Dec 24, 2024
Nov 23,2024
Frank Wasser looks at some of the Irish and international highlights of this year's Venice Biennale.
This year's Venice Biennale of Art, Frank Wasser presented a unique opportunity to explore a variety of new approaches to art-making and curating that challenge and engage with contemporary themes. The Venice Biennale of Art is one of the world's most prestigious cultural exhibitions, showcasing contemporary art from around the globe. Held in Venice, Italy, every two years, the event brings together artists, curators, critics, and art lovers to experience artworks that in recent years often address pressing social, political, and environmental themes.
The 60th International Art Exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, opened to the public in April. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, this theme reflected global ideas, in particular themes around identity, migration, and cultural belonging, exploring what it means to be seen as an outsider in any society.
The title is inspired by a series from Italian artists Claire Fontaine and is intended to encourage viewers to consider the diverse experiences of "foreignness" in a globalized world. It's interesting to note that many of the themes and ideas explored within the biennale this year are very much at odds with the policies of Italy’s recently elected far-right government. As always, politics are everywhere in this biennale but as the American novelist Toni Morrison once put it "All of that art-for-art’s-sake stuff is BS…What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren’t writing about kings? All good art is political!"
Most reviews of the Venice Biennale of Art came out within a day or two of the opening. I’m not sure how it is possible to process so many exhibitions in such a short amount of time, never mind within a few months.
So to make it a little easier, below are some thoughts on the highlights of this year's biennale, including tangential exhibitions and events.
1 – The Egyptian Pavilion – Drama 1882 by Wael Shawky
This for me was the main highlight and I hope to see the work of this artist in Ireland soon. The Egyptian Pavilion at this year's biennale presented Drama 1882, a captivating moving image opera by artist Wael Shawky. This ambitious feature-length work chronicles the Urabi Revolution, a pivotal anti-colonial uprising against British rule in Egypt, filmed in the historic city of Alexandria. Shawky brings together meticulous research with rich elements of history, politics and performance, creating a narrative tapestry. The project not only critiques colonial narratives but also navigates the complex terrains of national and artistic identity.
2- The Great Britain Pavilion - Listening All Night To The Rain by John Akomfrah
John Akomfrah is an artist and filmmaker whose work delves into themes of memory, racial injustice, the experiences of migrant diasporas, and climate change. His work representing Britain at the biennale, Listening All Night To The Rain, explores colonialism, ecology, and the politics of aesthetics, with a renewed emphasis on the act of listening. This exhibition is envisioned as a manifesto that promotes listening as a form of activism and is designed as a cohesive installation featuring eight fluidly interconnected multi-screen sound and time-based works. This pavilion was worth a viewing alone for production quality of the work, specifically the sonic experience of the work, there are speakers everywhere, above you, behind you, under your seat. The word 'immersive’ is thrown around quote easily these days but this truly is an immersive experience. Central to Akomfrah’s exhibition is the motif of bodies of water, which serve as a connective thread that unites the intricate visual and auditory narratives.
3. Unearthly Pursuits, a solo exhibition by Genieve Figgis, presented by Almine Rech
Separate to the main Biennale exhibition, the major international gallery Almine Rech presented Unearthly Pursuits, a solo exhibition by Genieve Figgis, curated by Elisa De Wyngaert, which runs to December 1, 2024. Figgis' work, which comprises mostly of painting, explores people’s interactions with their surroundings and the performative nature of human behaviour. Set against the romantic allure of Venice, her characters seem to blend in while subtly standing out, echoing a time before technology. Her paintings capture figures perhaps too proudly posing in gondolas, mingling at lavish parties, and moving through grand interiors, all while subtly revealing their hidden desires and insecurities. By embracing the fluid nature of paint, Figgis unveils the playful essence of her subjects in a world where individuality and eccentricity take centre stage. Figgis, who is Irish, has become one of the most successful painters internationally today, having graduated with an MFA from NCAD (Ireland) in 2012. This is a must see.
