All the World’s futures: Arsenal & International Pavilion

Article
For the last 120 years, the Venice Biennale has served as far more than just a window into the artistic production of its participating countries, it is also a global creation which unfolds under the careful watch of the directing curator.


OKWUI ENWEZOR’S GUEST LIST

At 53 years old, Okwui Enwezor is a relatively young curator for the event, launching himself into an international creation which reflects on the global art world and its market. Born in Nigeria, Enwezor was director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in 1998, followed by Documenta 11 (2002); the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2007); the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008) and the Triennal d’Art Contemporain de Paris (2012). Today he is the director of the Haus der Kunst Munich. His line up comprises 136 artists from 53 countries, among whom those which “we paradoxically insist on defining as peripheral” [Paolo Baratta], with 89 of these artists exhibiting at the prestigious event for the first ever time. A geographically and artistically heterogeneous selection, talent is not only recognized by seniority, constituting Enwezor’s “Parliament of Forms”. It might seem obvious to say that the selection is an accurate representation of the world, but it is true.
 
HAPPENING
Having represented Russia in 2001, Olga Chernysheva’s work reappears in 2015 with a series of drawings in the Arsenale.
The small messages integrated into these works on paper make for impressive drawings with
intense profoundeness that transcends the delicate pencil traces that define her work.



OKWUI ENWEZOR’S VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Enwezor presents us with a world brimming with tension where the fault lines are tangible in every corner of the globe. Man has never been so rich in knowledge, yet weighed down by this age of anxiety in the face of social malaise which is all too familiar. The immediate present promises to be a pivotal moment, yet the biennale has lived through many of these transitional junctures in history. However, never before has the biennale managed to engage with the avant-garde, the 1930 and 1942 editions were overridingly conservative, and upon its return in1948 the event remained reticent regarding its fascist silencing – unlike Documenta I.

 

HAPPENING
For his series Frequencies, Oscar Murillo has explored the globe. The young artist is exhibiting a series of table cloths that
have been decorated by children from across the world. The results are quite shocking, the differences prove that
globalization has not reached every corner of the globe just yet.  
 


Okwui Enwezor forsees a dark future, fragile and uncertain, marked by an increasing complexity, to which he responds to with an exhibition, equally dense and intense where the spectator is obliged to return more than once in order to fully view all of the works. Casting doubt on an imminent future without putting the contemporary viewer ill at ease necessitates an equilibrium between what is called for and what the workings of the art world can deliver.

 

HAPPENING
Eduardo Basualdo’s work focuses on the notion of limits, their nature and permeability, featuring a series of new works
comprising sculptures, drawings, and a site-specific installation.



One question keeps arising during this inaugural week: what is the purpose of contemporary art? Many have bestowed it what could be considered over-ambitious roles: the need to change the world, to politicize the relationships between global powers; however Okwui Enwezor is more of a realist in his curatorship, yet he is no less profound. Contemporary art does not exist in order to provide pre-conceived solutions, but to participate in a dialogue, to incite critical thought in a world which is often too rooted in its past.
 



Whatever the gravity of the proposed discourse, the dark changes to befall us, the imminent present in Venice is altogether more joyful: the Prosecco is still flowing freely in the city of the Doges. 

 

HAPPENING
Kutlug Ataman, the portrait of Sakip Sabanci is a multi-image work of some of the thousands of people,
from all walks of life, whose paths crossed Sakıp Sabancı's in some way. One of the largest examples
of video art, it has approximately 10,000 LCD panels and took three years to complete

HAPPENING
Ricardo Brey is a pioneer of the Cuban New Art movement initated in 1981. He presents a series of panels
poetically grouping together a variety of objects. « What is of foremost importance to me is to cause
interpretation tensions to the individual or collective conscience.»

 
HAPPENING
Eight immense canvases, Georg Baselitz’s Untitled paintings measure almost five metres each and depict
variations of self-portraits of the artist. The figures are all upsidedown, a signature element of the
German painter’s work, they are raw with the nudity of an old man with haggard eyes which haunt you.
Death feels all too close