It begins immediately upon arrival. No sooner have you disembarked at Venice’s Marco Polo airport than you find yourself confronted by a biennale exhibition: reproductions of grand Venetian ceiling paintings decorating the floor of the passport control area and the international arrivals hall. Look at the beautiful putti while waiting for the toilet: admire the sumptuous draperies while cursing the length of time it takes for your luggage to arrive.
The work of artist Simon Denny, this installation apparently addresses “the intersection of knowledge and geography in the post-Snowden world”, and is one half of New Zealand’s official contribution to the biennale. Here’s the rub: it can only be seen by those landing in Venice from abroad. Who said this show is an exclusionary affair? Screw you Venetians and other Italian biennale visitors arriving by train!
One of the main points of the biennale is to see new art from around the world, to expand our horizons, learn about the latest cultural developments in far-flung places and feel connected to places we may never visit in person. Art truly connects the world, doesn’t it? So why is it that when the exhibition’s doors swing open for the first time on Tuesday morning, visitors head straight to the national pavilions of their own countries first? The British flock instantly to Sarah Lucas’s new sculptures in the British pavilion, the Americans head straight to Joan Jonas in the US display and the French go see Céleste-Boursier-Mougenot’s mobile, computer-controlled trees which move autonomously around the Giardini like giant versions of those round vacuum cleaners you set down on the floor which will apparently clean your home for you while you do something else.
Like an international sporting event, the biennale brings out our competitive side. Everyone wants to know how their own artists will stand up to international scrutiny and comparison. Can we feel proud of our nation’s artistic achievements this year or is it going to be one of those biennales—and every nation has had them—where we have to walk around feeling slightly embarrassed? Like when your team crashes out of the World Cup in the first round.
From a preliminary visit to some (not yet all) the national pavilions in the Giardini, the clear winner and immediate popular favourite is Japan’s magical installation of keys suspended from red thread courtesy of Chiharu Shiota. This pavilion has the crucial ingredients necessary for a successful biennale display: conceptually strong, visually appealing, no long texts to read or videos to watch. Expect to see much, much more of this artist on the international stage in the year ahead.
Meanwhile in Okwui Enwezor’s display in the Italy pavilion the contradictions of the art world are laid bare. Ladies in Louboutins stand awkwardly watching videos of violence and examining images of global unrest, poverty and conflict. Live readings of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital directed by artist Isaac Julien take place in the optimistically-sized performance space designed by David Adjaye at the heart of the Italy Pavilion (never beyond 5% full on the three occasions I visited this morning). Did Enwezor seriously think anyone would voluntarily sit through that? Or is it supposed to remain empty so that we are confronted by our own apathy as we skulk guiltily past the performers on our way to somewh ere else?
Nearby a double-screen video by Julien entitled Kapital shows the artist in conversation with the Marxist academic David Harvey. On the one hand, Julien asks us to question the role of global capitalism, yet on the other he has a major new work on display in Venice this week, a film installation entitled Stones Against Diamonds, 2015, which is being shown here courtesy of Rolls Royce in advance of the luxury car manufacturer’s presentation of the work at Art Basel in June. A demonstration, should any be needed, that artists can interrogate the nature of capital and examine the underpinnings of the corporate machine as much as they like but in the end, they need it as much as the rest of us in order to survive and prosper.