The Exhibition in the Uruguay Pavilion in this year’s Biennale was created by Yamandú Canosa. The title The Empathetic House chosen by him reflects ideas and concepts that have interested him throughout his entire body of work.
Using the semiotic tools of the landscape, Canosa takes the 2019 Biennale prompt “May You Live In Interesting Times” and establishes a dialogue speaking to the uncertainty of the world today. Interested in the concepts of territory, borders, instability, and migration throughout his career, Canosa continues the tools of his previous works to create a new landscape of the world that interacts with the architecture of the Uruguayan Pavilion itself. As you enter the gallery through the South door, the North, South, East, and West walls echo the cardinal directions which is enforced by the works hung at eye level to create a strong horizon line. This interaction with the physical pavilion creates its own world underneath the constellation painted ceiling that is also echoed on the floor with iron spheres.
The Empathetic House speaks to the general instability of the global and sociopolitical reality. Canosa is interested in an increasingly complex web of language and meaning which can only be solved by opening the doors of the Empathetic House like that of a gracious host and realizing our common link in that of the horizon which exemplifies the beauty of our equality and our differences. Canosa uses iconic signs of the landscape and tries to break apart the direct connection between landscape and the idea of a specific place. He attempts to re-envision what it means to make a landscape, taking existing signs and breaking them from conventional associations, refilling them with new poetic and political meaning.
His previous works are created with very strong horizon lines that are hung on the gallery wall at the viewer’s eye level creating an idea of separation. Continuing this tradition in this year’s Biennale, Canosa opens up the conversation to hemispheric identity and the idea of the global south with dichotomic ideas such as North and South and above and below throughout his exhibition. Thinking about political borders, the instability of the world, and immigration, Canosa uses maps or rather shapes of landmasses that do not showcase the geopolitical boundaries that are imposed upon us against our will. In these works specifically, continuing ideas of above and below are portrayed with the thin connecting line of the horizon linking each individual work. The horizon is a sign to which he is molding the signifier, but instead of pointing to the line itself, he’s portraying the idea of something on the surface, but also questioning what lies beneath the viewer’s gaze.
The goal of this exhibition is to shape the way that the Dutch national identity is seen, as people of color have often been ignored as part of the national identity or their part of the narrative has been crafted in a way that was pleasing to Dutch society at the time. This statement is the first step toward the evolving national identity in that they not only does this exhibit showcasing works of people of color, they are also the topic of the works as both artists are people of color. They use varied techniques to craft their narratives, yet the message is the same – people of color have a spot within the Dutch national identity, and it is being reclaimed.
The curator of the space, Benno Tempel contributed to this message in that he created a space within the pavilion that allowed and encouraged open conversation surrounding the topic of agency and inclusion of people of color within the national identity that is being processed. Tempel is furthering the inclusion in that he is allowing a modern viewer, one who may not even be Dutch, to contribute in the discourse surrounding Dutch national identity. With the goal of providing agency to marginalized Dutch people, Remy Jungerman and Iris Kensmil approached it from differing ways. It was incredible to walk into the space and see the ways in which the portraits of powerful women of color were juxtaposed with the crafted boats and other objects within the space.
Kensmil filled the space with portraits of powerful women of color. The large portraits are foreboding, allowing the beholder to gaze up at them and feel the large presence that is not only in the pavilion space, but also in the historical context in which they participated. Alongside the painted portraits, Kensmil has two other portraits that have been drawn directly onto the pavilion walls and are fragmented with large black rectangles. These portraits are similar to that of pixels being erased from an image, allowing the beholder to ponder what this erasure means for women of color within the context of Dutch national identity both in the past and currently.
Jungerman created pieces of mixed media with the focal point of the pavilion being the three large boats that are hanging in the pavilion. On the backside of the largest boat, there are four water samples from Amsterdam, New York and Suriname. These samples are allusive to the ways in which the colonized people of Suriname were traveling and how they interacted with each place. Jungerman’s focus is on colonized and indigenous people of color and they ways that they interact with Dutch national identity thus the creation of these boats is one that speaks widely to the beholder as they symbolize social placement from merchants to enslaved people. The inclusion of the water samples is also interesting in the discourse in that all of the water was the same color, showing that no one was place is superior.
The 2019 Venice Biennale offers several exhibitions that amaze, perplex, and meaningfully interact with their audiences. Because of their variety and nuanced approaches to multiple complex topics and themes, its difficult to say what is definitively the best the Biennale has to offer. As such, this is not a declaration that these are the only pavilions that matter in this year’s offerings, but a short list of some that I found to be worth considering that have stuck with me after the excitement of the trip subsided.
