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Harald Szeemann made history in 1999 by becoming the first non-Italian to direct
the Venice Biennale. By becoming the first Biennale Director to be invited to
take responsibility for two successive years, he has again made history. Added
to this distinction, he is the first Venice Biennale Director to have previously
directed the Documenta in Kassel. Now in his 68th year, he is the unrivalled
doyen of independent exhibition curators world-wide.
Also under the aegis of a a latere, he has allowed Fabrizio Plessi to
make a dramatic and disturbing sculptural intervention in Piazza San Marco,
using the 15 windows of the Museo Correr, that afford a full frontal view of
St Mark's Basilica. Plessi has made use of computer technology to suggest that
the interior of the Museo Correr is being alternatively consumed by fire, or
deluged by cascading waterfalls. He is surely working on the deepest fears of
Venetians obliged to live in a city that must defy the elemental forces of nature
to secure the title of La Serenissima.
No Venice Biennale can be considered a failure because the city itself is a
supremely beautiful and total artwork. Harald Szeemann has a particular interest
in this phenomenon, as he proved with his 1986 exhibition in the Basel Kunst
Museum, inspired by the European obsession with the making of what, in the German
language, can be most accurately described in one word as gesumpkunstwerk.
The Biennale Committee have given him full rein to take over the Arsenale, that
part which constitutes one-fifth of the total urban space of Venice. Not content
just with that, he has encouraged the artists and the participating countries
to make use of the Grand Canal palaces, church buildings, the Fonda'cioni Levi,
the Fondazioni Scientifica in the Querini Stampalia and the Scuola Grandi San
Teodoro.
It seems impossible to avoid the Biennale as both an Italian and an international
experience. As you enter the Italian Pavilion in the Giardini di Castello, you
see a work of art by Marco Neri, which sums up the wide range of national identities
represented. It consists of the flags of all the participating countries, including
some that have long awaited recognition. You admire the fact that all three
Baltic States and the Ukraine are represented, that Haiti, Paraguay and Peru
are included because the Biennale has extended itself to the Italian-Latin American
Institute, and that Armenia is presenting 15 artists in the Monastery of San
Lazaro. You will find the flags of Taiwan and Luxembourg, but you will not find
the Scottish Saltire. How sad to think that this is the very first Biennale
to take place when Scotland has managed to define itself anew with its own Parliament
after a period of three hundred years without one, and yet it simply does not
appear within the vast array of the world's flags. There was, however, a curious
flag flying proudly in front of the British Pavilion. It was recognisable in
shape as the Union Jack, however its colours were not red, white and blue, but
those of the Republic of Ireland. This set the tone for Mark Wallinger's deeply
questioning contribution to the Biennale. As usual, the British Pavilion was
the responsibility of the British Council, and once again, as has become their
habit, they placed their confidence in one artist rather than a group.
Britain was not alone; Germany was represented by Gregor Schneider. He was
awarded the Golden Lion for the Best National Pavilion, for the way in which
he transformed the monumental architecture of the German Pavilion into a claustrophobic,
labyrinthine house. Only one person at a time could experience it, hence the
German Pavilion was among the many which caused this Biennale to be remembered
for the sight of long queues of visitors waiting remarkably patiently to view,
what were all too often, questionable video or film-based art experiences. However,
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller well deserved their special Biennale prize
for the way in which they transformed the Canadian Pavilion into a cinema where
an audience of no more than 17 experienced that disturbing moment when fiction
and reality, technological science and the physicality of the human body, intersect.
The Australian Pavilion deserved to be among these prize winners for the sensitive
relationship which Lyndal Jones created, suggesting that Sydney and Venice have
a great deal in common. The mesmeric imagery in the video installation 'Deep
Water - Aqua Profunda' makes tangible the experience of Sydney and Venice as
harbours inhabited not just by boats and shipping of all sorts, but also with
people being lulled by a timeless aquatic environment.
Of course, Joseph Beuys was missed, even though he was represented by two masterworks:
‘Olive Stones’ and ‘The End of the Twentieth Century’. However,
Cy Twombly and Richard Serra were very much in evidence, and were both awarded
Golden Lions as veterans of the post-war art world. Perhaps Mimmo Rotella, one
of the leaders of the New Realism school of Europe, should have received that
accolade, because now, at the age of 82, he represents an undimmed, forever
youthful commitment to making art in the form decollage.
There was an international programme of performing arts that commissioned works
especially for the Biennale. One was entitled 'J. Beuys Song'. Carolyn Carson,
Director of the Biennale Dance Sector, payed homage to Beuys and his concern
for the cosmos. In this homage to Beuys, there was an extraordinary choral group
who called themselves the Finnish Howlers. Beuys would surely have approved.
There was also a work by an impressive group of actor-dancers inspired by the
Venetian composer Giovanni Mancuso that focussed on the Faust legend.
The section of the Biennale that bears Harald Szeemann's unmistakable imprint
is that which he chose to call 'the Plateau of Humanity'. The idea comes from
his memories of the exhibition 'The Family of Man' which, 50 years ago, travelled
around the world. He wishes to assert the role of the artist as an appeal to
that which is eternal in mankind. For him the plateau is really a platform,
and so he has created a Platform of Thought as you enter the Italian Pavilion.
On a literally sloping platform, you can see Rodin's Le Penseur, seated,
and surrounded by naif sculptures from Africa and classical sculptures from
India and China. To commemorate the fact that 100 years ago Rodin was exhibiting
in the very same pavilion, there is another Rodin masterwork L'homme qui
march. Its positive step, according to Harald Szeemann, is towards the future
in terms of the Millennium.
Unlike the three-week long Edinburgh Festival, the Venice Biennale begins in
midsummer and ends in November. The first Biennale of the 21st century deserves
to be remembered for the life-enhancing note struck by Ramzi Mustafa, the way
that he invited visitors to rejoice in Egypt's contemporary cultural reality,
and the way in which the Jugoslav Pavilion was given over to the Montenegro
artists, Oleg Kulik and Milija Pavicevic. They related their mountainous, sea-girl
Montenegrian landscape to the wide world both in time and space. Additionally,
Leon Tarasewicz, who painted the vast expanse of the Polish Pavilion floor with
energy and exactitude proved that the act of painting is not dead.
One quarter of a million visitors will be expected as usual. It is a pity that
in search of the Biennale spirit, those who come to Britain will probably get
as far as the Tate Modern, but think twice of extending their journey northwards
to the Edinburgh Festival which has, over the last seven years, presented its
official programme without acknowledging the power of the contemporary visual
arts.
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