La Biennale di Venezia - Viva Arte Viva

This year’s La Biennale di Venezia consists of nine trans-national pavilions or families of artists, according to themes their works of art tackle. There are for example Pavilion of Artists and Books, Pavilion of Time and Infinity and Pavilion of Shamans. I thought artworks dealing with books and writing I would find the most appealing. There were quite a number of them, all of them fascinating, but writing in itself wasn’t the most interesting part. It’s what writing does, the way it connects people, different ages in history and different cultures that got me thinking. What a small thing a person does means to the society at large, and what works of art can do to the community artists live in. The role of art changes with time. From (mostly) depicting the world we live in, through numerous mutations, it evolved into an important “ingredient” of a community.

Art is a space for reflection, individual expression and freedom. Considering this, art generates the pluralism of voices. Hassan Sharif says art is a decision. He decides when and how to work. Franz Erhard Walther does not provide instructions on how to use his work. It is up to the viewer to discover what the art in question means, what it is able to provoke in a person. In the final instance, if the artist so chooses, art is a freedom for him / her to choose not to be understood.

The biggest emphasis was put to the relationship of an individual and the community and the fact that individualism just doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did). So, art is an alternative, an important tool to build a community to counter individualism and indifference. Ernesto Neto, for example, created A Sacred Space, a collective space for rest or discussion, for playing music or meditating. Viewers are invited to enter the space, to lose themselves in it, to heal, and in the process to heal the wounds of society.

In an exhibition a viewer moves from himself to the work of art, from a familiar environment towards the unknown. This move to the unknown is an act of resistance against a closed, individual-based environment. In his work entitled Taqiya-Nor, Younes Rahmoun placed light bulbs under knitted woollen caps. The darkness of the unknown is broken by light, knowledge. Speaking of darkness … A project Influenza: theatre of glowing darkness in the Danish pavilion challenges the viewer to perceive darkness as “a positive force of healing, transformation and empowerment.” Darkness is a vast unknown, a void out of which everything is born: new ways of thinking, functioning, new communities, established on new principles. The fear of the unknown doesn’t apply anymore. Before the viewer enters the Egyptian pavilion, he reads an inscription on the wall: “Life starts when fear ends.” All that we need is a step in the right direction. After all, all big changes start with a sigle small step.

And my favourite? I don’t have a favourite. But if I had to decide, it would perhaps be Georgia. The old wooden house was transported from the Georgian countryside to Venice, together with furniture, personal belongings and whatever was found in the house. There’s nothing wrong with the house, except of one odd detail: it rains inside. The house is also a metaphor for the interior life of a person. Imagine a gloomy atmosphere of a rainy day inside of a person, a threat of never-ending greyness, and at the same time constant washing away of something. As the things in the house slowly deteriorate, something similar happens to a person, unless he decides it doesn’t.

Ernesto Neto, Sacred Space; Liliana porter, El hombre con el hacha y otras situaciones breves; Sheila Hicks, Escalade Beyond Chromatic Land; Lee Mingwei, The Mending Project; Younes Rahmoun, Taqiya-Nor, David Medalla, A Stich in Time.

Great Britain, Phyllida Barlow, folly; Hungary, Gyula Várnai, Peace on Earth; Russia, Recycle Group, Blocked Content; Venice, Luxus; Brasil, Cinthia Marcelle, Chão de caça; Japan, Takahiro Iwasaki, Turned Upside Down, It's a Forest.

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Letošnji beneški bienale vsebuje devet trans-nacionalnih paviljonov, v katere so razdeljeni umetniki glede na teme, ki jih obravnavajo. Na primer Paviljon umetnikov in knjig, Paviljon časa in neskončnosti in Paviljon šamanov. Mislila sem, da se mi bodo zdela dela, ki obravnavajo knjige in pisanje najbolj mikavna. Veliko jih je bilo in vsako po svoje fascinantno, vendar mi samo pisanje ni tako ostalo v spominu kot mi je dalo misliti kaj pisanje naredi, kako povezuje ljudi, različne čase in kulture. Kaj lahko majhna stvar, ki jo naredi človek, pomeni za skupnost, v kateri živi in kaj pomenijo umetniška dela v skupnosti. Vloga umetnosti se s časom spreminja. Od večinoma upodabljanja sveta, v katerem živimo, je preko neštetih razvojih postaj, postala pomembna sestavina družbe.

Umetnost je polje za razmišljanje, lastni izraz in svobodo. Tako prihaja do pluralizma izrazov v umetnosti. Hassan Sharif pravi, da je umetnost odločitev. Sam se bo odločil kdaj bo delal in kako. Franz Erhard Walther ne ponuja navodil kako se uporabljajo njegova dela. Gledalec sam mora odkriti kaj bi delo lahko pomenilo in kaj je sposobno vzbuditi v človeku. Na koncu pa je umetnosti tudi svoboda odločiti se, da umetnik ne bo razumljen, če tako želi.

Zdi se mi, da je bil največji poudarek razstave dan razmerju posameznika do skupnosti in dejstvu, da individualizem ne deluje več, če sploh kdaj je. Umetnost tako postane alternativa, pomembno orodje, s katerim lahko zgradimo skupnost, ki bo pomenila nasprotje individualizmu in brezbrižnosti. Ernesto Neto je, na primer, ustvaril Sveti prorstor, skupni prostor, namenjen počitku, razpravi, glasbi ali meditaciji. Gledalce vabi, da vstopijo, izgubijo sami sebe, se ozdravijo in s tem ozdravijo rane bolne družbe.

Medtem ko gleda razstavo, se gledalec premika od sebe k umetniškemu delu, iz znanega okolja k neznanemu. Gobanje k neznanemu je pravzaprav upor proti zaprti, na individualnosti temelječi družbi. Younes Rahmoun je v delu Taqiya-Nor žarnice pokril z volnenimi pletenimi kapami. Temo neznanega je razbila svetloba, znanje. Ko sem že pri temi ... Projekt Influenca: gledališče svetleče teme v danskem paviljonu izziva gledalca, da temo vidi kot pozitivno silo zdravljenja, spremembe in moči. Tema je velik prostor neznanega, je praznina iz katere izhaja vse: novi načini razmišljanja, delovanja, nove skupnosti, zgrajene na novih temeljih. Strah pred neznanim ne velja več. Preden gledalec vstopi v egiptovski paviljon, na steni prebere, da se življenje začne takrat, ko ni več strahu. Vse kar potrebujemo je korak v pravo smer. Navsezadnje so se vse spremembe začele z malim korakom.

Kaj mi je bilo najbolj všeč? Nimam favorita, če pa bi se morala odložiti, bi verjetno izbrala Gruzijo. Staro leseno hišo so iz gruzijskega podeželja, skupaj s pohištvom in vsem, kar je bilo notri, prestavili v Benetke. Nič ni narobe s hišo, razen ene stvari, ki je po svoje grozljiva: notri dežuje. Hiša je lahko tudi prispodoba človekovega notranjega življenja. Predstavljajte si turobno vzdušje deževnega dne v človeku, grožnjo nenehne sivine, obenem pa nenehno izpiranje nečesa. Tako kot stvari v hiši počasi razpadajo, se podobno dogaja v človeku. Razen če se sam odloči drugače.