The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (till 27th November) officially opened today. Curated by Cecilia Alemani, the event, including 213 artists from 58 countries (180 of these are participating for the first time), is entitled "The Milk of Dreams".
The title comes from a book that Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) wrote for her kids, in which she describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination, people transform and kids become animals or machines.
"It is a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else," Alemani states in an official press release. Alemani - the first Italian woman to curate the Venice Art Biennale - conceived the event, an edition that will also pass into history for featuring a majority of female artists and non-binary subjects, as a trip that visitors take with Carrington's otherworldly creatures. These companions will take them on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human.
The theme is actually very apt for the complex times we are living in: we are constantly stressed by thoughts of the pandemic ("The Milk of Dreams" was conceived and organised in a period of instability and uncertainty, since its development coincided with the outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Biennale had to be postponed), the harmful impacts on the planet of climate change and now the war in Ukraine that threatens to expand to other countries.
The Biennale tries to look at the possibilities and responsibilities that we, as human beings, have through three main themes, the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth.
There are also sub-themes addressed in smaller collections of artworks (including museum loans), found objects, and documents, these pieces are displayed as shows within the show (in a format that recalls the 55th International Art Exhibition, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, who is also Alemani's husband) and provide additional tools of investigation and introspection.
The German artist Katharina Fritsch and the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña are this year's recipients of the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement.
Alemani was first fascinated by Katharina Fritsch's "Rattenkönig" - the Rat King, a disquieting sculpture in which a group of giant rodents is crouched in a circle with their tails knotted together - at the 1999 Biennale curated by Harald Szeemann.
Since then Alemani has been attracted and in awe of Fritsch's sculptures in bright solid colours, that the curator defines as "monuments from an alien civilisation, or artefacts on display in a strange posthuman museum".
Artist, activist and poet Cecilia Vicuña has long fought for the rights of Indigenous peoples in Chile and the rest of Latin America and her art goes from painting to performance and complex assemblages of found objects or scrap materials.
Vicuña coined the term "Arte Precario" in the mid-1960s in Chile, for her precarious works and quipus (Andean recording and numbering devices that date back to the Pre-Columbian era; they often consist of knotted strings made of cotton and other fibers. For Vicuña the quipu is "a poem in space, a way to remember, involving the body and the cosmos at once"), as a way of "hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard."
The Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to the Pavilion of Great Britain that features Sonia Boyce's installation "Feeling Her Way".
Boyce created a highly original multi-layered pavilion, full of colourful geometries (and golden geometrical seats inspired by iron pyrite crystals), filmed performances (that took place at Abbey Road studios) and recordings of Black and female artists (Jacqui Dankworth, Poppy Ajudha, Sofia Jernberg and Tanita Tikaram).
Old CDs, cassette, albums by artists such as Shirley Bassey, Beverley Knight, Brown Sugar, and posters from Boyce's personal archive, complete the installation. The pavilion is pervaded by an energy and vitality that were missing in previous years.
Boyce also appears in a film in the French Pavilion next door, by French-Algerian, London-based artist Zineb Sedira in which she talks about cultural resistance and survival in communities of colour. The French Pavilion got a special mention at the award ceremony, together with Uganda.
The country is one of the 5 nations together with the Republic of Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal and the Sultanate of Oman, participating in the Biennale for the first time.
Curated by Shaheen Merali and on display at Palazzo Palumbo Fossati, "Radiance – they dream in time" the Ugandan participation at the Biennale features sculptural pieces made with materials like bark-clothed rafia by Acaye Kerunen and paintings by Collin Sekajugo, and it is a riot of colours, patterns, and sustainable materials.
While the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant went to Ali Cherri (and Lynn Hershman Leeson and Shuvinai Ashoona also got two special mentions), the Golden Lion for the Best Participant in the International Exhibition went to Simone Leigh - it is worth noting that this is the first time in the history of the Biennale that the prize has gone to a Black woman artist - with the following motivation, "for the rigorously researched, virtuosically realized, and powerfully persuasive monumental sculptural opening to the Arsenale, which alongside Belkis Ayón, provided a compelling entrée to the ideas, sensibilities and approaches constellated and animated throughout The Milk of Dreams."
Alemani is a fan of Simone Leigh's works: she installed the monumental Brick House on New York's High Line in 2019 and now included it in the Arsenale, surrounded by works by the late Cuban artist Belkis Ayón. Leigh's sculptures integrating figures of Black women with architectural elements evoke in some ways Carrington's metamorphoses. Leigh also represents the U.S. at the American Pavilion (titled "Sovereignty").
Boyce and Leigh are the first Black women to represent their nations in Venice in the Biennale's 127-year history.
While the 59th International Art Exhibition is not a complete return to normality after Covid-19 (restrictions have been loosened in most European countries, but the pandemic is still being monitored), Alemani highlights it is a compendium of what we have missed, from the freedom to meet people from all over the world and the possibility of travel to the joy of spending time together and learning from each other.
Image credits for this post:
1. Biennale Arte 2022 - Press Conference. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
2. Leonora Carrington, "The Milk of Dreams", book cover
3. Katharina Fritsch, Elefant / Elephant, 1987, Polyester, wood, paint. The 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Photo by Marco Cappelletti. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
4. Cecilia Vicuña at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Photo by Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
5, 6, 7, 11 and 13 Awards Ceremony Photos by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
8 - 10. Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way. Pavilion of Great Britain. The 59th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
12. Pavilion of Uganda. 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
14 and 15. Simone Leigh, Arsenale Installations. The 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Photo by Ela Bialkowska. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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