As the exhibitions of this summer’s feast for the senses come to a close, people all over the world are returning to their respective studios, homes, and offices to process the wealth of visual information acquired in 2007.
Between the 52nd Venice Biennale, the 12th Kassel Documenta, and the 10th Skulptur Projekte Munster, there is more than enough to process while waiting for the next round to begin again in two, five, and ten years time.
As this processing occurs, reviews are circulating. There has been a wide spectrum of reviews, from first-timers to connoisseurs alike.
Some of the shows have gotten nasty reviews (Documenta 12 has been called “Suckumenta”), but due to the rate at which these shows circulate, we all have to wait another ten years until this trio occurs in unison again. Is there nothing we can glean from the privilege of bouncing around Europe in the quest for creative stimuli?
Though it’s an embarrassing, contradictory, and disturbing sight to behold, does it not also paint an interesting portrait of the modern United States?
The Venice Biennale, directed by curator Robert Storr, celebrated its 52nd year this summer. Though there were exhibitions that left much to be desired, there were others that broke barriers.
For example, the representative of the French Pavilion, Sophie Calle, worked outside the Venice Biennale framework of a one-person show by using the space to highlight the work of many. The collab produced the exhibition “Take Care of Yourself,” in which a multi-lingual constellation of voices was culled to creatively (and publicly) console Calle over the break-up with a lover.
The backgrounds had a dramatic range; their professions ranged from “translator in SMS language,” “etiquette consultant,” and “police captain,” to other artists, writers, and musicians (Feist being of them). Though some point out that the content was still “all about her,” it is hard to forego the generative opportunity this exhibition offered.
And there was the United States Pavilion, where Felix Gonzalez-Torres was chosen to represent the US post-mortem. It was one of the more interesting, confusing, embarrassing, controversial, and contradictory exhibitions at this Biennale.
Featuring his Stacks and Candy sculptures, his works are partly determined by their production and disappearance; that is, the viewer is able to take pieces of his sculptures (stacks of posters and piles of candy) outside the gallery as free art objects, only to return the next day to see each sculpture replenished in full.
Those who are familiar with the themes in Gonzalez-Torres’ work recall that his candy and posters, intended to be taken away piece by piece, are always represented by a body weight; each piece taken and consumed is meant as a metaphor for death, disappearance, loss, and transformation. For those unfamiliar with these themes, his work is simply an unlimited supply of free art and free candy.
As the metaphor for death and transformation was being trampled, so was responsible consumerism, as the myth of an endless supply of resources prevailed. Though it’s an embarrassing, contradictory, and disturbing sight to behold, does it not also paint an interesting portrait of the modern United States?
From a traditional portrait museum to temporary tent structure, viewers were repeatedly pressed to redefine what we expected from an art space, and why. As director Ruth Noack wrote, “Exhibitions are only worth looking at if we manage to dispense with preordained categories and arrive at a plateau where art communicates itself on its own terms.”
This isn’t the most comfortable way to view a large exhibition, whose works would take a full week to get through — and that’s moving quickly. The labels of works were often hidden around corners, an exercise in engaging a work of art before the predeterminations of authorship take over.
The geographic locations of artists was also withheld on labels, encouraging viewers not to categorize based on ethnicity, locale, or a city’s notoriety. The exercise was interesting in the wake of the Nationalist-driven Venice Biennale, but it made more work for viewers to have art communicate on its own terms.
Other preordained categories in the Documenta 12 were subverted in the interest of pedagogy. At the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, a historic castle turned museum that houses a huge Dutch Master’s collection, the paintings of contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall were scattered throughout a collection of Rembrandts (shown above).
The performative aspect of this act was huge — breaking down preconceived notions of delineations in art history, integrating an artist of color into an art historical lineage self-defined by whiteness, and allowing contemporary sensibilities to play with traditional ones. But this exhibition did not succeed in its installation; it seemed happenstance, a little clumsy, and non-committal.
The desire to generate diverse conversations through the display of art was highly successful, and though its innovation wasn’t best realized in this exhibition, it offered fodder for future curatorial undertakings.
It was a relief to be outside the gallery, welcoming sunshine and natural air — seemingly a reward from weeks of hard art work in temperature-controlled galleries and museums.
In a non-linear integration of past and present shows, works from Richard Serra, Donald Judd, and Rebecca Horn — who represent earlier generations in the show — could be found amidst more current invitees like Bruce Nauman, Mark Wallinger, Guy Ben-Ner and Martha Rosler.
Nauman’s work Square Depression (shown above), a project that was proposed thirty years ago, was finally made manifest this summer; it was an extraordinary and visceral work that challenged our perception of three-dimensional space.
The next Venice Biennale is scheduled for 2009; the Documenta 13 is for 2012. The next time these two shows happen in the same summer won’t be until 2017, joined again by the fifth decade of Skulptur Projekte Münster.
Given the overload of work there was to see and do, this excursion becomes a kind of work, an art-going job, in its own right. Waiting another ten years might not be so bad; after all, we need time to hibernate.
– Story by Analisa Goodin, photos (except Skulptur Projekte Münster image) by Analisa Goodin