Another BRICk in the wall

Four countries with emerging national economies—Brazil, Russia, India and China—as seen through their art pavilions.

Very different approaches have been adopted for Venice this year by the emerging countries—to which we should always look with curiosity, if only because their energy and contradictions are those of our past.
Brazil, like Russia, has a celebrated pavilion in the Giardini and, like Russia, is presenting work by an artist who arrived on the art scene in the 1970s.

Artur Barrio was born in Portugal in 1945 and moved to Brazil in 1955 but remained outside the best-known movements of those years (Neoconcretismo, or Brazilian Modernism in architecture). The first room shows works from the 1970s when he used materials such as toilet paper, humble and readily available, a choice of materials based on the assumption that other more precious ones epitomised capitalism and would distance people from art. It also inevitably, and as professed in his 1970 manifesto, called the whole art system into question.
Here and above: Artur Barrio, installation details, Brazilian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
Here and above: Artur Barrio, installation details, Brazilian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
The true surprise, however, is the poetic second room featuring an installation made specifically for this Biennale and in which several themes cross over: the sea, its impoverishment and the smell of fish, relations—the room of the monologue and that of dialogue, rifts, signs on the walls and floors, and rubbish, always present in his works and seen here in a corner. All the senses are involved.
Andrei Monastyrski and Collective action, installation detail, Russian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
Andrei Monastyrski and Collective action, installation detail, Russian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
Empty Zones has the elegance only achieved by certain Russian intellectuals, in a play on a 'tit for tat' response to the vulgarity of the nouveau riche. Monastyrski and Collective Actions' conceptual works are actions carried out mostly in winter and in large spaces—snow-clad countryside, woods and rivers. Their purpose was and is (the collective still exists) to inspire contemplation. Ours is a world that is always looking to a future brought about by actions. In 1970s' Russia, although it still applies today, opposing this action was tantamount to opposing the construction of Communism and preventing the creation of the 'future'. These conceptual operations were, of course, also seen in the West but the total absence of an art market in Russia seems to have given them greater impact. Andrei Monastyrski has been a master, in the true sense of the word, to entire generations of artists.
The curator of the Indian pavilion Ranjit Hoskote has chosen a resonant and pertinent title 'Everyone Agrees: It's About to Explode…' But what? Contemporary Indian art, the subcontinent, the economy, the contradictions or sustainable development?
Zarina Hasmi, Home is a foreign country, Indian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
Zarina Hasmi, Home is a foreign country, Indian pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
It is India's first time, almost as if it can only come here alone now that it has truly broken away from its long cultural subjection to Great Britain. A subjection and "bridgehead" that now brings us the work of many Indian artists who, backed by a strong tradition, are managing to portray the 'new' India in a contemporary and, in a certain sense, global language. The curator Ranjit Hoskote, also a poet, has chosen a resonant and pertinent title "Everyone Agrees: It's About to Explode…" But what? Contemporary Indian art, the subcontinent, the economy, the contradictions or sustainable development? All of these might well explode.
Left: Praneet Soi, detail of the installation; right: Gigi Scaria, Elevator from the Subcontinent, Indian pavilion.
Left: Praneet Soi, detail of the installation; right: Gigi Scaria, Elevator from the Subcontinent, Indian pavilion.
Then more subtlety comes into play; the chosen artists are nomads in their country and around the world—as if exploding boundaries were a precondition to the portrayal of this great country. Secondly, they are not involved with galleries and auctions. They work in areas, physical places, and with practices that are totally different from each other, striving to convey the complexity and diversity of India. This explains why Zarina Hashmi, who was born in Aligarth and lives and works in New York, was invited with her explicit Home is a Foreign Place—as too, Praneet Soi, born in Kolkata and who divides his time between 'home' and Amsterdam; Gigi Scaria, who is an internal migrant; and the Desire Machine Collective, who work almost on the border with Pakistan. All together, this small space at the back of the Arsenale gives us the necessary taster.
Yuan Gong e Yang Mooyuan, Chinese pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
Yuan Gong e Yang Mooyuan, Chinese pavilion. Photo: Andrea Basile
China has now consolidated its presence with an outside space, at the back of the Arsenale. Achille Bonito Oliva was behind the first large exhibition showcasing the then new Chinese Pop Art in 1993. Thinking back, it was far more powerful than anything seen here for quite a while. Pan Gongkai's works contain a certain grace and he addresses the themes of the Western-style installation and the idea of the melting pot. Yuan Gong also manages the space well with his smoke wafting around Yang Mooyuan's vases.
Venice: Free Ai Weiwei!
Venice: Free Ai Weiwei!
What has not gone away is the issue of an art that cannot be critical. Artists must not express themselves as people; they are not allowed the verbal narration of their work (despite Gongkai's catalogue filled with words) that produces criticism and shows their impact outside the confines of the discipline. Then, of course, there is the great void left by Ai Weiwei, whose absence is bitterly heroic, and the subject everyone is really talking about.
You would expect more from China. Simona Bordone

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