Art Returns to the Canals

How artists embraced the 58th Venice Biennale’s theme, “May You Live in Interesting Times”

While curator Ralph Rugoff’s theme for the Venice Biennale, “May You Live in Interesting Times,” could be viewed as an understated challenge to artists participating in 89 national and 21 collateral exhibitions, the works and installations that populate the city until November 24 are anything but.

The phrase was once quoted erroneously as a Chinese curse, and then referred to as such for decades on. It seems appropriate, then, in the current world climate of fake news and non-facts, to turn to the artist for insightful, unexpected interpretations of “interesting times.”

In the Giardini, the Biennale’s original national pavilions, Laure Prouvost upends France with “Deep See Blue Surrounding You,” one of the most popular exhibits during the vernissage. Enter the pavilion from the back and climb the basement stairs to explore an intricate, watery, surrealistic environment where even Venice becomes a protagonist during the video saga recounting the exhibit’s hopeful journey to the Biennale itself.

In stark contrast is the US pavilion, where Martin Puryear explores liberty with his clean yet complex sculptures of solid objects. Animation and hi-tech of any sort are notably absent, an approach exemplified in his bold, monumental mesh screen of his “Swallowed Sun” that purposefully masks the pavilion’s classic façade.

Another “interesting” departure is “Mondo Cane,” created by Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys.

Enter a world of old-world mechanized, if disquieting characters with vacuous stares who are animated at the visitor’s approach – read their personal accounts in the accompanying pamphlet. Curator Anne-Claire Schmitz has created a sideshow feel, and we vacillate between being a voyeur and just another mechanical doll ourselves. Belgium was awarded a Special Mention as a National Participation.

On the way to the Arsenale venue, Naiza Khan has created Manora Field Notes for Pakistan’s inaugural national participation. Working in etched and molded brass, Khan manifests a long-term, studied relationship with the island of Manora on the Karachi harbor.

Khan draws connections between Karachi and Venice, both historically centers of trade for centuries and subsequently “at the crossroads of geo-political change.”

Exploring the corridors of the Arsenale, animated objects become instruments in a collaborative concert conducted from a small laptop in the center of this unexpected orchestra in Tarek Atoui’s “The Ground.” Adapting musical practices experienced in his travels across China’s Pearl River Delta, this sounds-track emanates from turn tables that scrape ceramic plates, spinning bands that gently graze cymbals, and suspended wands that ting bowls of various sizes to create a completely captivating aural environment.

“May You Live in Interesting Times” could be viewed as an understated challenge to artists.

Further on, Anicka Yi’s imposing, suspended, glowing yellow pods of “Biologizing the Machine” buzz with shadowy, droning animatronic insects. Created from kelp fronds, it’s difficult to say whether these pods rose from the inky pools below them, if they’ll descend into them eventually, or both.

“He’s playing the data,” said a visitor, as she stared mesmerized at Ryoji Ikeda’s “Data-verse,” massive, super hi-def projections of “re-articulated” macro/ micro data sets from such institutions as NASA, CERN and the Human Genome Project. Created through a mathematical process developed by the artist, the soundtrack is so natural and germane you’d think it was emitted by data itself.

Across the walkway from the Corderia, natural-medium artist Zahrah Al Ghamdi’s “After Illusion” marks Saudi Arabia’s return to the Venice Biennale after an eight-year hiatus. Wander among Al Ghamdi’s soaring cylinders strewn with hundreds of individually handcrafted, shelllike pods. Created in a special process from discarded sheep skin, some of them respond aurally to touch.

The Biennale offers any visitor – art lover or otherwise – the possibility to explore a very contemporary Venice that’s an often challenging yet enriching contrast to the iconic version with which we’re familiar. The 2019 edition is no exception.

Explore a very contemporary Venice that’s an often challenging yet enriching contrast to the iconic version with which we’re familiar.

Words and Photography Nan McElroy