Biennale di Venezia

Being the third and possibly last post in the much-delayed series on my trip to Venice, a roundup of things that caught my eye at the Biennale (in no particular order).

The Greek pavilion: the life of Citizen X as a thirty-second silent film of collaged still photos, flicking past almost too quickly to register. His parents, he is born, his first bicycle, a birthday party, Confirmation, schoolyard, his girlfriend, holiday together, they marry, they have a son, she dies, he ages, his granddaughter, he dies. It was very moving.

The English pavilion: honestly now, does anyone still give a shit about Gilbert and George?

The American pavilion: a big "so what". Sorry, Ed (Ruscha), the paintings were just not interesting enough; they weren't even pretty.

The Danish pavilion: Eva Koch filmed a chorus of deaf-mutes, reciting the introduction from Danté's Paradiso in unison, in sign language. Not at all silent: mouth clicks, odd vocalisations, the slap of hand-edge on open palm. Fascinating.

The Romanian pavilion: unfortunately, I missed this one, so I am quoting from G's description. The Romanians try hard, God bless them, they are struggling against enormous economic difficulties but always manage to turn this to their advantage. One year, they painted the floor white, laid down a grid of black gaffer's tape, and drew tiny cartoonish comments and social criticism with felt-tip markers into the resulting squares. Last year, for the architecture biennale, they hung very straight-edge, non-pretty, production drawings of real social-works projects from nails hammered into the walls. This year, they displayed nothing: the room was entirely empty, they had even left the nailholes. On a desk in the entry lobby was a well-produced catalogue of the exhibition in which Daniel Knorr philosophized on Nothing. I really wish I had been there, I would definitely have bought a copy of the catalogue (which was not available in the bookshop, and the ticketing system of the Biennale doesn't allow backtracking).

The Korean pavilion: a film collage of TV news broadcasts snipped into single syllables and reassembled into anodyne politically-correct speech, e.g. "Chew your food well before swallowing, and drink plenty of water with your meal." It was a very funny piece, which showed up the complete artificiality of the television news environment: Their facial expressions, body language and posture changed by not one millimeter during all these thousands of hijacked news clips, only the flickering background images and their clothes proved that it wasn't recorded live in one piece.

The German pavilion: funny and witty, which is seldom the case. As we entered the pavilion, we were greeted by a team of three people who danced towards and around us, chanting in English "Oh, this is so contemporary! Contemporary, contemporary! Oh, this is so contemporareeeeeeeeeee!" It sounds pretty trivial, but the point is the interaction with the visitors (some people were shocked stiff, one even backed out, others joined the dance), and the distancing from the socially approved bowed-head-and-shuffling-feet silent communion with ART. (All over Venice, one overheard people saying "This is so contemporary" and giggling.)

The Austrian pavilion: they built a mountain in, around and on top of the building. The inside was a maze of rough-sawn structural timbers, with a set of walkways rising between them to a trapdoor in the peak. I'm not sure what Hans Schabus was trying to achieve, but it sure was fun.

The Arsenale:

· Rem Koolhaas expounded on "Museumitis", comparing musea worldwide to the Hermitage (where by happy coincidence he hopes to be engaged as Guiding Light), e.g. two-thirds of the Hermitage's tiny budget comes directly from ticket sales to visitors, whereas only 3% of the LAMCA's immense budget comes from ticket sales; the Hermitage has roughly fifteen times as many works as the LAMCA.

· the waiting line for Mariko Mori's Wave UFO was 90 minutes long. Were the organizers never in a delicatessen? have they never seen the "Take a number you will be served in X minutes" machines in any supermarket? I would decry this as absurd and insulting incompetence, were it not for the fact that there was indeed a line of people waiting, who were apparently willing to forego ninety minutes of viewing other exhibits. Nowt so queer as folk, aye.

· Blue Noses made a very amusing video installation: a dozen beamers shining straight downward into half-open cardboard boxes standing in a circle at chest height. The short film loops showed naked women (fully) and men (partially) - and what would the Guerilla Girls have said about that? - performing strange and witty actions, e.g. leapfrog, gangbang, human bowling ball and pins, or being chased by a toy alligator; all slightly accelerated with chipmunk voices and laughter. One of the most popular exhibits.

· a car trip through the Gobi desert, ravishingly beautiful in a stark "nothing out there" way. No idea what it was about.

· one room nearly made me lose my cappucino: video projections of rippling water moving in circles on the floor. I had to shut my eyes and walk quickly out.

· Runa Islam showed a calm and meditative video of a woman examining delicate china crockery displayed on pedestals in a museum, which she calmly and meditatively, one by one, tipped off-balance and allowed to smash on the floor. One of the few long videos where people actually stood still and watched to the end.

· Valeska Soares built a mirrored (inside and out) octagonal pavilion by the waterside; one of the internal walls was a video projection of a man and a woman dancing (alone, separately) in a deserted club. Very atmospheric, a quiet contemplative moment. This was another case where people stayed and watched.

· Kim Sooja stood absolutely still (back to the camera) in pedestrian areas of six cities for 10 minutes, we watch people walking up to and past her and note their reaction. Many of these were extremely intimidating: in Patan (Nepal) she was surrounded by men stroking very large knives, in Havana (or Rio de Janeiro?) a man stood inches before her and shouted and swung his fists repeatedly at her face, stopping a hair's-breadth short of contact. In no case did any passerby intervene, nor even react in any way to the intimidators. There are times that I'm glad to live in "boring, provincial little Stuttgart."

[Part two and Part one of Venice 2005; and the Biennale 2004]