The Art Newspaper

Newcomers make their mark at Venice

A record 89 nations have official pavilions with four, including Bangladesh and Haiti, making their debut

By Gareth Harris and Charlotte Burns. Web only
Published online: 03 June 2011

Haitian artist Jean Hérard Celeur's "The Three Horse of the Apocalypse", 2004 is on view in "Death and Fertility"

VENICE. Four newcomers are among the record 89 national participants at this year’s Venice Biennale with Andorra, Bangladesh, Haiti and Saudi Arabia showing for the first time, while a number of nations have returned after some past participation: Costa Rica, Cuba, India, Iraq, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Two sisters born in Mecca have created a work referring to Al-Ka’aba, the most sacred site in Islam, for Saudi Arabia’s pavilion. Writer Raja Alem and artist Shadia Alem have built a large black elliptical wall, behind which hundreds of stainless steel spheres are locked into place. They support a cube filled with pebbles used during the Hajj pilgrimage. It is “revolutionary for Saudi Arabia to invest in art and address the world this way,” said Raja, adding that it is a “good moment to create an opening”. The work aims to challenge preconceptions between east and west, said Raja, with the idea that visitors must move past the black wall of ignorance to see the complexities, and cultural similarities, that lie beyond. However, it could refer to the biennial art world pilgrimage to Venice just as much as the Hajj, say the artists.

Meanwhile, “I am hopeful that Bangladeshi art may make its mark at this year’s Biennale,” said Tayeba Begum Lipi, the commissioner of the Bangladeshi pavilion as well as one of the five artists representing the country at the biennale. The other artists showing in the pavilion are Kabir Ahmed Masum Chisty, Imran Hossain Piplu, Mahbubur Rahman and Promotesh Das Pulak. Husband-and-wife team Lipi and Rahman, leading lights of the Bangladesh scene, both fuse painting with performance art and installation.

Surprisingly, Haiti, a country still struggling after the 2010 earthquake, is represented by two projects. “Death and Fertility” is being held in two shipping containers in Riva Sette Martiri with artists Jean Hérard Celeur, André Eugène and Jean Claude Saintilus. Meanwhile, “Haiti Royaume de ce Monde” at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia features artists such as Serge André, Elodie Barthelemy, Mario Benjamin and Maxence Denis. Leah Gordon, the deputy curator of “Death and Fertility”, said: “I think that the work of Atis-Rezistans [a Haitian art collective] is very challenging, and for some shocking, as it deals with sex and death, Eros and Thanatos, through the lens of Vodou, poverty and social exclusion.”

Of the returning nations, Ranjit Hoskote, the curator of the Indian pavilion, said: “Three artists – Zarina Hashmi, Praneet Soi and Gigi Scaria—and a collective [The Desire Machine Collective] have been brought together in a pavilion that I’ve titled ‘Everyone Agrees: It’s About to Explode’. This pavilion is meant to serve as a laboratory, testing out the meaning of cultural citizenship and what it means to be Indian today…to be a cultural producer who stretches the idea of India.” Hoskote added: “The trajectory I sketch out is distinct from the course of contemporary Indian art as it has been presented during the past decade, through the art market and through the periodic exhibitions of Indian art curated by colleagues based in western Europe, East Asia and North America.” While India has participated previously in Venice, this is the country’s first official pavilion.

As more and more nations establish pavilions in Venice—today will see the signing of an agreement for a permanent Argentine pavilion between the country’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and the biennale organisers—some people sound a note of caution. “I am not especially political but I merely note that it is interesting, at a time when the democracy of certain nations is collapsing around us, they are welcomed with open arms by the Venice Biennale,” said former biennale curator Francesco Bonami.

Sisters Raja and Shadia Alem created "The Black Arch" for Saudi Arabia’s first biennale pavilion