The Venice Biennale Opens to Young and Old

The World’s Oldest Art Exhibition is a World of Polarities and Contrasts
 

Ah, to be young and in Venice!

              That will be the thought of thousands of curious art-lovers today as the 54th Venice Biennale, the oldest international art exhibition, opens to the public for its six-month run. To be old and at the Venice Biennale is also quite a treat, and youth and age are only the start of the four polarities that might help grasp the nature of this vast, global event set amid the canals of Venice.
              Old and young is a good polarity to start with. Every Venice Biennale has a central International Exhibit, organized by the top curator, who this year is the Swiss art historian and critic Bice Curiger. She has chosen to highlight that central exhibit with several large paintings by the sixteenth-century Venetian colorist Jacopo Tintoretto.
              If that seems far too old for a contemporary art event like the Venice Biennale, it was Curiger’s exact intention to stretch the timescale. To contrast the span of ages, she tapped the Renaissance, but she also made sure that of the 83 world artists shown in this Central Pavilion, 32 of them were born after 1975 (hence, no older than 35).
             The next great polarity in the Venice Biennale is that between patriotism and globalism. Held every two years in modern times, the biennale is organized around the official participation of nation states, whose governments (such as the U.S. State Department) sponsor their art delegations. The major states—called the 28 “settled countries”—have permanent facilities, or pavilions. Many more countries have set up national art exhibits in other districts of Venice. The patriotic participation this year is a new record: 89 countries compared to 77 in the previous biennale.
              At the same time, the Venice Biennale has a single “international” curator, the role played by Curiger. Once she had designed her Central Pavilion with its international theme—ILLUMInations—she can only encourage the national pavilions to try to harmonize with the hub. Thus, the entire Venice Biennale, aesthetically at least, might achieve a semblance of coordination. That harmony of pavilions will be for the critics to analyze over the next few months, but the intent is always there. The Venice Biennale, which has never stopped a war, at least tries to convey a spirit of art diplomacy among rival nations.
              The third polarity is how the biennale is playing two ideologies off of each other. The theme of ILLUMInations has openly pointed to the European Enlightenment as a source. Here we have unabashed Eurocentrism (especially the Western tradition of human rights, not to mention artistic academicism) taking a stand in an art world that generally gives full-throated espousal to multiculturalism and postmodernism. We’ll see what happens.
              A fourth and final polarity is art and business. Unlike the growing number of “art fairs” around the world, where buying and selling art at hard-nosed prices is the goal, the biennale is supposed to be free of commerce. Still, collectors are arriving in Venice on their yachts, as usual, and though this is no rialto or bazaar, much art will exchange hands at top prices.
              The artists know this, of course. After each biennale, a common lament by artists is how much money they lost in the sheer expenses of participating, though the prestige of being invited is considered priceless.
              Meanwhile, much of the biennale art—especially that which is conceptual—offers a criticism of capitalism. Take the American pavilion, which for this biennale has been organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
              The museum invited the Puerto Rican artist team, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, to present several large art works, all of them sculptures with elements of human performance. One is a giant pipe organ atop an ATM machine, and as visitors pull cash from the machine, the organ—which stands for capitalism and religion—groans with a Phantom of the Opera-type melody.
              The American exhibit also plays on the polarity of nationalism and internationalism. In one room of the American pavilion, Allora and Calzadillia have fabricated the airplane seats of two patriotic airlines—American and Delta—and have hired U.S. Olympic track and field team gymnasts, in patriotic US outfits, to do gymnastics over the airplane innards.
              This “mash-up” of two unrelated realities—airlines and Olympians—has an artistic message, of course: There is nothing more jingoistic than each country’s airline and Olympic team. This is all good fun, but as usual, art is saying something like: global community may be better than national pride.
              This brief look at polarities—young and old, nationalism and globalism, the Enlightenment and postmodernism, art and money—is one cursory way to grasp such a complex event as the Venice Biennale. (Imagine, there are now about 300 biennales around the world today, all children of Venice). Fortunately, the world has six months to catch up on the details of Venice—the actual works of art, which are incredibly many and varied.
              One more detail is worth noting. That is the “varnishing.”
              The Venice Biennale actually opened on Wednesday, June 1, with the “Vernissage,” the French term for varnishing. The term also means the opening preview of an art exhibition. In the old days, the salon exhibits in Paris opened when organizers put shiny varnish on all the paintings. In Venice, the Vernissage has its own shine: three days of dignitaries, celebrities, collectors, and the press corps previewing the far-flung exhibition before the masses arrive.
              The more art changes, the more it stays the same.