Written by Saige Gabbard

Russia has exhibited at the Venice Biennale since the first show in 1895, when several countries would share the halls of the central pavilion. After an incredibly popular exhibition in the 1907 Biennale, Russia was proposed and offer to build its own separate pavilion, which is the one we will visit in May. It was in 1914 that architect Alexey Schusev designed the building in Neo-Russian style, detailed with ancient prototypes of the national architecture.

The 2019 theme of the Russian Pavilion follows the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son: Lc. 15: 11-32. This excerpt tells the story of a wealthy family made up of father and two sons, one of which squandered all his money on vice. When the son returns home his father graciously accepts him, providing him with a feast and comfort. When his brother does not understand why he was treated this way after falling for vice, the father references his son’s rebirth from a dark way of life. This exhibition will be building off of this story in order to make a statement about living in interesting times.

The 2019 Russian Pavilion will be the first to have an institution as curator, which is The State Hermitage Museum. There is a General Director, however, Mikhail Piotrovsky. Because one of the The Hermitage Museum’s most prized masterpieces is Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son, the instillation has been designed around it. The exhibition will reference not only the story of this painting, but the techniques of 17^th-century Dutch painters and their portrayal of moralizing stories.

The Pavilion will feature an installation by Russian film director Alexander Sokurov and theater artist Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai. Sokurov became active in film in the 1970’s, and has continued producing film as recent as 2015. Some of his featured films include “The Lonely Voice of Man,” “Mother and Son,” “Alexandra,” and “Russian Ark,” which received the Golden Lion award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. One of Sokurov’s major trademarks is recording long, accurate shots of paintings in his films.

Shishkin-Hokusai takes his fame in creating figures out of plywood, utilizing simple designs and details. His figures are often placed in common social spaces, wherein which they are capable of moving around on special devices. He often creates his installations in a way to make a political statement about where they are located, or even sometimes contradicting the purpose or integrity of an area. It will be interesting to see how he utilizes the pavilion space, especially with regards to a biblical story within the context of “May You Live in Interesting Times.”

Written by Emily Hammond

Before traveling to Venice, our class was required to comment on the relevance of biennials, specifically the Venice Biennale—whether it had a place in the modern art world and if it was effective and necessary for growth in the art world. Having not yet experienced the Biennale, my inclination was to denounce it. However, upon my return to the States, I would like to revoke my initial statement and talk about the experience I had at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

First, I want to comment on the location of the Biennale. Venice is the perfect spot for such an international art exhibit. As the island, and islands of Venice are no longer a practical place for normal people to live, it is the perfect platform for exhibiting art. Being able to roam and explore freely, it is exciting to find pavilions nestled throughout the city. In addition, Venice is the site of countless historical Italian masterpieces, including architecture. As I learned from visiting many churches and alter pieces, it is obvious that Venetian artists mastered installation art centuries ago, so it only makes sense that something such as the Biennale would flourish here. Furthermore, the fact that Venice is a tourist destination, it already draws in people from all over the world. Even historically, it engaged in trade with various cultures, again indicated in its architecture.

Secondly, in this day and age, having the Biennale continue in Venice allows for a bigger discussion regarding something serious that the city faces—climate change. A city renowned for its art and international art festival—it cannot be ignored that water levels are rising, since the city can only be traveled by water or by foot. This already sets the stage for art that asks bigger questions and seeks serious change—and since the Biennale draws in a big crowd, it helps get the message out.

Lastly, I want to draw on the accessibility and diversity of the Biennale. The Biennale provided many guides and helpers eager to help you with any questions you may have. It was hard to feel ignored or overlooked in this way, which is not the way someone should feel going into such a conceptual and heavy art exhibition. The diversity of the crowd at the Biennale was also intriguing and uplifting—people were proud of their nations pavilions and blown away—or confused—by others, but experiencing all of this as a kind of artistic community. I think this is where the Biennale is the most successful—in creating a community where we all have something in common—and affinity for art and in this way, and affinity for humanity.

