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If 'Humankind' were to be united in line
with the official thematics of this Biennale, it was only seemingly in the less
traditionally favoured national pavilions, a kind of unity of provincial ambition.
Eastern and western hemispherics alike were thus conjoined by a speculative
waywardness; a despondency whereby artists selected by the respective national
commissioners ritualistically examined the entrails of multimedia arts of the
previous decade.
Older figures, such as Cy Twombly, long resident in Italy himself, would still
display their accomplished works in paint, perhaps that being the new-found
medium in the sea of multi-screen videos punctutated by such troglodytic progressions
through a constructed mausolea of despondency. In ‘Mwana Kitoko’ (Beautiful
White Man) with lightly diffused paint, Luc Tuymans reveals his versatility
in the medium. Mark Wallinger's 'Threshold to the Kingdom', first shown in Liverpool,
videos passengers arriving through airport customs via sliding doors. But, as
if then to parody the idea of nationalism, Wallinger prefaces this drama at
the entry with 'Oxymoron l997’ which offers a Union Jack in Irish Republican
colours. Then Wallinger shows 'Time and Relative Dimensions in Space' his 'Tardis'
in burnished steelwork. Thus Wallinger is, in varying episodes at Venice, personalising
the individual's response to the imposed, collectivised, and problematic nationalisms
of today.
The Japanese Pavilion coyly reproduces the McDonalds logo enlarged to the scale
of billboards: this would never materialise at the Russian Pavilion. Of course,
here Leonid Sokov, like the man who fell to earth, reflects upon the paradoxes
of the totemic object in the 20th century art repository from Duchamp to Beuys.
However, this merely serves to reinforce the all-pervasive ennuie beside
the lagoon.
Well, perhaps Szeeman really had intended 'The Plateau' to provide
some defaced preamble to the Arsenale, where established players,
such as Richard Serra and Bill Viola, are allocated all the space
to which they might be accustomed, so required to confound the very
pessimism of the various national agendas at the Giardini. Also,
the great parties of D'Offay, Yves Saint Laurent, Sotheby and Guggenheim
do reflect in less than subtle ways the natural shift of gravity
at the Biennale from the Giardini – Biennale as 'tradition'
(for example the Tate Britain) to Arsenale (for example the Tate
Modern).
Yet uniquely amongst Biennalia, it is the physical sense of place
in Venice that prompts such deviations on the 'national' fringe,
while the Arsenale proffers a life-giving transfusion of energy
without which the Plateau of Humankind, perceptually at least, would
be seen as a doomed flood plain. Yet we can relate to Estonia's
'Licked Room', ponderously revealing a tall female licking every
square centimetre of the pavilion, even if its dating would seem
to be circa l986. Germany had allowed Gregor Schneider to construct
a restrictive domestic enclosure that deliberately restricted the
experience to one-person-at-a -time capacity, both impractical and
banal. Trekking on through the 'Plateau of Humankind' now seems
a race against time: forced away from the national pavilions a full
itinerary was timed to take some three days, copious supplies of
acqua minerale, bedding, spare trainers, and whatever else.
But, Bill Viola's 'Surrender' is at hand, defining love of humankind
– a commodity not readily discernible elsewhere on the circuit
– defining human love with sublime beauty by means of counterposing
reflections in water. Yet time here is prerogative, immeasurable,
but claimed all the same. Mostly, one has only two days to give
– a week might prove more generally appropriate (if the catalogue
is also to be taken in).
Here might be a last, British chauvinism: that is to say that Mike Nelson's
Venice exposure can well promote his chances of winning the next Turner Prize.
Nelson's own sequential labyrinthine tunnel neatly upstages the work in a similar
vein by the aforesaid Gerhard Schneider. It even upstages Mark Wallinger as
the official British entry. Such are the joys of the Arsenale. When is the next
flight but one back home?
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