Venice Biennale 2019 Part two

One of the most interesting aspects of the Venice Biennale this year was the presence of such a wide range of artists from what we used to call the third world. Another reflection of change, artists from all over the globe now exhibiting their work with no feeling of inferiority, simply showing work alongside artists from other nations on an equal level. Things have come a long way since the Magicians of the Earth exhibition back in the 1980s.

I have though decided not to identify where the artists I have to picked out as interesting come from, some it is obvious from the content of their work, but for others it is not so obvious and in this ambiguity I think there is an interesting point to be made about how we tend to associate country of origin with how we read the images. If you want to it is of course easy to Google each artist to find out more. 

The photographer Gauri Gill had taken wonderful images of Maharashtrian tribesmen wearing papier-mâché masks that she had had made based on certain individual's own sense of themselves as characters. This activity brought together traditional and non traditional notions of how to make images. For me this was three dimensional drawing at its most elemental fused with photography's ability to bring everything within shot into the same world. Perhaps it was the way these images reminded me of shamanistic traditions, but whatever the reason, I found them totally engaging and they fulfilled my personal need to work with images that dissolved the barriers between people and animals or people and objects.

Gauri Gill 

This is how Gill's website introduces her work: 'Acts of Appearance' assumed its form within a village of Adivasi paper mache artists from the Kokna tribe in Jawhar district. Further inland from Dahanu, it is one of the most impoverished districts in Maharashtra. In Rajasthan, among her Jogi friends during Holi, Gill had first encountered people wearing store-bought masks to play-act various personas as part of the fun of the festival. In Maharashtra, she learned of the Bahora procession, held once a year in many Adivasi villages, in which the entire community participates in a ritual performance over several nights, to enact a mythological tale. The performers are chosen from among the residents and wear elaborate masks made by artists to represent different gods, demons, and ancillary figures. The Bahora masks take weeks to make, are sacred and consecrated, and constitute a moral and imaginative universe, but also conform to strict rules of creation as they represent powerful archetypes refined over generations of storytelling. In 2014, Gill sought out the acclaimed brothers Subhas and Bhagvan Dharma Kadu, sons of the legendary craftsman Dharma Kadu, with a proposal. She wished to commission them, along with their families and fellow volunteers (more than thirty people in total), to create a new set of masks—not of gods or demons as per local tradition and lore, but rather as representing beings existing in contemporary reality. The interpretive creations were to come from them, with the suggestion that they embody different ages, distinctive individuals, the varied rasas (emotions) like love, sadness, fear or anger, and those experiences common to all humans, such as sickness, relationships, or aging. In the course of dialogue, animals were naturally understood to be a part of this universe. Later, precious objects entered the frame, as they are believed have sentience too. Inhabiting these masks, a cast of ‘actor’ volunteers (including the artists) would later improvise and enact different real scenarios, 'across dreaming and waking states’, in and around the village'.
 
The idea that other things besides ourselves could have sentience was something I have been thinking a lot about lately, as well as my work on issues to do with aging and how we enact our views of who and what we are; therefore I was particularly fascinated by what Gauri Gill was doing. The idea of everything being 'actants' in universal as well as local sets of events and entangled interconnections appeals to me more and more.

Shakuntala Kulkarni 

Cane armour by Shakuntala Kulkarni was another of my favourites, cane as a 3D drawing tool is very expressive and her work highlighted the fact that we wear our clothes as a sort of armour.

Shakuntala Kulkarni 

Kulkarni was able to exhibit her work in three ways, as a sculptural presentation, such as in the image directly above, and as constructed photographs, as well as documentation of performances.

Tavares Strachan

A memorial to Robert Henry Lawrence, the first African American astronaut by the Bahamanian artist Tavares Strachan is of a glowing figure momentarily suspended as it falls to Earth, Robert Henry Lawrence becoming a radiant spaceman midway between drawing and sculpture.