In conclusion, I cannot speak for all biennials, but I think that the Venice Biennale is an integral part of the contemporary art movement, and it does much more good than harm to the global community and environment. I think that its location is perfect for its mission, and having such a longstanding history, it would be devastating to the art world and biennial world if its tradition were to end.

Written by Lauren Hutson

At the 2019 Venice Biennale, Brazil was represented by artist duo Barbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca. Wagner and de Burca began collaborating in 2011; together, they produce short films that focus on Brazilian subcultures while blurring the line between the imaginary and reality. With combined education in journalism, photography, and fine arts, the two artists are interested in finding the space that imaginative art and factual documentary share. Their films follow everyday people’s realities but are framed in such a dreamy atmosphere that the unknowing viewer could believe they are scripted actors.

For the Venice Biennale, the artists created a film titled Swinguerra. A combination of swing (dance) and guerra (war), the short follows Brazilian dance groups as they prepare to battle each other in a war of style, sweat, raunch, and skill. The pavilion is divided into two rooms; the largest houses a two channel installation of the film, while the smaller room has framed images of the participating dancers. All of the featured subjects are young adults that authentically participate in these dance movements. Each dancer dawned bright fabrics, noticeable accessories, and most had bold makeup and hairstyles. Like the hybrid title suggests, these dance teams combine theatrical performance and armored battle – most noticeably in the opening scene.

Swinguerra opens with the teams, dressed uniformly, standing on the beach and saluting to an overdub of Brazil’s national motto. This classical patriotism only lasts for a few moments, however, as the majority of the film focuses on the raw rehearsals leading up to the dancers’ competition. Wagner and de Burca blend high energy scenes of sweat and determination with more down beat moments, like song changes and smoke breaks. The cohesiveness of the movements and the boldness of the dancers’ appearances create a carousel of visuals – a constant play of light, color, gesture, and sound.

A strong component of the film is its soundtrack. Swinguerra’s dancers bump and grind to traditional ballroom and club beats. Though the tunes are in Portuguese, their lyrics are captioned in English. Suggestive at best, NSFW at worst, the songs tell of sexual experimentation, partying, and embracing one’s personal and social freedom. The corresponding dances are not for the conservative among us, as there are multiple instances of twerking and pelvic thrusting. However, the film never loses its sense of humor and the dances never cross over into explicit territory. Overall, the subjects embrace a youthful, excited energy and never let their confidence waver.

Barbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca’s film captures the vibrancy of Brazil’s dancing subcultures. Swinguerra is a lighthearted but thorough exploration of Brazil’s most engaged and eccentric youth, those of whom do not often get time in the spotlight. This short highlights an underrepresented culture with excitement and flamboyance. Wagner and de Burca put a fun twist on the Biennale’s national pavilion model. The artists create a playful, high-energy environment that gives its audience a mood boost and a glance into Brazil’s creative youths all within a digestible twenty minute window.

Written by Maddie James

Biennials as a form have often been credited with the ability to spark and engage with discourse across communities from local to international stages. Leading the way in the 58^th Venice Biennale, American curator Ralph Rugoff acts as 2019’s “star curator” for the biennial’s main exhibition. In many ways, the Rugoff curated exhibition functions like any other. Comprised of wandering rooms with clearly labeled works, often accompanied by contextualizing information or relevant artist biographies, the works of art are held together by the unifying prompt, “May You Live in Interesting Times”, and kept guard by the attendants stationed in each room. It wasn’t until my final day at the Biennale that my otherwise quiet experience changed.

Looking for a specific pavilion on the map as I walked through the entrance, I was approached by an employee. He smiled, greeted me, and informed me that he, or any of the other lanyard-wearing attendants, would be happy to explain and discuss the artists’ practices. I was amazed. In the hours I spent in the Rugoff exhibition over the two previous days, I had barely made eye contact with, let alone met or spoken with anyone. Were I not a member of an organized university trip, I would have most likely made it through the entirety of the exhibition without saying a word. I began to wonder, in a platform praised for creating and nurturing discourse, to whom are these discussions accessible and who do they benefit?

