Who Am I?
Pavilion of Belgium, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
I am the Belgian Pavillion.
I am very proud to have been the first national pavilion, built in 1907 by a group of Belgian artists. They were not in line with the Belgian government and had a more secessionist view, but my Léon Sneyers, my architect, had a good grip on colonialism as he was responsible for the exhibion halls of the Belgian colony Congo for the world fairs in 1905 and 1906. I was built with a large glass ceiling, as a manifest for radical modern art!
When I was built, the Empire of Belgium was in full swing. Our King Leopold II had the a vast share of central Africa in his claws, lands that were called ’Congo’ after the river flowing through the dense jungle forest.
The world was in the throes of imperialism and Europe was happy to produce more and more heavy machinery under big smoking funnels. The vehicles, cars and trucks went on wheels covered with rubber, and much of this rubber came from the Congo jungles. People from the villages had to collect the sap from trees, and if they did not provide enough, their hands were cut off as revenge. Seven years to go World War One, and 53 to formal independence for the Congo.
The artists who exhibited in this first independent little structure propelled little Belgium with big Congo into the world art market like nothing, like a rocket!! And I am still with them, after all those years! Not with the Congo of course. But, I was sad when I heard that they wanted to come to Venice in 2011 and couldn’t. And they had a nice motto too, something about women and art. And because nobody asks me anything – people just fill me with what they call ’art’ – I was not able to offer them space in my noble halls. Because by this, I could have been two pavilions at once: of Belgium, the first in the Giardini publici, and of the Republic of Congo, the last … But, nobody asks me … maybe I collapse for spite … after all, I am old … standing here all the time … stupid people …
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Who Am I?
Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
I am the Pavilion of Austria. I came to the Giardini very late, considering that all the other powerful empires of Europe arrived with their pompous buildings before or on the advent of the First World War. Maybe the Danube Monarchy was too busy preparing for that historical event?
In any case – although I am proud to be a Jugendstil jewel by the famous urban architect Josef Hoffmann – I am also offended that I was built so long after the pavilion of Hungary. Did anybody note that Hungary was not an independent nation at all, as it tries to make us believe, but a dependent part of the k. and k. World Empire? And how nationalistic they adorned their Art Déco mosaiced exhibition house!
So, now I am here at the very back of the Giardini next to a channel. And my artists again and again tried their best to transform me into something else. I was made into a swamp by the forever pubertarian group Gelatin. Hans Schabus thought of me as a part of a mountain and built slopes around me. The young male artist chosen fort he 54th Biennale gave me a concrete frontino blocking. And Mathias Poledna, who obviously thinks of himself as a movie house producer, inserted a black hole into my intestines, a black cube as a cinema for his song-and-dance Walt-Disney-rip-off. If he wants to be a foolish singing donkey, well so be it, but what does that do to me? Not of his concern, obviously, that people could not come to my spacious and cool inner sanctum, the courtyard, so reminiscent of Austria’s cosy position in Central Europe. We must allow art to be free, that is our credo … And to grab for the East, as we are in the pole position. … That foolish song starts again … what an earworm … dadadi … “someone must be fooling with me“ … ladadidada …
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Who Am I?
Pavilion of Corea, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
I am the pavilion of Corea. I came last to the Giardini, and am proud of it. Last not least, as I learned in my violent history, it is never too late to become a world power by building automobiles and swamp the earth with them little buggers.
However, I say I am Corea. Really I am South Corea, but we do not speak of our Northern alter ego. They are so rogue! They could have made a good paradigm for George Orwell for his 1984. At the borders of the empire, there must be a threat! And what better threat than a fully-fledged COMMUNIST!! They are communists, and they are armed up to their eyebrows or whatever that metaphor is, and they want to grab world power!!
Or something like that. However, I am a very pretty creature from glass and white steel, I have a beautiful window that opens up to the Venice Canal Grande, my atmosphere is lofty and green and welcoming (although I was not ready for the press previews of the 55. Biennial, but what the heck. I am entitled to be a little diva now and then!)
