Venice Biennale 2019

«The title of this Exhibition could be interpreted as a sort of curse – stated President Paolo Baratta - where the expression “interesting times” evokes the idea of challenging or even “menacing” times, but it could also simply be an invitation to always see and consider the course of human events in their complexity, an invitation, thus, that appears to be particularly important in times when, too often, oversimplification seems to prevail, generated by conformism or fear. And I believe that an exhibition of art is worth our attention, first and foremost, if it intends to present us with art and artists as a decisive challenge to all oversimplifying attitudes.»

The monumental sculpture Building Bridges was installed in a basin adjacent to the entrance of the Arsenale, in the Castello District of Venice. Building Bridges is composed of six pairs of monumental hands 15 metres high and 20 metres wide – individually titled ‘Help’, ‘Love’, ‘Friendship’, ‘Faith’, ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Hope’. The installation engages with the history of Venice as a meeting point of international history and culture.

The joining of hands symbolises our commonality, what we share and our ability to unite with an emphasis on bridging differences in all aspects of life – geographically, spiritually, philosophically, culturally and emotionally. The hands suggest a need for contact beyond self-interest, striving for human collaboration and unity. Quinn uses them to communicate complex emotions through a lexicon of gestures and touch, reflecting an ethos of connection and exchange through the language of art.

By using the Arsenale as a site for installation, the work also draws a connection to the city’s history as one of the greatest trading powers in Europe, the Western end of the Silk Road trade route and a huge naval authority. Its position today as a World Heritage City attracting tourists from all nations continues Venice’s history as a meeting point of culture, and aligns with Quinn’s message of world unity.

The Japan Pavilion - Cosmo-Eggs

The Japan Pavilion, designed by Takamasa Yoshizaka, takes on a structure comprising a square floor plan and a skylight in the central roof, a hole in the floor, and four columns spirally arranged along its periphery, bringing to mind Le Corbusier’s “Museum of Unlimited Growth.” Architect Fuminori Nousaku interprets the various elements of this architecture, linking together the collection of works across different genres, and developing a reciprocal relationship between them and the architectural space to create a unified spatial experience.

The title Cosmo-Eggs is derived from the various myths throughout the world concerning the birth of humans and non-human existences from the Cosmic-Egg. Toshiaki Ishikura, an anthropologist who specializes in comparative mythology, references local beliefs, mythology, and folklore related to tsunami in various parts of Asia such as the Ryukyu region and Taiwan to develop a new mythological allegory that reconsiders the relationship between humans and nature.

The starting point of this exhibition: The  tsunami boulder artist Motoyuki Shitamichi came across in the Miyako Islands and Yaeyama Islands in Okinawa, which he has continued to photograph over the past several years. These large natural boulders have been washed ashore from beneath the ocean. While they exist within close proximity to everyday human life, some become home to new plant life and colonies for migratory birds.

Cosmo-Eggs. The collaboration between an artist, a composer, an anthropologist, and an architect aims to create a platform from which to consider the ecology where humans and non-humans coexist, as well as questions of where and how we can survive within our world. Four instances of video footage filmed by Motoyuki Shitamichi that capture ‘tsunami boulders’ washed ashore from beneath the ocean are accompanied by Taro Yasuno’s composition, reminiscent of a bird song consisting of automated sounds performed on recorder flutes, and allegories developed by Toshiaki Ishikura in reference to various local beliefs and folklore related to the tsunami. Fuminori Nousaku was inspired by the architecture of the Japan Pavilion, linking together images, music, and texts to create a unified spatial experience.

A long time ago, sun and moon descended to earth and laid a single egg. A snake came and swallowed the egg, and so sun and moon visited earth once more to leave behind three eggs that they hid: one inside earth, one inside stone, and one inside bamboo. The eggs soon hatched, and born were the ancestors of three islands. Once grown up, they each built a small boat and travelled to different islands: one in the East, one in the West, and one in the North. The tribes of these islands visited each other by boat, and despite occasional fights, they overcame pestilence and poor harvests to live in peace for a long time. Each island passed down its own language, its own music, its own traditions, its own festivals. They each possessed the power to speak with the animals: the earth tribe spoke with the worms and the insects, the stone tribe with the snakes, and the bamboo tribe with the birds.

The installation is made up of video works by artist Motoyuki Shitamichi, music by composer Taro Yasuno, a new mythological story by anthropologist Toshiaki Ishikura, and scenography designed by architect Fuminori Nosaku.
At times the video, music, text, and space as a whole come together in harmonious resonance, and conversely, there are moments of dissonance when everything conflicts and fiercely clashes against one another. Through a “collaboration” that opens up a place for continuous generation and change utilizing overlaying heterogeneous creations by individuals of different areas of expertise, the exhibition serves to question the ecology of symbiosis and coexistence.