Perhaps what was most disappointing was the moments of missed opportunities: Every room occupied by an attendant who seemed distant, or at times even disinterested; Every interaction with provocative works, such as Shilpa Gupta’s For, in your tongue, I cannot fit and Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Dear, which stirred reactions and glances between viewers, but never full discussions; Every opinion piece written without a comment section.

As an international exhibition attracting visitors from all around the world, this lack of discourse can be attributed to many factors such as cultural differences, language barriers, or even the sheer size of the exhibition and its visitors. These challenges, however, should not fully halt this vital component of the form. A number of solutions could be presented to such a prestigious institution, whether that be a physical space dedicated to encouraging viewers to speak to one another or a digital platform such as active engagement on social media or a moderated forum. In providing a platform for discourse, the Venice Biennale could at last link the long divides between its international participants and viewers alike.

Written by Maddie James

The 58^th Venice Biennale has proven to a memorable and historic event with the inclusion of four National Participants including Joël Andrianomearisoa representing Madagascar with his exhibition, I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE NIGHT. The artist makes sublime use of the space as the work guides the viewer through his “torn papers of love and death”. The viewer interacts with the work as they are first led deeper into its rhythmic rows before looking up at its equally engaging height before seeing the ultimate contrast of the “beyond black” against the bright, overhead lights. The work equally responds to the viewer as the angular papers gently flutter with every motion. The audio element of backwards voices provides and equalizing moment to viewers of all languages as the speaker’s tones are felt rather than understood as formal speech.

When contextualizing the pavilion, I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE NIGHT displays a clear continuity in Joël Andrianomearisoa’s work. The artist’s choice of medium and attention to texture is comparable to Andrianomearisoa’s work from the Dak’Art Biennial, THE WHITE PAGES, in which he constructs a similar tall structure from white paper. His interest in pure black additionally continues, as previously seen in Last Year in Antananarivo. Representing Madagascar as a native of Antananarivo and former student of the Institut Métiers Arts Plastiques in Paris, Andrianomearisoa choses to not directly represent Malagasy culture or the country itself and instead opens his work to encompass a wider audience. As the artist said in an interview, “Most of the time my works are dealing with emotions: melancholy, sentimental, nostalgia… the materiality of emotions. So from that there is no borders because we are all fragile and we are all emotional. For Venice the work is related to the Malagasy spirit but the representation will be international.” While this decision ultimately faced mild criticism, Andrianomearisoa presents Madagascar to the Biennale scene with his bold and thoughtful decisions.

With the great successes of the Madagascar Pavilion, however, come equal limitations. Under the current model of the Venice Biennale, older National Participants such as Great Britain, France, Japan, and Korea, among others, have constructed small buildings dedicated to their pavilions while others are kept at the Arsenale and various locations across Venice’s city-center. Placed in the Arsenale, the Madagascar Pavilion faces the challenge of sharing the room with the Albania Pavilion. Within the space, an obtrusive, blue curtain hangs to provide separation and darkness for the Eastern European country’s video art. This not only visually divides the space but the Albanian audio additionally clashes with or, at times, overpowers the audio effect of I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE NIGHT.

This experience compared to the multi-level building of the grand Russia Pavilion, or even compared to the significant space allotted for the Philippines Pavilion just one room over, raises pertinent questions concerning the form of the biennale itself: Can the Venice Biennale adequately and fairly provide an international platform on such a large scale? Or does its sheer size, and thus competition for space and attention, only further articulate the divides of established powers versus the less dominant the biennial form seeks to dismantle? What does it mean to be a newcomer to a cultural institution over 120 years old?

Nevertheless, the 58^th Venice Biennale has made significant strides for greater inclusion and diversity with the addition of four new participants. The Madagascar Pavilion serves not only to demonstrate the progress still to be made within the contemporary art world and beyond, but to invite the viewer to a universal experience regardless of nationality or language, thus capturing exactly what an international platform can be.