4. Liminal by Pierre Huyghe at the Pinault Collection
A tiny spider crab is hiding underneath a rock, unaware that is in fact, momentarily an artwork. Liminal is an exhibition by Pierre Huyghe curated with Anne Stenne which blends new works with key pieces from the past decade, notably from the Pinault Collection. Known for exploring the posthuman world, relational environments, boundaries between human and non-human realms, Huyghe presents speculative fictions that hint at alternate worlds and possibilities. Transforming Venice's Punta della Dogana into a constantly evolving environment, Huyghe envisions the exhibition as an organic, unpredictable ritual where inhuman perspectives invite viewers to detach from familiar realities.
5. The Irish Pavilion – Romantic Ireland by Eimear Walshe
Romantic Ireland by Eimear Walshe combines a multi-channel video and operatic soundtrack within an immersive, unfinished earth build house sculpture, highlighting conflicts between historical and modern Irish class struggles. Featuring characters made with several collaborators across centuries, the video stages emotionally charged scenes around eviction, with music by Amanda Feery and a libretto by Walshe. Reflecting on Ireland’s housing crisis, the installation becomes a layered space—part building site, wrestling ring, and ruin—where histories of labour, sexuality, and property intersect, confronting Ireland's generational tensions. (More here)
6. The Luxembourg Pavilion – A Comparative Dialogue Act by Andrea Mancini and Every Island
The Luxembourg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale hosted A Comparative Dialogue Act, a collaborative sound-focused installation by Andrea Mancini and Every Island, designed as a communal art space challenging the traditional idea of individual authorship so heavily present throughout the biennale. Over the duration of the Biennale, four guest artists, including Célin Jiang, created and performed new sound works, each exploring identity, power, and cultural narratives through sound. The pavilion serves as a platform for sound transmission, utilizing technology to facilitate a local experiment that explores how knowledge is shared, and work evolves. The aesthetic of the space resembles the set of a sci-fi film but the real draw of this exhibition was the serious consideration given to sound art. Sound is present as a material in many of the Biennale’s exhibitions; however it’s rare that sound art is considered in such a textual manner as in this exhibition and the set of events that accompanied it.
7. South West Bank Pavilion — Landworks, Collective Action and Sound, presented by Artists + Allies x Hebron and Dar Jacir
Organized by Artists + Allies x Hebron and presented in collaboration with Dar Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, Landworks, Collective Action and Sound is an exhibition curated by Jonathan Turner, showcasing works from artists and collectives in the southern West Bank, Palestine. Selected as a Collateral Event of the 60th Venice Biennale, the exhibition explores themes of land, agriculture, and heritage within a constantly shifting context. The participating artists emphasize the historical dimensions of memory and community, illustrating how the concept of "home" is deeply intertwined with traditional practices amidst the backdrop of dispossession and occupation. Featured artists included Samer Barbari, Adam Broomberg, and Emily Jacir, along with participants from the Researching Palestine Zine Group, highlighting a diverse array of voices and perspectives
8. The Austrian Pavilion – Rehearsal for Swan Lake by Anna Jermolaewa
In the main space of the Austrian Pavilion, there is a Ballerina stretching. It’s unclear whether something has just happened or whether something is about to happen - this is the tension at the heart of Anna Jermolaewa’s work. For the 2024 pavilion, Austria featured the conceptual artist, who examines human coexistence, social conditions, and political contexts through her work. Drawing from her experiences as a political refugee since leaving Leningrad in 1989, Jermolaewa connects personal migration narratives to themes of nonviolent resistance against authoritarianism. In Rehearsal for Swan Lake, created with Ukrainian choreographer Oksana Serheieva, she revisits a childhood memory when Soviet television looped Tchaikovsky's ballet during times of political upheaval.
Dr Frank Wasser is an Irish artist, writer and educator based in Vienna, London and Dublin. He is a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London where he teaches Fine Art and Critical Studies.