Sun Yuan + Peng Yu's 'can't help myself'

The artist couple Sun Yuan and Peng Yu started their collaboration in 2000. In 2009, they created the installation Sun Yuan Peng Yu, a self-portrait describing the relationship and dynamic of their artistic alliance. A recurring smoke circle was persistently dispersed by a broom powered by a mechanical arm that kept on sweeping in the air; the smoke would persistently reappear, only to be dissolved when the broom hit again. For Sun and Peng, the moment of encounter between the two components – and the dissolving of one by the other – symbolised a moment of joint artistic creation in their way of working. Nearly all of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s installations are bent on soliciting wonders and tension from spectators. The act of looking, sometimes peeking, on the part of audience members is a constitutive element of their recent works, which often involve the staging of intimidating spectacles.

An impressive installation featuring an anthropomorphic industrial robot programmed to execute 32 complex movements inspired by those of human beings. The machine moves nimbly within its fenced room, revolves, and extends its arm to check and collect obsessively a red fluid continuously flowing on the floor away from it; for the artists, the liquid is a metaphor of the art that refuses to be classified and pigeonholed. The work was originally created for the exhibition “Tales of Our Time” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The Lithuanian Pavillion: Sun & Sea

This year the golden lion for the best national pavilon was given to Lithuania for the opera performance Sun & Sea (Marina). The artist trio Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte chose to present an opera performance in their pavilion in the middle of an artificial beach. Their highly acclaimed work criticizes excessive consumption and mass tourism, which threaten climate change and the extinction of species. 

The Lithuanian pavilion was transformed into an artificial beach where more than 20 participants and singers will bring a contemporary opera performance. This will certainly be one of the most captivating pavilions of the 2019 Art Biennale. From the mezzanine gallery, you will observe the vacationers in colourful bathing suits lying on their towels on the beach. Throughout the performance, characters begin telling and singing (whilst lying down) their stories and preoccupations. The topics range from trivial concerns about sunburn and plans for future vacations to some of the most pressing issues of our times such as fears of environmental catastrophe.

The cast of vacationers varies for every performance so each session will be a unique experience. You could therefore watch it several times and still be surprised. The best part is that you can even take part in it. The team is looking for people of every age, gender and race to become vacationers under their artificial sun and to experience the artwork from the inside. The only requirement is that you lounge on the beach for at least 3 consecutive hours. This is your chance to participate (and not just visit) to the Art Biennale in Venice!

The 3 female artists pay special attention to the relationship between documentary and fiction, reality and poetry as well as the overlap between theatre, music and visual arts. Their first contemporary opera, Have a Good Day!, won six international awards in Europe, and it has been performed in more than twenty festivals. It is still touring worldwide, so if you like the one in Venice (or you won’t be able to see it), you might want to check if it’s coming to a location near you.

The Lithuanian Pavilion received the Golden Lion of the Biennale Arte 2019 so it’s certainly worth a visit. The motivation of the jury mentioned “the experimental spirit of the Pavilion and its unexpected treatment of national representation. The jury was impressed with the inventive use of the venue to present a Brechtian opera as well as the Pavilion’s engagement with the city of Venice and its inhabitants. Sun & Sea (Marina) is a critique of leisure and of our times as sung by a cast of performers and volunteers portraying everyday people.”

The Brazilian Pavillion: Swinguerra

Swinguerra takes its title from swingueira, a popular dance movement in the north-east of Brazil, fused with the word guerra, meaning war. Wagner & de Burca’s work focuses on the powerful expressions of popular culture in contemporary Brazil, and their complex relationship with international and local traditions. Swinguerra provides a deep and empathic view of contemporary Brazilian culture at a time of significant political and social tension. In common with their former films, the artists work alongside their subjects in a horizontal and respectful relationship, sharing an understanding of the complexities of contemporary self-representation and awareness.

The Brazilian pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice resonates like a paean, a war mantra, Swinguerra, danced to collective choreography, by bodies and faces without gender or origin, shining, semi-dressed bodies, barefoot on the sand, feet that interpret the anaerobic rythmns of swingueire, brega funk, and passinhos de maloca.

The grass-roots dance schools Cia. Extremo, Grupo La Màfia and Bonde do Passinho/As do Passinho S.A from the Recife suburbs, pay tribute to the flag, to the foundational “Ordem e Progresso”, giants moving against a stasis which no longer represents the identity of Brazil. The film, projected specularly on two screens in the pavilion in the Giardini, uses music and dance as ritualistic backdrops that drive the dancers to exploit the beats to arm every movement, to shout phrases that at times assume a poetic structure and at times, instead, remain dialectic expressions.

The aim of Wagner and de Burca not only weaves among the twisted, transitional and sinuously exposed bodies of the dancers, but finds the strength to enter the casual and ambiguous space of the excerpts of daily life which are shown between one choreography and another. The result of a collaborative and horizontal practice with the people represented, the film develops in a way that is never effectively documentary. “The artists present in our films are people who we know well and with whom we collaborate for the designing of scanrios”, says Barbara Wagner. “In filming, before the camera, they are themselves, because it is this kind of knowledge carried by and within the body that we seek to analyse together with them”.