It can be bizarre seeing a work of art by somebody who doesn't come from your own country, but who seems to have interpreted the feelings and hopes you harbour for your nation in a much better way than you would have done. Yet, as much as puzzling as this may seem, this is perfectly understandable in a world in which communication between people and nations have created a major economic, political, and cultural fluidity and cross-cultural exchange.
It comes therefore as no surprise that Alfredo Jaar's "Venezia, Venezia" installation for the Chilean Pavilion at the 55th International Venice Art Biennale perfectly embodies the desires, wishes and hopes of many Italians, while translating them into a more international language and taking them to another level.
Jaar's work is informed by his training in architecture and film and opens with a photographic installation, a picture taken in 1946 and showing Argentine-born painter Lucio Fontana in the ruins of his studio in Milan.
The installation continues with a pool filled with water from which every three minutes a replica of the Giardini in Venice with their 28 national pavilions emerges for just a few seconds, like the ruins of a mysterious and lost civilisation suddenly coming back to life.
While Fontana's photograph calls to mind the rebirth of culture that Italy went through after the war and therefore touches the heart of many Italians currently living in a rather confusing cultural and political moment, the model criticises the nationalism statically and archaically represented in the Giardini and prompts visitors to rethink a new order in which national borders are eroded forever.
Yet the model keeping on emerging also hints at the fact that culture always resists and keeps on coming back to life even in the most difficult and complicated historical moments.
Jaar's installation may not have won any official awards, but, among the many artworks that populate this year's Biennale it is definitely among the ones that got the approval of many visitors: on trains leaving Venice after the preview days, quite a few people talked about being touched by his installation and discussed the feelings they had when they saw Fontana stepping among the debris of his studio.
Where did you find the Lucio Fontana picture and what fascinates you about it?
Alfredo Jaar: It's an archival image from the '40s from the Archivi Farabola and I acquired the copyright in order to use it. I think it's an extraordinary image and I find it striking for many different reasons. It was taken during a key moment in the history of culture: Italy at that time was morally and physically destroyed after the war, they had allied with the Germans, they had had fascism and the country was on its knees. Yet, quite extraordinarily, in less than 20 years, a remarkable group of Italian artists, intellectuals, filmmakers, poets, writers and artists illuminated the cultural scene of Italy and the world, changing the course of history by bringing the country back into the world community.
Which Italian intellectuals did you have in mind when working on this installation?
Alfredo Jaar: I was thinking for example about Luchino Visconti who released Ossessione in 1943, during the war; in 1945, the year the war ended, Roberto Rossellini released Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City) with a script by Federico Fellini, while in 1948, just three years after the end of the war, Vittorio De Sica released Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves). Yet this rebirth didn't involve just cinema: in terms of literature you had Giuseppe Ungaretti with Il Dolore (The Pain) or La terra promessa (The Promised Land), Cesare Pavese and Alberto Moravia. Then another group of filmmakers almost erupted on the scene with Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernardo Bertolucci who also shot Il Conformista, based on the Moravia book. For what regards the visual arts there were Fontana, Vedova and Burri and, shortly afterwards, Manzoni, Pascali, Pistoletto, Boetti and Calzolari. The black and white opening image therefore stands as a metaphor for the ability of culture to affect change, but it is also a nice metaphor for today's world where we are in the middle of a crisis. On top of all this it is also a way to meditate about the role that intellectuals can play to affect change.
Which Italian intellectuals of the ones you mentioned does inspire you the most?
Alfredo Jaar: My favourite ones are Michelangelo Antonioni, because he is a cinematic poet, and then Pasolini because he is the model of intellectual I'm interested in. Pasolini was not just a filmmaker, but he was a poet, writer, critic, cultural commentator, and polemicist, he was part of the culture and the political life of Italy during his time.
After the Fontana installation visitors are invited to cross a bridge, what does this represent?
Alfredo Jaar: The bridge is not an invitation to make a physical crossing, but it's more of a mind bridge, it is an invitation to a journey. I'm interested in the idea of having to go somewhere and you are forced to cross this bridge one way or the other to continue your journey. On top of the bridge there is this metallic structure that contains water that looks green like the water from the Venetian lagoon, but it's actually clear water with natural colours mixed in to make it look like the lagoon. The water is quiet, but, every 3 minutes, from it emerges a perfect replica of the Giardini. This is a perfect model at a 1:60 scale and it emerges for just a few seconds. The model will emerge 24,860 times during the Biennale.
Does this number symbolise anything?
Alfredo Jaar: I'm offering 24,860 opportunities to rethink the Biennale model. I think the latter is indeed obsolete and does not correspond to the fluidity and mobility of today's artists. Most of us were born in a place, studied in another one and live somewhere else, and quite often we create work about another place. In my case, I was born in Chile, I had a French education, I live in New York and created a work about Venice. This is why I'm interested in a poetic invitation to rethink the Biennale model. Everytime the Biennale is under the water, the pool becomes a screen, like a blank canvas, like a clean tabula rasa where people can project ideas, thoughts, speculations on how culture can affect change and how we can make the Biennale better, but, at the same time, there is also a second reading that is equally important. After you have seen the image of destruction in the Fontana picture, the Giardini rise again, hinting at rebirth and at culture that dies and comes back to life all the time. The model going up and down is therefore an act of resistance: everytime the model comes up, it says resist, resist, resist.
You mentioned cultural fluidity, yet this year France and Germany swapped pavilions, while two years ago Denmark invited in its pavilion also artists from other countries: how do you feel about these cross-cultural exchanges?
Alfredo Jaar: In way some people may spot a sort of synchronicity between France and Germany swapping pavilions and the fact that the latter invited non-German artists as well, and my work. But I think my work went even futher. Their interchange occurred indeed on the surface: in the end they are still in the Giardini and they are just swapping buildings, besides inviting other artists to your own pavilion can be interpreted like an act of charity. In a nutshell, after the Biennale, these artists go back home and the building will keep on hosting the German pavilion. It would have been much more spectacular if countries in the Giardini had given their pavilions to other countries who are not represented in this place or if these buildings had been transformed into universal palaces where different artists could be invited all the time.
Most visitors miss the collateral events or the other exhibitions scattered in locations all over Venice or the lagoon islands because they mainly go to the Giardini or the Arsenale...
Alfred Jaar: This is a complex and poblematic issue. It's not that other countries are not represented in Venice, but visitors mainly go to the Giardini perceiving it as the main space of the Biennale. But the order there does not correspond to the reality of today's world culture, it's an osbolete order: for example, you have Britain, France, Germany and the USA in prominent positions, but what happens when an artist from Africa goes to the Giardini? There is no African pavilion in the Giardini, so does this mean that African culture doesn't exist? That's when you suddenly realise that the architecture of the Giardini is not innocent, but communicates ideas and thoughts. In 1968 Gillo Dorfles and Germano Celant proposed a new order for the Biennale suggesting to create a building that would house the cultures of the world. Of course their project was rejected, but I wanted to bring back this discussion on the table and do it in the most poetic way possible.
All images in this post:
Courtesy Alfredo Jaar, New York
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