With a parterre of 250 artists divided into 30 sections, the first Prague Biennale, directed by Giancarlo Politi, has made its debut. Riccarda Mandrini went to see it.

Under the title “When peripheries become central”, the first Prague Biennale opened on June 27th. It is, to tell the truth, a slightly overworked title, considering that many other important events between last spring and early summer likewise focused on art produced by areas regarded as ‘peripheral’, or outside the consecrated cultural spheres of Europe and the United States.

It doesn’t take long, though, to realise that the only slightly ‘stale’ thing about this Biennale is its title. Through the construction of specific sections, the event in fact dedicates an almost scientific reflection to national identities and to the artistic output of East European countries. So it is no surprise to find that there emerges - from sections like ‘Mission Possible’, built around the work of Czech artists; or ‘Differentia Specifica’, gathered round the works of a group of Hungarian artists; and ‘Seduced’, devoted to those of various Polish artists - a mature artistic practice that saves East Europe from any definition as a grey area.

Made up of no less than 30 sections, the Biennale describes a fluid path, where parts in high tension, such as ‘The Art of Survival’ (a sort of camp, in which the strategies and new forms of artistic activism are outlined), alternate with more narrative sections like ‘Brand Art’, in which the Mattoni brand of mineral water (the Biennale’s sponsor) is reinterpreted in an advertising key for the purpose of starting a search for a contemporary artistic identity beyond any set pattern. Visitors are received by the monumental Veletrzni Palac, which houses the National Gallery as well as the Biennale. Built between 1925 and 1929 to a design by architects Oldrich Tyl and Joseph Fuchs, it is one of the city’s earliest functionalist buildings, used for Expos. Destroyed by a fire in 1974, the Gallery was rebuilt in 1995 and since then has been home to the collections of 19th century art, among which are some beautiful paintings by Rodin. It also contains modern and contemporary art collections, with works from Matisse to Lichtenstein and Fluxus, the group with which Milan Knizak, director of the Gallery, was associated for many years.

Inside, the Vetrzni Palac resembles a huge ocean liner with the gallery rooms facing it. The 30 sections of the Biennale occupy the whole of the parterre and the first floor. At the entrance, in a race against time, Davide Bertocchi attempts by welding together old gramophone records to give shape to a large molecule: ‘The Molecule of Evil’. This work is in fact made with records by satanic groups – Black Metal, Dead Metal – found by the artist in specialised shops in Prague. “I wanted physically to render the idea of evil, even if only metaphorically”, explains Bertocchi. “Previously evil was only an idea, now it has become something concrete and recognisable”. His work belongs to the entirely Italian section, ‘Out of Order’, curated by Luca Beatrice. The works here are spread out according to the logic of the media, rather than around a defined space.

On the opposite side is ‘The Stranger Song’ by Marcello Maloberti: six photos in which the artist portrays six South Americans, each with the same expression on their faces and each in the same position. The faces are photographed against a black ground, where the only clearly visible thing is a sort of white collar. Thus by adopting an anonymous and highly repetitive representation, he relies for the construction of his work on a solid pictorial tradition. Extending from Rembrandt to Manet, it plays with the masterly use of black on black to reveal a human condition – that of the emigrant – that never, even in its most dramatic moments, has access to lyricism. In the central hall, entirely devoted to painting, are ‘Fattore 8’, a magnetic work by Andrea Chiesi, and ‘Enduring Freedom’ by Nicola Verlato which, aside from the controversy often attached to his works, confirms him as a painter by definition.

‘Beautiful Banners’, from the book by Pier Paolo Pasolini ‘Le Belle Bandiere’, gives plenty of room to contemporary activism as an artistic practice and stands out as a vigorous section with a strong critical impact. Stooping to no compromises, its curator Marco Scotini launches straight into a presentation of works requiring the viewer to take sides without hesitation. In that of Roman Ondàk, for instance, two photos show the Czech artist and his father, dressed in the same way and both reading a paper published the day after the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. The photos in black and white portray father and son wearing the same expressions on their faces. In a sort of evocation of past and present, they are both seen, forty years after, doing the same things.

Gianni Motti hung on the wall a tapestry, found in the Museum of Communism, that formerly belonged to the last deputy prime minister of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. The artist requested for the opening day the presence of American soldiers to keep the situation under control from the top of the Gallery. His object was to create a sort of collective unease, conveyed by present anxiety surrounded by phantoms of an all too recent past.

On the same day of the inauguration, the Radek Community group of activists, who were camped in a tent outside the Gallery (which created not a few problems for the organisers), began a hunger strike that continued for three days but with no public explanation of its reasons: a sort of protest to the bitter end against a government not prepared to confront the emergencies of the present. Radek was the magazine founded in 1995 by Anatoly Osmolovsky (1969), one of the most radical and controversial Russian artists and theorists who had already founded the group ETI (Expropriation of Artistic Territory) in 1989 and who creates politico-artistic actions and performances in public spaces to foster direct contact with the public. Annibal Lopez shows a video made for the Prague Biennale, in which the artist unloads from a truck a ton of books in Avenida de La Riforma, the main street of Guatemala City. Amidst the ensuing confusion, young people are seen approaching and calmly choosing their books.

‘Beautiful Banners’ puts the accent on the new forms and identity of contemporary artistic activism, whereas the section Space and Subjectivity seeks individual identity in the portraits and interiors of South African artist Zwelethu Mthethwa, in Weng Fen’s photos of the faces and alienation of contemporary China, or in the representation of daily life in the homes of India’s middle and rich classes, as seen by Indian photographer Bharat Sikka.

until 31.8.2003
I. Prague Biennale. Peripheries become the center
National Gallery, Veletrzni Palac
Dukelskych Hrdinu 47, Prague
T +420-2-22430803
https://www.praguebiennale.org