Written by Megan Losoncy

After researching Tamas and his work and understanding the way he communicates through his work, I was excited to see what he had in store for us at the Biennale. I read some articles prior to seeing the exhibition about what it might contain. Many sources said it would be photos and animations of old cameras that were being reimagined. In my mind, this meant he was going to take old cameras and repurpose them or refurbish them. After arriving at the exhibition, I found that I was completely wrong. Yes, it was about cameras, but it was about cameras that have never existed in the world until this exhibition. He created his own cameras made of different shapes and sizes and multiple lenses to represent a different way to view the world.

Tamas’s work speaks to the way pictures and recording have manipulated the way we see things in the world, fantasized and not reality. His creations allow for viewers to experience the world in an alternate way but through their own eyes and not being manipulated by a screen. Each lens in each camera allows for a new perspective. Although, I think this is where the exhibition fell flat. The cameras were made by Tamas (in animation and photo format), but it would have been a more effective exhibition if he had created the actual cameras. These “machines” were supposed “reveal alternative renderings of reality” (Biennale Short Guide 229). Sadly, it was nearly impossible for viewers to experience this “reality” since the cameras were merely presented in photos and not as tangible items. A photo can only say so much, but if he had tangibly created the cameras so viewers could actually experience these …hjuncameras in real life, it would have spoken to a much deeper reality. Although since we only have a photo of what these cameras “might” look like, we are still getting the sense of a “fake reality” as the cameras themselves are not real, but fantasy. However, Tamas stated that he did not wish to create a “plausible” reality, but instead call attention to the “existence of different ways of seeing”. This was not very clearly articulated throughout the exhibition. I believe an exhibition is successful if it can resonate with the viewer in their own way without being explained. This was not the case for the Hungarian exhibition. He was successful in getting the viewer to imagine what it would be like to look through these fake cameras. However, he failed to keep the viewer’s attention by not having tangible cameras for them to look through. The message was also not clear unless the viewer sat and read the entire summary of the work.

If I were to give this Pavilion a rating out of 10, I would give it a 4. It has the content and potential to be great, but the platform was not used in the most effective way.

Written by Katie Norton

The use of light in an exhibition goes beyond simply making visible the already existing
artwork. Whether the it acts as a way to move the viewers through the space or as a part of the work itself, light plays an integral role in how the viewer interacts with the work. At times, this goes as far as to encourage the viewer to engage with the work in a way that they would not otherwise.

This is an example of light moving the viewer through the exhibition by drawing them forward
through space by lighting the end of the hall more than the rooms off to the sides. Photo by Katharine Norton.

Light sometimes acts as a part of the work itself. In these, the light moved as if there were insects flying inside of the pods. Photo by Katharine Norton.

In this work, the light brings a new view to the sheets of plexiglass. In order to fully see the
form inside, the viewer had to walk around to see it from a variety of angles. Photo by Katharine Norton.

The work is lit from within and changes the way that the objects on the surface are viewed. The light passes through the natural forms in different ways and is further modified by the white fibers that were stuffed inside of some of the objects. Photo by Katharine Norton.

In this video installation, the room was a reflective white as opposed to the black box spaces
that are typical. The white changed the way that the viewer interacted with the video and the space itself. Photo by Katharine Norton.

In this piece, the subdued lighting set a specific mood for the work, but it also helped to draw
the viewers in to interact with the pages. Photo by Katharine Norton.

The use of mirrors in this piece moved the light around and bounced it back to light the
sculptures. The only source of light in the space came from the pieces themselves so the
mirrors were the only thing lighting the surfaces that didn’t produce light. Photo by Katharine Norton.

The use of mirrors and light
created the sensation of infinity.
Viewers were invited to stand on
the surface. Photo by Katharine
Norton.

