Real world Biennale - Front Page - politics shake up the Venice Biennale

Art in America, May, 2003 by Marcia E. Vetrocq

Contrary to the first expectations, the first political tremor to shake the upcoming Venice Biennale [June 15-Nov. 2] did not concern the conflict in Iraq but rather the presidency of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. On Feb. 21, just weeks after being notified of his selection, Javier Tellez withdrew as one of two artists to be shown in that country's national pavilion. Digital artist Pedro Morales, also selected, will have the space to himself.

Tellez, who is Venezuelan-born but has lived in New York for 10 years, had proposed a video installation analyzing the failure of Corbusian urban planning in Caracas, specifically the 23 de Enero district, designed by Carlos Raul Villanueva in the 1950s for 50,000 inhabitants and today the poverty-stricken home for three times that number (including, it is said, members of pro-Chavez paramilitary organizations). In a Mar. 7 interview with A.i.A. about the reason for his withdrawal, Tellez cited not a fear of censorship but the dire financial straits of the arts at home under Chavez, which prevented him from accepting government funding for an inevitably costly show abroad. Convinced that a message of protest would not override the "beauty contest" aspect of presenting his work in the Carlo Scarpa-designed Venezuelan pavilion, one of the gems of the Giardini, Tellez chose to make what he termed a "statement of local significance" for Venezuelans. Within days of his announcement, he was invited to join the artists participating in a poster project as part of the "Utopia Station" section of the international exhibition.

World events were on many minds when Biennale visual arts director Francesco Bonami convened a press conference in Rome on Mar. 24 to update the art world on the roster of selected artists, the list of official "satellite" shows and changes in the program since the initial announcement last December [see "Front Page," Feb. '03]. Bonami left the door open for free political expression within the Biennale, which debuts June 15, observing that you can't turn an art exhibition into a "bubble" for esthetic experience alone. Nevertheless, the much-rumored and controversial Palestinian pavilion will not materialize, though Bethlehem-born Sandy Hilal and Alessandro Petti of Milan have been invited to collaborate on Stateless Nation, an installation about Palestinian identity. Meanwhile, "Conflict," curated by Catherine David, has morphed into the somewhat more neutrally titled "Contemporary Arab Representations." Focusing on artists and intellectuals from Lebanon and installed in the Arsenale, the show will be the third incarnation of a project launched by David in 2002 at Rotterdam's Witte de With contemporary art center, which she directs, and presented earlier this year at the BildMuseet in Umea, Sweden.

Bonami offered details of two additions to the exhibition program. A 40-year survey of international painting, to hang in the Museo Correr, will begin with the American upstart Rauschenberg's winning of the 1964 Biennale painting prize, an event which for Venice old-timers still ranks as The Day the Earth Stood Still. "Interludes," a series of 12 installations and interventions to be located on the Biennale grounds and around the city, will provide "mental intermezzi" between the theme-heavy group shows. As for the big inter-generational exhibition in the Italian pavilion, its highlights will range from a rarely seen early film by Warhol to the first work completed by Matthew Barney since the conclusion of the "Cremaster" cycle.

The program overall seems to represent a reassertion of the Italian presence within the Biennale. Reversing the trend of the last two editions, in which then-visual arts director Harald Szeemann folded Italy's national participation into the general group show, the country's five representatives in 2003 (Alessandra Ariatti, Micol Assael, Anna De Manincor, Diego Perrone and Patrick Tuttofuocco) will be presented together in a temporary structure designed by the architects of Gruppo A12 and erected in the open space in front of the U.S. pavilion. The four finalists for the Young Italian Art Prize, a national competition launched a year ago to promote contemporary expression, will be exhibiting in the Venice pavilion. And the Golden Lions for lifetime achievement will be awarded to two of Italy's own, Carol Rama and Michelangelo Pistoletto. With Richard Serra and Cy Twombly the honorees in 2001, and the 1999 Golden Lions given to Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman, you have to go back to 1997, when Emilio Vedova and Agnes Martin were honored, to find an Italian recipient of the coveted prize.