Best of Venice Art Biennale 2019: Part 02

We continue our Venice Biennale highlights coverage (check out Part 01 here) with the National Pavilions, whereby countries the world over bring their art A game to Venice. Taking the theme of May You Live In Interesting Times and applying it to the paradigm of each nation’s current political, social, and cultural climate made for some interesting installations and artistic expressions.

From artificial beach scenes to science fiction films and furry mountains made of fake hair extensions, read on for the artists and countries we would seek out on a visit to the Biennale.

Photography by Andrea Avezzù.

Lithuania Pavilion – Sea & Sun (Marina) // The interior of a historic quayside building within the Marina Militare complex was transformed into an artificially lit beach scene for the Lithuanian Pavilion, replete with sand, towels, and all manner of beach paraphernalia. Surveyed by audiences from a mezzanine above, artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė present a durational opera performance, Sun & Sea (Marina), addressing some of the most pressing ecological issues of our time. Each individual performs from their beach towel, revealing an inner monologue that ranges from trivial concerns about sunburn to fears of environmental catastrophe. Curated by Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of General Ecology and Live Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries, London.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Luxembourg Pavilion – Written by Water // Curated by Kevin Muhlen, Marco Godhino examines mans relationship with the sea in Written by Water, creating an organic temporary landscape of notebooks that the artist temporarily submerged into the Mediterranean. Aligned with his own nomadic tendencies, Godhino examines the sea as both an epic space of adventure, and a complex geopolitical dimension. The author is ‘the sea itself’, leaving natural inscriptions onto the pages of the artist’s notebooks. In Godhino’s mind, only the ocean knows what each of the soaked, undulating pages contains.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Denmark Pavilion – Heirloom // Danish-Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour presents Heirloom, a dark, otherworldly exhibition comprising a science-fiction film and sculptural installation curated by Nat Muller. Exploring themes of fiction and reality, myth and history, the film titled ‘In Vitro’ is staged in Bethlehem decades are an eco-disaster, focusing on the inherited trauma and memory of a young protagonist. For the sculptural installation, a psychological object form the film is recreated as a large-scale monument.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Greece Pavilion – Mr Stigl // Through sculpture, sound, and film, Greek artists Panos Charalambous, Eve Stefani and Zafos Xagoraris explore historical paradoxes, official and unofficial histories, and the narratives of lesser-known history. Curated by Katerina Tselou.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Iceland Pavilion – Chromo Sapiens // Artist Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir/Shoplifter and curator Birta Guójonsdóttir transformed a Giudecca warehouse into a multi-sensory environment where sound, colour and furry textures reign supreme. Murmuring sounds emerge from psychedelic tufts and mossy structures, made of Shoplifters signature material of choice – synthetic hair extensions. Paired with dissonant compositions by Icelandic cult metal band HAM, this visceral, hyper-natural world intends to evoke a desire to return to nature.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Ireland Pavilion – The Shrinking Universe // Eva Rothschild created a socially sculptural exhibition for the Irish Pavilion in the Arsenale, engaging with political and environmental concerns arising from the current climate of global uncertainty. Curated by Mary Cremin, visitors are encouraged to climb atop and sit on haphazard blocks, white and streaked with what resembles spray paint. Rothschild aimed to create an opportunity for intense observation, material confusion, and communication.

Photography by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti.

Italy Pavilion – Neither Nor: The Challenge to the Labyrinth // Milovan Farronato curated both never-before-seen and historical works of renowned Italian artists Enrico David, Chiara Fumai, and Liliana Moro for Neither Nor. The maze-like exhibition is inspired by Italo Calvino’s famed 1962 essay The Challenge to the Labyrinth, which suggests the notion of a cultural work that describes the complexity of a world that has lost all its references. There is no official beginning or end point, with the works and installation itself overlapping in a tangle of lines, forms, and tendencies reflecting the impossibility of reducing culture or knowledge to a predictable trajectory.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Netherlands Pavilion – The Measurement of Presence // Inspired by current debates and reflection on the history of the Art Biennale and its location, Gerrit Rietveld’s modernist Pavilion, Remy Jungerman and Iris Kensmil explore the possibilities that arise when we embrace a state of flux and shift. Curated by Benno Tempel, the artists explore how a permanent flow of people and objects breaks through national boundaries and creates new identities, with works inspired by 20th-century modernism and the avant-garde.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Nordic Countries Pavilion – Weather Report: Forecasting Future // Prompted by the threats of climate change and mass extinction, the Nordic Pavilion centres around complex and varied relations between the human and nonhuman. Diffusing visual art with natural sciences, Finnish duo nabbteeri, Norwegian Ane Graff and Swedish artist Ingela Ihrman present works incorporating recycled materials, garden waste, ecosystems, microbiology and chemistry. Curated by Leevi Haapala and Piia Oksanen.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Austrian Pavilion – Discordo Ergo Sum // In their inaugural Venice Art Biennale presentation, Austria’s Renate Bertlmann puts on a solo show curated by Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein. Titled Discordo Ergo Sum, meaning ‘I dissent, therefore I am’ Bertlmann rephrases the philosophical principle ‘I think, therefore I am’ in an attempt to describe herself within her insurgent worldview. A further modification of the philosophy is scrawled in a giant written sign in the pavilion courtyard, ‘Amo Ergo Sum’ meaning ‘I love, therefore I am’. The courtyard is filled by rows of 312 ‘knife roses’, glistening red glass roses pierced by sharp steel knife stems, ironically challenging gender relations and social symbols.

