Date posted: September 26, 2005

Venice Biennale 2005

The best way to loose interest in art, dance, theatre or architecture is to visit an art fair, a biennale or a festival. Too much art can kill you. In order to survive it is always best to just pretend that it is what it is, a cultural hypermarket, and to move on to the next thing as soon as something bores you. Because this appears to be what everybody’s doing anyway, biennales can be deadly for the works on display as well. At the Venice Biennale the paintings by Marlene Dumas that some months ago when I first saw them in the intimacy of the Frith Street Gallery in London had intrigued me, now all but lost their appeal.

Much of the art on show at this year’s Venice Biennale was trying too hard to be art: a video by Mark Wallinger in which we can see him walking around at night dressed up in a bear costume in a deserted Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; Thomas Ruff’s large prints of jpeg images revealing the pixelation that occurs when a small file is blown up to large proportions; a chandelier made of 14,000 tampons and so on. All it did was elicit a big yawn.

On the other hand, with so much art on show, there is always something interesting, funny or memorable. I thought Francesco Vezzoli’s Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula (2005) was pretty hilarious. It had sex, celebrities, loud music and cinema seats in which you could sink back for just a few minutes. Another highlight were the singing elderly attendants in the German pavillion, who every now and then would start dancing and chanting “This is so contemporary contemporary contemporary”.

The Canadian pavillion showed a video by Rebecca Belmore, which was kind of interesting, since it was projected on a dense artificial waterfall. I also enjoyed seeing "Shit in your hat - head on a chair" (1990) by Bruce Nauman again. It features a clown/mime artist who performs the perverse instructions of an anonymous voice. "Shit in your hat. Put your hat on your head" (or "put your head on your hat" it's an interesting wordplay). It's a reflection on Power, but also a reminder of the things people do for art.

The work that I liked best was a video installation by Kimsooja, “A needle woman” (2005). We see a woman filmed from behind standing still on a crowded street in 6 different cities. The world passes by as she just stands there. The idea is very simple but the effect is mesmerizing, also because the videos are filmed in slow motion.

The Arsenale by the way, where one half of the Biennale is held, is an amazing space. I couldn't help thinking that it would have been more interesting if there had been less artworks on show. And of course I'd love to do something myself in there.