The Most Important Not-to-Miss World Stage Art Event with the City as a Venue, or What To Do, What To See at the Venice Biennale
Art is Life. La Biennale di Venezia.
Lets start with the fact that I love Venice. I love everything about it… except its bridges. There is nothing wrong with bridges themselves, but they all have steps, and I loath steps. So once we are done with my personal negativity, lets go for something much more inspiring and entertaining about that wonderful little city. Here is all about Venice Biennale — an international contemporary art exhibition.
Countries chose their best artists to represent their art and culture on the festival. In many ways Biennale is like a Eurovision, but much more global and with art. And when I say art, I mean all art: paintings, sculpture, music, performances, motion pictures — everything!.. even the most absurd stupidity that is regarded as “art” only because its mentally ill creators named it as such.
And here I should ask a question — what is art and why does it has such an important historic value?
Century ago art wasn’t global and it wasn’t for everyone. A commoner could never pick up a quill and write a poem. 90% of humanity worldwide couldn’t even read their own name. They were uneducated, thus art was never a job for a commoner. And even if they wanted to write music, they had no idea about musical grammar, and if they wanted to draw, they could have never afforded paint or any other materials.
Yes, the native art always existed — and it is a pride of every nation — however in most cases it was primitive and simple. Yet the high art was also present! I’m talking about those fundamental master pieces that we see in museums. What is it? Why were they made? By whom? And most importantly, for whom?
Although art schools existed long ago, they were very limited, and in most cases artists could never find the job… there is even a Russian saying “Artists are hungry”, because commoners had no need, nor interest in art… decor, clothes and music where the only exception. All other art forms were an intellectual thing, thus only intelligent and well educated high class society could appreciate it. Only 10% of world population that represents the so called “elite” could afford art. They were the church and the nobility. And when they were commissioning artistic pieces, they wanted it to reflect all the best that their society and culture had to offer, and by doing so they were underlining their own high class status. Supreme works of art for the superior individuals. There was no other way. Beethoven, Da Vinci, Dante and all the other geniuses of the past worked only by order of the church and the nobility, otherwise their masterpieces would have never been seen or heard by the masses and would have never survived to this day. All those stories about “self-made artists from lower class” are for the most part nothing but post-factum marketing schemes to raise value of their works. In reality all those biographies have very little to do with the truth. Art was made only for the elite and only by those who was close to the elite. Period.
But in nineteenth-twentieth centuries everything has changed. Schools have become available for everyone… and even mandatory. And now every single individual has become his own artist and critic… simply because they know how to read and because tools for creativity became much more affordable. Nowadays with the YouTube and Instagram culture everyone has become an art creator.
According to dictionaries, art is everything that exists due to human imagination and skills. Thus everything what is manmade can and should be considered “art”. This text is an art, so is this web-site, so is your toothpaste and an asphalt outside the window. Even the garbage in the ocean that endangers hundreds of rare species and causes the environmental catastrophes can be referred to as an art form. Yeah, the global warming is definitely art.
Do you see the problem? No? If not, then Biennale is definitely for you to enjoy.
The purpose of this art exhibition is not to enlighten people and enrich culture with the beauty created by the skill and imagination of geniuses from around the world, like classic museums do, but to exhibit “art”… yes, all “art”… and word “exhibit” is chosen here not by accident, but to be associated with the idea of ‘“exhibitionism”, since in most cases seeing the art on Biennale I experience the same emotions as seeing some of the most out of place acts of exhibitionism. I feel shame, disgust, a little curiosity (I guess) and an enormous wonder, asking myself “What were they thinking?” or “Did they even think?” and “If they didn’t put a single thought into it, then why should I?”
You should be a total libertine pervert in order to enjoy the contemporary art presented on Biennale. And I’m not saying that it is a bad thing. It is simply a matter of taste.
What can Biennale offer?
I figured out that all art exhibited on the festival can be divided on four categories. There are always some exceptions, but like an old Hungarian proverb says “All exceptions straighten the rule”.
The first category of art is what I call a “classic art”. It doesn’t mean necessarily that it has something to do with the historic classical art, but it tries to follow the tradition of a classical meaning of art. Creators really use their imagination and skill in order to make something nice and unique… something that you want to buy (whatever the cost may be) and put it into your personal art collection to admire. This category of art is quite rare, but it can be found on Biennale… and it is the only reason why I’m still visiting it.
The second category of art on Biennale is an atmospheric art. Installations. Countries, presented on the festival, turn their pavilions into an abstract space with certain decorations, ambient music and sound effects, lighting and even odours. This is hard to describe, since this art is not an art piece in a traditional way, it is not an object, nor a film, nor a play, nor a performance, but an atmosphere. Yes, the atmosphere is created with the help of objects and other tools, but they make no sense once they are removed from the context. For example there was a pavilion full of shells made of leather (Saudi Arabia’s Pavilion 2019). There were thousands, if not millions of such small shells. Every single shell was a form in itself, since it is man made — artificial, therefore art, but separately they doesn’t mean much. Just a tiny object. However when you see them all in certain patterns in dark space with bleak lighting, those million of tiny shells take you into a different reality. Some of such atmospheric art transport you into pleasant realities, some take you straight to hell and some try hard to take you anywhere, but fail flat. However for the most part atmospheric art hits its mark with its installations.
Then there is the third category of Biennale art. Performances. Pavilions are turned into improvised theatre stages… some with decorations, some without. And mostly these acts become the most notable by art critics and audiences, because people have to wait hours in line to get in to see the show. Such action provides expectations, excitement, curiosity and hype. And when you see real people act in front of you, it gives much more authority and authenticity to the art. Unlike other pavilions, where artists provide their finished product — a product they worked hard on in their studios, that you never see, just like you don’t see how they make their art pieces — performances are held live, and you see people act and work right in front of you. And realtime work always provides much more credibly and value, not to mention the quantity of actors. So many people can’t do something pointless and stupid — you keep telling yourself, watching their acts. Or can they? Now that’s the true Shakespearian question.
And then there is a forth category of art on Biennale… an art that I personally can’t name as such by any means, since it has nothing to do with human skills and imagination. People just take pre-existing objects they find peculiar and put them on a stand. Those objects are not necessarily man made. For example a piece of stone, a tree brunch, a rotting leaf, fish bones and etc. Those objects are not artificial, therefore not art, however artist thinks that by putting a piece of nature in an artificial manmade environment it automatically becomes an art form, and you — as an audience — have to respect and appreciate the artistic individualism and genius behind such “creators”. And sometimes these “artists” take the pre-existing manmade objects, like a bag, or shoes, or glass jars and put them in their stands as their personal art. Well, it isn’t. It is the art of the original shoemaker, or that shopping mall that produced the bag, or that tomato jam company that creates the glass jars for their product. But since it was the “artist” who discovered the “artistic value” of these everyday objects and it was he who put them on the exhibition, then it becomes “his” work of art and he sells it for thousands of dollars. Genius! Andy Warhol would be proud!
And people look at this trash and desperately try to justify it, telling themselves that there has to be some deeper meaning in this, because they have already payed for the expensive entry ticket and don’t want to admit that they are being conned.
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Evgeny is an art director and a global citizen based in Hong Kong and working between Asia and Europe.
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