A memorial to Robert Henry Lawrence

Tavares Strachan: Encyclopaedia of invisibility

Strachan's other works in the Giardini are a series of images that have emerged from what he calls 'the encyclopaedia of invisibility'; made up of collaged elements taken from an imaginary Encyclopaedia Britannica, one that has excluded certain elements of history, ones that he feels were excluded because of the hidden agendas of the white editing team that put the encyclopaedia together. Just as Robert Henry Lawrence is often forgotten about, there are many aspects of history that are edited out by any dominant culture.

Thinking about the space race and images coming from a dominant culture there was a contemporary version of The Pioneer Plaque made to reflect the plight of refugees in Halil Altindere's installation, "Space Refugee". In this work Altindere explores the life of Muhammed Ahmed Faris, Syria's first and only cosmonaut. Faris travelled to the Mir space station with a Soviet team in 1987 and was treated as a national hero.However when Faris became a supporter of the opposition movement against Assad, he was forced to leave the country and now lives as a refugee in Istanbul.

Halil Altindere "Space Refugee"

Michael Armitage is mainly known for his large paintings, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a collection of his drawings.

Michael Armitage

Informal drawings that were sketchbook like in their size and format, were collected together to make an installation consisting of white framed drawings made in brown ink wash on white paper. Armitage's paintings weave multiple narratives that are drawn from historical and current news media, internet gossip, and his own ongoing recollections of Kenya. The drawings exhibited being his daily jottings whereby he recorded life in Kenya. This very traditional way of using drawing as a documentation or recording device, is in his paintings merged with imagery taken from websites and other places from within the ubiquitous contemporary image stream. Old and new fusing in a similar way to the fact that village culture in Kenya is in many ways interacting with the effects of global transnational events. The old in the new, the traditional living alongside the contemporary, is a growing reality of modern life.

Frida Orupabo’s collages of black women are made in such a way that they have a sculptural presence. She creates joints between her cut out sections that are rather like those used in certain sorts of puppet making.

Frida Orupabo

Orupabo's awkward body juxtapositions and use of black and white imagery reminded me of how historically black women had been traded as objects, these 'puppets' are though turned to face you, and like Manet's Olympia transcend their position and take on an agency that gives them gravity and a certain presence.

Kemang Wa Lehulere

Kemang Wa Lehulere’s notion of the collective is key to the artist’s practice. As an activist in Cape Town, he established Gugulective in 2006, an artistic platform for performance and social intervention. Both the installations exhibited in the Arsenale and in the Central Pavilion are made from salvaged wood and metal from school desks and chairs. Each element in these works comes together in a web of associations, references, and stories because for Wa Lehulere, personal biography and collective history are inextricable.

Kemang Wa Lehulere

He also has a drawing practice that although not focused on in Venice is usually an important part of his installations.

Kemang Wa Lehulere

Often drawing in white chalk directly onto black painted walls, the various elements of his private associations become mixed in with images taken directly from encounters with the various South African iconic images of nation. His work was of particular relevance because I find myself working between drawing, making and performance, I also find myself storytelling and I need to embrace various and diverse elements if I am to fully engage with the communication of what I want to say.
New technology was also very visible in Venice, I was particularly interested in Ian Cheng's work, because it illustrated how an idea can literally be grown from the implications of computer algorithms.

Ian Cheng

Ian Cheng's work also demonstrated the continuing influence of the comic book on image making. His creation, 'Bob' growing and morphing, living and dying in a computer animation according to rule generated behaviours, as well as having its own comic book story, 'the life of Bob' which was presented as a very large back lit cartoon strip and was also available to buy in comic book form in the biennale shop.

                                   

Ian Cheng talks about 'Bob' and other things

See also:

Venice Biennale 2019 part one

Venice Biennale 2019 part three

Venice Biennale 2019 part four

Reflections on other Venice Biennales

2015

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

2017

Venice an allegory
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4