned large abstract canvases that made manifest the deepest recesses of the void of outer space, where black holes exist, to give astronomers much food for thought.
The British Council would be well advised to consider John Latham, the inspiration for this exhibition, when considering who should represent Britain in the 2007 Biennale. The exhibition was shown by the Lisson Gallery in London, which deserves praise for giving the opportunity to John Latham to present himself as the personification of the artist-scientist and an English artist whose name is deservedly linked with that of Joseph Beuys.
The Scottish contribution to the Biennale was presented in the Ludoteca, a newly renovated space in what is, in fact, a small school overlooking the Campo San Rocco in Venice. Four artists (Alex Pollard, Cathy Wilkes, Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan) were represented under the title 'Selective Memory'. The exhibition was curated by Jason E Bowman and Rachel Bradley, who selected the artists on the basis that each of them raises questions with regard to the processes of making art. Each artist was commissioned to make new work. Alex Pollard represented himself by exploring the possibilities and the limitations of making art within the confines of a studio. His working method involves taking familiar subjects and reducing them to an abstract language, and then restructuring them as fictional objects and, in so doing, questioning the efficacy of measuring tools. Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan have been working in collaboration over the past ten years to make their art emphasise the mythic dimension inherent in art. They represented themselves in Venice with an installation entitled 'A Routine Sequence of External Actions'. Cathy Wilkes drew her inspiration for her contribution from the birth of her baby and her experience of pregnancy. The Scots were given an exacting task in making their presence felt. They were in competition with a bewildering array of imagery, presenting the widest imaginable manifestation of national cultures.
There were some manifestations that provided me with experiences of the Biennale that were simply unimaginable in the Cold War world of the 1960s and 1970s. It was reassuring to see Taiwan represented with an exhibition 'The Spectre of Freedom'. It was an insightful examination of the severe limitations of human freedom from a Taiwanese point of view facing the unpredictability of the political dominance of mainland China. This exhibition gave new meaning to the business of walking along the Riva dei Schiavoni, where one could also enjoy the Moroccan pavilion that was presenting an exhibition of Moroccan artists for the first time at the Biennale. It would be impossible to imagine artists at the Biennale coming from the African shores of the Mediterranean in the 1960s, but their work seemed completely at home in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Pieta, alongside frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo, which have long enhanced its interior.
Three Baltic nations were represented and so, too, were other countries whose national identities were previously obscured under the aegis of Soviet Russia. They were in evidence with exhibitions that touched the heart because of the trials and tribulations inherent in the work of the artists who represent a struggle for cultural survival. Their contributions were in direct contrast to the sadly disappointing installation in the Russian pavilion and would be bound to arouse interest, particularly in the work of those artists currently active in Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine.
The Polish pavilion, as was to be expected, made itself prominent with a 50-minute film that transformed it into a cinema. This was the work of Artur Zmijewski. He had been strongly influenced by the experiment carried out by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in 1971, which involved a group of university student volunteers who gave themselves the conflicting roles of prisoners and guards. The experiment rapidly demonstrated the human propensity for aggression and domination and was abandoned after five days. The film, entitled 'Repetition', revealed how a similar experiment in a Polish prison brought about virtually the same results. The film shows Zmijewski's fascination with the tension caused by human beings when they release themselves from their normal social roles.
There was an expression of the cultural dialogue between Italy and the countries of Latin America, presented by the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (the Institute of Latin American Culture in Rome), in the form of an exhibition representing many countries, and bringing together artists from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic. The Uruguayan Pavilion expressed the full potential of South American culture in a most refined and thought-provoking installation by Lacy Duarte - inspired by her experiences of village life in Uruguay. It was an exhibition that brought together the strength of primitive culture with that of a most sophisticated artist.
The Venice Biennale demanded a great deal from anyone who was prepared to spend the time exploring every aspect of it. It was difficult to find time to see an exhibition of 80 paintings by Lucien Freud in the Museo Correr, and to take on board the implications of the magnificent contribution he made, which further emphasised the important role now played by Britain in the international art world, or the exhibition entitled 'Modigliani a Venezia tra Livorno e Parigi' that presented for the first time a selection of paintings and drawings relating to the literary sources of Amedeo Modigliani's journeys between his native Livorno and Paris, including the period of his life in Venice.
It was good to see Afghanistan represented along with Turkey, but sad to think that Iraq was not included - although I imagine it will be impossible for Iraq not to be invited to participate in the Biennale in 2007.
I was impressed by the special project, promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the Biennale itself, which provided a landmark of light when night fell in Venice. The work, by Italian artist, Fabrizio Plessi, grew out of the water at the main entrance of the Giardini as a monumental, 44-foot high totem of steel, rising like a rocket and giving off electronic light that fused the elemental forces of fire and water. In 1984, Plessi installed one of his electronic sculptures in my Edinburgh Gallery as a gesture of support of the Italo-Scottish cultural dialogue I was developing at that time. I wonder if I can entice him to return...? The sculpture is entitled 'Vertical Sea'. It is impossible to estimate the cost of the work, but it stands proudly as a symbol of Venice, totally committed to the power of the visual arts, unrivalled, and as an inspiration to all those cities that would like to imagine the impact of the Venice Biennale upon the lives of their citizens. The Biennale continues to be a success story, giving Venice every right to maintain its image as 'La Serenissima'.
The programme of the Venice Biennale is growing rapidly and is beginning to resemble the Edinburgh Festival, with an official, well-funded programme that competes, often unsuccessfully, with the unofficial and fringe manifestations of a globalised art world.
Richard Demarco