Number 5: Field Hospital X (Israel)
Exhibition View, 2019, Israeli Pavilion, Giardini, Venice Biennale. Photo by Jesse Robinson. Beginning the list is the Israeli Pavilion housed in the Giardini. This exhibition was an immediate standout to me because of the way it immersed you in the space it was creating. Aya Ben Ron’s site-specific installation seeks to create a safe, clinical environment to experience the trauma that affects others. While under the guise of a hospital, a facility meant to care for the viewer as a patient, the exhibition also prompts you to care—to share the experiences described and show genuine empathy to those who suffer from sexual abuses, political displacement, and other acts of social and interpersonal violence. This exhibition demands attention at the outset as the first way the audience is meant to participate in the work is to simply take a number and wait. While few exhibitions challenge or even identify an issue with the short attention spans and impatience audience members might have for these exhibitions, Ben Ron’s work refuses to let you drop in, take a picture, and leave. As she herself says in the guise of a nurse in the Reception Area video, “care needs time.” Number 4: Lc. 15:11-32 (Russia)
Exhibition View, 2019, Russian Pavilion, Giardini, Venice Biennale. Photo by Jesse Robinson. Returning to a more traditional, visual approach to art making, the Russian Pavilion strikes a chord with me in part due to how disconnected it feels from the rest of the exhibition—a task of separation that is difficult to do in a space where such variety exists by design. The pavilion, in its simple ambition, is a response and reflection on Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son which is notably housed in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The design of the pavilion feels otherworldly–somewhat dark and foreboding—and as such is a space one can easily be immersed in. The combination of various mediums ranging from sculpture to digital media used in the response also supplies the audience with several ways to approach the work. However, that description doesn’t even begin to acknowledge the inventive lower level of the pavilion created by Alexander Shiskin-Hokusai. The design of the space pays homage to the interior of the Hermitage Museum while coloring it (somewhat literally) through the artist’s signature style of surreal, site-specific artwork, utilizing two-dimensional human figures carved on plywood and mechanized to perform an unnerving but endlessly fascinating puppet-like dance. Number 3: Lost Verses (Indonesia)
Exhibition View, 2019, Indonesian Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice Biennale. Photo by Jesse Robinson. Few things can engage people more effectively than a game, and that’s exactly what the Indonesian pavilion sets out to be. A large warehouse in the Arsenale with 400 individual glass boxes filled with items comprise the game board, and the viewer/player is tasked to answer the questions that appear on the lids of those boxes, examine what is inside, and eventually work their way to the final box to complete the game. What’s more, the game itself comes with prizes, although they are a prize with a purpose. Upon completing the game, the numbers of the boxes the players landed on can be entered into a machine to reveal the titular lost verses, which the player is called on ultimately to complete by engaging the questions and pondering on the boxes. The search for meaning and logic in the often confusing questions written on the boxes forces the player to engage abstractly and by associations made in the viewer’s own mind. This prompts an individual engagement and experience of the work that the viewer creates through their choices in the game…which allows them to have a lot of fun in the process.
Number 2: Island Weather (Philippines)
Exhibition View, 2019, Philippine Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice Biennale. Photo by Jesse Robinson. Island Weather wins its place on my list based on the experience it creates the instant you walk into its space in the Arsenale. There is something cosmic and mystical about the environment Mark Justiniani creates with his work, that is as alluring as it is terrifying. Although the audience is quickly let in on the use of light and mirrors to create the endless, repetitive chasms created on the three raised “island” platforms of the pavilion, I found myself in awe nonetheless. The wonder and terror created by the visual interpretations of infinity and endlessness are countered in the space by the familiarity of the objects behind the glass, moving the work from the intangibility of space to something much more specific and personal. Justiniani and company, in addition to the visual trickery used to create the seemingly infinite spaces of the three island, have accomplished the creation of a space that is both alien and familiar, a space of contradictions where the viewer is called upon to take off their shoes and walk along the cold glass that separates them from the islands’ abyss. How the view responds to the invitation is entirely up to them. Number 1: Altered Views (Chile)
Exhibition View, 2019, Chilean Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice Biennale. Photo by Jesse Robinson. Taking the number one spot on my list is Altered Views byVoluspa Jarpa, as curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio. In the piece, Jarpa prompts the audience to contemplate who history is written by and how “truth” is easily rewritten by those in a position of power. In the primary space of the exhibition, a self-styled “Hegemonic Museum,” the work provides visual context for how these historical truths emerge and oftentimes contradict the experience and memory of a “subaltern.” The space, while embracing the recognizable pastiche of a Euro-American museum of natural history, serves as an opposition and condemnation of such spaces and the accounts they pass to the audience as uncontested fact. With elements of archival documents and footage, historical references to phrenology and colonial ideals, sculpture, video, immersive multimedia collage (shown above)…all ultimately culminating in an opera between the subaltern and the dominant, Altered Views is daunting purely in its ambitious scale, even without considering the powerful way the exhibition works to make meaning for its audience. It offers the best example of what a Biennale exhibition is capable of, highlighting the way art and image can resonate to an audience in a way that words seldom can. In an exhibition format that is largely about experience, no other exhibition has a stronger pull.
