The Big Question: What is the Venice Biennale, and why is it such a big deal?
Thursday, 7 June 2007
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Why are we asking this now?
Today the 52nd Venice Biennale throws open its pavilions to select members of the contemporary art coterie, allowing artists, critics, museum curators and collectors to take a considered browse before the exhibition opens to the general public on Sunday. Often described as the Olympic Games of the art world, the biennial event draws artists from all over the world to exhibit their work and compete for the prestigious Golden Lion award. More than that, it's the place where names are made, international status is assured and flagging fortunes are revived as all the movers and shakers of the art world converge on the rapidly sinking Italian city to identify shifts in style, new trends in media and tomorrow's great talents.
Today's opening also kicks off a once-in-a-decade summer bonanza of events. Between 10 and 17 June, the Venice Biennale, Documenta, the definitive contemporary art show held every five years in Kassel, Germany, Skulptur Projekte, the once-a-decade showcase of public art in Munster, Germany and the Art Basel fair will all open, allowing art enthusiasts to complete a 21st-century version of the Grand Tour.
How has it become the biggest event in the art calendar?
Founded in 1895 to mark the silver anniversary of King Umberto and Margherita of Savoy, Venice remains the contemporary art biennale against which all others (currently numbering more than 60 throughout the world) are measured. The original concept was to transform the evening meetings of artists in the city's Caffe Florian into a prestigious international exhibition. Ever since the first year when Giacomo Grosso's Supreme Meeting (depicting a dead man surrounded by five female nudes) caused a moral scandal, the Biennale has been at the cutting edge of modern art.
The event is split into two parts. First, and most important, are the permanent national pavilions in the city's Giardini (public gardens) which feature mainly solo presentations by artists hand-picked to represent their country in competition for the Golden Lion. The British pavilion, an attractive classical former tea-room which enjoys a central position sandwiched between the French and German pavilions, is always commissioned by the British Council (this year they have chosen Tracey Emin - see right), whereas the United States appoints a public gallery (this year New York's Guggenheim) to curate a show in a neoclassical pavilion reminiscent of the White House.
As the biennale has grown in stature, its pavilions have spilled out of the Giardini into other areas of the city including the Arsenale. This year Wales and Scotland will exhibit on a neighbouring island across the lagoon. The second element is a central international exhibition curated by a renowned figure.
Is this year the biggest and best ever?
It certainly sounds like it. With 77 countries entering pavilions for the Golden Lion prize and more than 100 artists included in the central exhibition, this is a record-breaking year. This year also sees pavilions from Turkey and India appearing for the first time and a show representing African contemporary art.
Who's going?
Everyone who's anyone in the art world. The list of artists on show reads like an A to Z of contemporary art from Louise Bourgeois and Daniel Buren to Steve McQueen and Sam Taylor-Wood. Not to mention the thousands of dealers, collectors, curators, critics and art-lovers who will throng the canals with a view to finding the next big thing. The event also has its first American curator - Professor Robert Storr, an esteemed art historian, painter and former curator of Painting and Sculpture at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He has already hit controversy after a falling-out with the Biennale's managing director Renato Quaglia in the run-up to the show, which resulted in Quaglia resigning.
But the Venice Biennale is not just about the art. As with Cannes, the work on show often takes a back seat to the more glamorous business of networking and some serious partying. "For me the Venice Biennale is one big party, with fantastic weather," says Emin. "You've got all your friends around you [and] you dress up to the nines." Sir Elton John is already booked to play a concert among the pigeons in St Mark's Square, and Jerry Hall is one of 70 friends Emin has invited over for the opening party.
Why has Tracey Emin been chosen to represent Britain this year?
According to Andrea Rose, the director of visual art for the British Council, "Tracey is rather unique among British artists. She has achieved a fantastic body of work that's getting better and better. She talks about real things unacademically, rawly and intimately, with unparalleled candour." These "real things" refer to Emin's best-known works My Bed, an unmade bed scattered with cigarette butts, dirty underwear and other detritus and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, a tent embroidered with the names of all those with whom she shared her bed. Anointed as a Royal Academician last month, the 43-year old artist is following in the footsteps of artists such as Gilbert and George, Chris Ofili, Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Hamilton, Anish Kapoor, Frank Auerbach and Howard Hodgkin as she takes up residence in the British pavilion.
The first British woman to mount a solo show for Britain in Venice for a decade, Emin has renovated the building, restoring its marble pillars and stripping out fake cornices, taking it "back to its original beauty". Her show, Borrowed Light, featured in The Independent's Extra section today, "is the most feminine work I've ever made", says the artist.
What else should we look forward to?
Aside from Emin, there is a buzz around the current holders of the Golden Lion, France. Last year Annette Messager walked away with the prize for her work based on the story of Pinocchio. This year the country is represented by Sophie Calle, whose work deals with themes of surveillance and voyeurism. Her show, commissioned by Daniel Buren, is a series of video portraits of 107 women including a judge, a police captain and the actress Jeanne Moreau, interpreting the phrase, "Take care of yourself".
America has taken the unusual decision of not fielding a living artist this year. Their pavilion will be filled with the trademark stacks of paper, strings of lightbulbs and cellophane-wrapped boiled sweets of the Cuban-born Felix Gonzalez-Torres who died 10 years ago.
Representing Italy, the video installation artist Francesco Vezzoli has created two mock campaigns for the White House, entitled "Democrazy", starring the Hollywood actress Sharon Stone in a power suit and wig and the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy as rival candidates. The Ukrainian pavilion also sounds strong. Curated by Peter Doroshenko, director of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, it brings together eight artists, only four of whom hail from the Ukraine, alongside Sam Taylor-Wood's film of a Ukrainian ballet dancer suspended in mid-air and Mark Titchner's banner which declares, "We Are Ukrainians, What Else Matters?"
What effect does it have on those artists chosen?
Although the Biennale is supposed to be a non-commercial event, the concentration of so many dealers and so much talent in one city results in much covert wheeling and dealing in the trattorias and on the gondolas. Appearing at the Venice Biennale can result in major sales for artists. In 1991, the fashion designer Miuccia Prada purchased Anish Kapoor's installation Void Field for $1m, a substantial sum at that time. In 2003, having exhibited his cowboy photographs at the Biennale, the Canadian artist Richard Prince saw his prices quadruple at an auction later in the year. Several London galleries have already put on shows of their artists who are taking part this year - including Irish representative Gerald Byrne (now on show at the Lisson Gallery), Cypriot Mustafa Hulusi (Max Wigram Gallery) and Canadian David Altmejd (Stuart Shave's Modern Art in London) - in the hope of cashing in on a piece of Venetian glory.