Photography by Andrea Avezzù.

Cyprus Pavilion – Various works by Christoforos Savva // Carrying on the Biennale’s general title May You Live in Interesting Times, the Cyprus Pavilion presents posthumous works of 20th-century Cypriot artist Christoforos Savva, curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti. Weeks before his untimely death in 1968, Savva was among the artists representing Cyprus in their inaugural Biennale pavilion. Savva’s oeuvre was unparalleled in the local art scene of the ’60s in a postcolonial, communally volatile Cyrpus, appropriating styles with references ranging from Greek and African Classical Art to Cypriot handicrafts, Folk Art, Informal Art, Pop, and avant-garde movements. The Biennale exhibition is part of a long-term research project on Savva’s legacy.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Czech Republic Pavilion – Former Uncertain Indicated // Artist Stanislav Kolíbal represents the Czech and Slovak Republic with Former Uncertain Indicated, exploring the artists signature themes of time and liability with works curated by historian, writer and collector Dieter Bogner. Determined by the ‘most interesting times’ Kolíbal experienced throughout his life in Czechoslovakia since the early 1940s, the exhibition includes a conceptual “spatial drawing” of the modernist façade of Otakar Novotny’s 1926 Czech and Slovak Pavilion. Select pieces from Kolíbal’s pioneering works include white sculptures from the 1960s and four minimalist wall-installations from the 1970s made out of found materials.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

France Pavilion – Deep Sea Blue Surrounding You // Former Turner Prize winner Laure Provost and curator Martha Kirszenbaum present the fictional film DEEP SEA SURROUNDING YOU/VOIS CE BLEU PROFOND TE FONDRE. A joyous saga about a road trip through France to Venice, the film encounters dozens of characters with specific performance skills such as magic, dance, and music. Such performers punctuate the Pavilion, interacting with the architecture and sculptural installation comprised of leftover props, resin, clay, glass, plants, and water vapour.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Georgia Pavilion – REARMIRRORVIEW, Simulation is Simulation, is Simulation, is Simulation… (2019) // As a trained classical ballet dancer, artist Anna K.E brings fluid, whimsical movement to her architectural environments and video work. Curated by Margot Norton, her installation features a public stage, rising steel plateaus and bright powder-coated tiles reminiscent of low-res digital pixels. A multi-dimensional landscape that paradoxically recalls a flat simulation, K.E intersperses faucet-like sculptures based on the Georgian alphabet that phonetically spell ‘deranged’.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Ghana Pavilion – Ghana Freedom // In their inaugural Biennale National Pavilion, Ghana large-scale installations by El Anatsui and Ibrahim Mahama; representation and portraiture by prominent photographer Felicia Abban and painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye; and a three-channel film projection by John Akomfrah and a video sculpture by Selasi Awusi Sosu. Curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim, each artist exhibits in elliptical interconnected spaces, plastered with locally sourced earth from classical structures in Ghana. ‘Ghana Freedom’ is named after the song composed by E.T Mensah on the eve of the independence of the new nation in 1957.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Philippines Pavilion – Island Weather // Mark Justiniani curated by Tessa Maria Guazon puts islands at the core of his exhibit, with an immersive voyage simulation across the Philippine archipelago. Justiniani draws parallels between islands drifting on water to the way art buoys the spirit, and its ability to keep us afloat.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Poland Pavilion – Flight // Curated by Łukasz Mojsak and Łukasz Ronduda, the Polish Pavilion acts as a hangar for Roman Stańczak’s sculpture of a real aircraft turned inside out. The cockpit, on-board equipment, and passenger emerge outside, while the wings and fuselage are wound inside. The surrealist sculpture echoes an unexpected ‘reversal of the world’ in response to Poland’s capitalist transformation and the governing paradoxes that come along with that. Stańczak seeks to prove that people are in need of a spiritual change, prompted by change and modern society’s seeming lack of security and structure.

Photography by Andrea Avezzù.

Portugal Pavilion – a seam, a surface, a hinge, a knot // Artist Leonor Antunes reflects on functions of everyday objects and their ability to transform into abstract sculptures in his new project curated by João Ribas. Antunes looks at key figures in the cultural history of Venice, working with traditional makers to link significant cultural histories with craftsmanship from Italy, Japan, and Portugal. Antunes conducted significant research into architects and designers Carlo Scarpa, Franco Albini and Franca Helg, as well as the legacies of the patronage of Savina Masieri and architecture of Egle Trincanato.

Photography by Italo Rondinella.

Saudi Arabia Pavilion – After Illusion // Inspired by ancient Arabic poetry, Zahrah Al Ghamdi reflects on the history of Saudi Arabia and its identity versus the happenings that dominate its current global perception, the emergence of Islam and the discovery of oil. Curated by Eiman Elgibreen, the exhibition aims to recognise, reconnect, and revisit a feeling of exploring something new yet familiar.

Photography by Francesco Galli.

Switzerland Pavilion – Moving Backwards // This immersive installation by Pauline Boudy and Renate Lorenz explores guerilla techniques, postmodern choreography and urban dance, and elements of queer underground culture. Curated by Charlotte Laubard, visitors participate in strange encounters in a dark environment reminiscent of a nightclub. Physical and sensory experiences are enhanced by moments of reflection on the Pavilion’s theme, in the form of a free journal containing statements written by a dozen authors from the fields of philosophy, art, political activism, post-colonial and queer theories.

[Images courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia.]