The projection on the floor made it so that in order to enter the room the viewer had to pass
through it and become a part of the piece. It also changed the perspective that the work is
viewed from since it is on the floor as opposed to a wall. Photo by Katharine Norton.

The color of the synthetic hair reflected and filtered the light so that everything in the space took on the bright colors. Photo by Katharine Norton.

Performed by Jolie Hossack

A short movement response video to the exhibition, “Moving Backwards,” presented by the Pavilion of Switzerland at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2019.

Written by Charles Schmidt

Song-Ming Ang’s artwork explores the various ways people relate to music both on an individual and societal level.

Singapore’s 2019 Biennale exhibition Music for Everyone: Variations on a Theme by Song-Ming Ang references a series of music concerts organized by Singapore’s Ministry of Culture from the ‘70s and ‘80s, responding to state directives that deploy the arts as a means of nation building during the period. Ang’s film installation Recorder Rewrite and other works in the exhibition both reproduce this historical context, as well as employ manners of improvisations that provide an alternative encounter with music, drawing on principles of conceptual art and the experimentality of music-making. Through Ang’s work, audiences see a counterpoint in which the proposition of the Ministry’s Music for Everyone is expanded to include what could conceivably be created by everyone.

The pavilion’s film installation, Recorder Rewrite features a group of Singaporean children from diverse backgrounds performing a composition of their own making based on improvisation, play, and unconventional uses of the recorder. Both celebratory and an institutional critique to the state mandates Music for Everyone, Recorder Rewrite privileges spontaneity in the learning process and embrasing the chaos that emerges.

Though a development of Ang’s earlier work You and I was not present at the 2019 pavilion as expected, other works such as Music Manuscripts and Recorder Structures engage thoughtfully with Recorder Rewrite on Ang’s theme of music-making and experimentality. Poster reproductions from the Ministry of Culture’s Music for Everyone and instructional boards encouraging audiences to partake in experimental music-making provide the Singapore exhibition with hardy historical context and an unexpected call-to-action not seen in other national pavilions.

The appeal of Song-Ming Ang’s presentation at the 2019 Biennale is that it is simultaneously cutting-edge yet nostalgic, and international yet personal. Recorder Rewrite offers audiences unusual insights into Singapore’s unique history and its relationship between authoritarian and personal life on a variety of levels, through the universal concepts of music and sound in a multi-disciplinary approach. Music for Everyone: Variations on a Theme reveals how music can be playground for ideological contest, capable of accommodating state agendas while allowing for agency, ambiguity, and conflict to emerge.

By injecting elements of playfulness in his work, goers to the Singapore Pavilion will see Song-Ming Ang searches for an art that is egalitarian. A form of creation beyond state-mandated proposition and conventional understandings of high and low art – that music should be for everyone.

Written by Molly Burns

To the countries unable to participate in the 58th Venice Biennale,

You were looked for, you were missed. Biennales could be a system that allows countries to collaborate and to show pride in their nation. To communicate with countries that don’t speak the same language through art, in this creating unity across the world despite conflict and disagreeances. Biennales can be a platform to give voices to those unseen and unheard. Unfortunately this isn’t always the case, as seen through you all. Though an invitation was extended, the thought can only count so much. If you were unable to come, or in the case of Venezuela, are late because of political unrest, know that it is understood. If it is the cost, or lack of resources you speak to the notion that exhibitions, like this one, are for the one percent. To those one percent it is hard to imagine that one would turn down the opportunity of a platform as large as the Venice Biennale. I want you to know that your absences or tardiness speaks just as your art would’ve. Your platform didn’t disappear when there was no art presented. It is still present and so are you.

I apologize for the unequal playing field. I apologize it is not more widely know who was unable to present and why so. Though you are remembered and seen, and your reasons for not being in Venice this year are valid it is sad to not see what you all would’ve been able to share with the world.

It is a step in the right direction that an invitation was extended but it is not enough. You deserve the same opportunity to show what you can contribute and what your country has inspired.