Inci Eviner is a Turkish artist who lives and works in Istanbul. Her work centers around the subjectivity of our human bodily experiences. Beginning in drawing, her video work encompases motion by human bodies as well as moving images. Her work is interesting because it encourages viewers to consider the subjectivity of our bodies. Eviner’s work for the Pavilion of Turkey at the 58th International Art Exhibition – The Venice Biennial, We, Elsewhere aims at transporting its viewers from Venice to elsewhere.
We, Elsewhere utilizes the common techniques of Eviner’s practices but also includes architectural and sound elements. As we enter the exhibition space we are faced with a large diagonal wall which forces us to either move towards the declining side or towards the inclining side. Along these walls are projections and drawings. Following the declining side allows us to more fully see the entirety of the gallery space. A large ramp-like structure fills the majority of the space. There are metal student desks astray on the lower area of the ramp. These desks lead into other metal parts arranged so that the viewer has to move between them to ascend the ramp. From this slight incline, the ramp splits in two directions, one continues going up and the other takes a few large steps down to the floor level. Under these steps is a caged in area that visitors can not get to but is made to look like a sort of animal den. Moving images and video clips are projected on two walls, opposite and adjacent to the stairs that portray bodies distorted by editing, familiar household objects, and a cheetah all moving together.
If we continue ascending the ramp we reach a lookout spot before another set of stairs guides us down. From this look out spot, we can see the top of the ramp as well as down into a room created by the incline. The top of the ramp is covered in ceramic faces that seem to be melting into the architecture.
Looking down we see video projected onto the ground as well as one on the opposite wall. The image below shows the projection on the floor, which shows the interesting questions it raises about where our bodies belong in relationship to the art we are experiencing. This choice of placement helps us in again questioning our role as subject or witness as well as how our surrounding space can influence our behavior.
During the first few days of the Biennale, there were live performances taking place within the exhibition space. The performers, called Space Occupiers, also the same subjects as in the projected videos, moved around the space in ways that might be unconventional to the everyday viewer. Although I did not get to witness their involvement, I am curious as to how their movements and choices for where to put their bodies contributed to the narrative of subjectivity.
In contrast to previous presentations at the Biennale that have dealt with themes of identity, historical memory, and geography, public participation as a critical force in art-making will take center-stage in this year’s Singapore Pavilion exhibition. The pavilion will feature work by Singaporean artist Song-Ming Ang, commissioned by Rosa Daniel, Chief Executive Officer of Singapore’s National Arts Council (NAC), and curated by Michelle Ho.
Pavilion curator Michelle Ho, curator of the 2013 Singapore Biennale and current head of the ADM Gallery at the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, and featured exhibitionist Song-Ming Ang are no strangers to collaboration(“Michelle Ho” 2019). Having worked together on ADM Gallery’s Spring 2018 exhibition Exceptions of Rule: Counterpoints to Truth it should be interesting to see what the two have in store for audiences at the 2019 Biennale.
Song-Ming Ang makes art relating to how people interact with music individually and as a society. Many of his works are based on experimental processes, sampling multimedia formats to create a multi-sensory and often participatory experience for audiences. “I see my work as a form of comparative study of art and music, from their formal aspects to their points of overlap in history.” explains Ang. More recently, Song Ming Ang’s work has focused on the tentative aspects of music and art-making such as free improvisation and audience involvement (“About” 2019).
Song-Ming Ang’s presentation at the 2019 Biennale will be titled Music For Everyone: Variations on a Theme and will be located in the Sale d’Armi building of the Arsenale. Music for Everyone: Variations on a Theme takes its title from a series of concerts organized by Singapore’s then-Ministry of Culture in the 1970s and 80s to encourage public appreciation of the arts. Ang’s presentation will span various forms of medium, drawing from experimental music practices and the spirit of amateurism to establish an antithesis to the state-driven vision of Music for Everyone.
The main work for the exhibition is a video installation Recorder Rewrite which looks at the recorder, a European instrument originating from the Middle Ages that has shaped Singapore’s music education since the 1970s. One theme Song-Ming Ang aims to explore through this newest work is whether or not the instrument is/has become uniquely Singaporean as it has disseminated through the nation’s history and cultural practices. “One thing that might help us with the definition is not just to think about how we define things but the perspectives we adopt when we look at things. In other words, we have to be open and accept there are competing definitions.” (“Song-Ming Ang, Venice Biennale Artist” 2018). Other components of the 2019 Singapore Pavilion are said to include developments of Ang’s earlier works such as You and I, in which Ang compiled and mailed out personalized CD-R mix-tapes as a response to anyone who wrote him letters (“Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale” 2019).
No stranger to exploring our encounters with music, and music-making through art, audiences should be on the lookout for when visiting the Singapore Pavilion at the 2019 Biennale.
Venice Biennale 