My neighbours are fascists. Oh excuse me, they were, and allies of each other too, so I am pushed up the hill between Japan and Germany. And I must tell you – now that we are having this little heart-to-heart – that I personally, or let’s say pavilionally, prefer Japan. Not only is their pavilion really cute and a good match for me; but they always receive their human guests very politely and give them hand-outs; but the German pavilion, oh dear, how they have written GERMANIA high up on their preposterous fausse-Greek building with its bragging columns!
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Who Am I?
German Pavilion, used by France, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
But what annoys me most is that they have their back door right towards my right wing. You might not know what “back door“ means in terms of pavilion anatomy, but we consider it very rude, very very rude indeed to show someone their backdoor. So we keep very cold social relations. A cold war, you could call it, haha! No exchange, no ma’am! And you can see this year where they really want to mix: French fries, haha! So for the 55th Biennial, we had France coming out their back door. Nobody spoke about their artists, but we noticed (I was told so, as pavilions cannot walk and cannot go to look for themselves; we depend on hearsay) that GERMANIA, the letters, were erased. Not totally though, typically they were still visible … reminds me of that Chaplin movie with the Fuhrer and this Ey-talian guy … I wish someone would show a movie … what about Japan? Couldn’t they put on a video on their wall, to entertain me … they are not so polite after all … gee, I’m bored.
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Who Am I?
Pavilion of the USA, artist: Sarah Sze, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
I am the Pavilion of the U.S. The U.S, not AMERICA, as some of you often call me. It should be known to all by now that the United States of America are the world’s super power! The rest of America is just a bunch of commies and losers. To think about Canada – ha! They have a pavilion right next to Great Britain and Germany, tucked in between them, and they hope to catch some of their visitors. As we all know (well, I have been told so as I am a building and cannot walk to see for myself), the visitors queue in front of GB, Germany and France, and nobody knows why. The art? Come on! It’s because these preposterous countries think of themselves as rulers still. What nonsense!
Having said that, I must admit that I am a bit humiliated by this year’s brutal action that that young little woman by the name of Sze has subjected me to. If I were a person and not built from bricks, I’d file complaints on account of discrimination. That girl (and, please, who chose her, from all the great male American – ah, U.S. American artists?) crawled all over my dignified and somber exteriors and covered me with filth!! She made me look like a decrepit crack-house, like nobody cared about me any more, and like I’m standing in the South Bronx or something! She even went so far as to shovel mounds of sand and earth around my foundations, and planted ugly greens there which attract every high-class dog that finds its way to the Giardini with his or her elitist owner. How come they do not protest the violation I am suffering?? … Although I must say, I am photographed and filmed quite a lot these days … maybe people like to watch the doom of the U.S., at least as a metaphor? If only that does not have any implications on the global level … they keep saying that art is changing the world … they will all see what they have without the U.S. … they can go to hell without the big world policeman … I’m kinda tired now … am I getting old? I’m falling asleep … well, I’ll nap a bit … let the world spin without me for a little while … leave me out of your neoliberal crap … zzz …
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Who Am I?
The Padiglione Centrale, Venice Biennial 2013
photo by Danila Mayer
I am the most important pavilion. I am the first, the last, the everything! I am the Central Pavilion. Big, Beautiful, Belonging to Italy. The others don’t, no no, they are owned by whoever, by those nations and countries that try to keep a foot in the global art world with exhibiting their crappy little upstarts. They appoint curators who are often so famous that their artists cannot lick their shoes. And, haha, I heard that my director, Baratta, asked to show only artists who can afford to install their works1!
Not my problem, though. I am the site of the main curator’s show. This year, it is called Il Palazzo enciclopedico. Quel nome! Why not Il Padiglione enciclopedico? It would mean so much to me to be really central for once! Because, and I hate to tell you this, I am aware of the fact how the Arsenale gets bigger every two years, and attracts more visitors and is more liked and even loved than I am. And all because of Harald Szeemann … his Aperto show in 1980 is still considered a mile stone in the Biennale’s evolution, while it was just the start for a neoliberal transformation of the art scenes into ’the art world’, which is totally immersed into the market economy. And after 1989, it even got a lot worse! And see where we are now.
Anyway, I am of course a kind of Palazzo, because I am big and large and high and important. The Venice Biennale started in me, by the name of Esposizione d’Arte for which I was built into the Giardini, a stretch of sand where Napoleon had these gardens built ’to give them to the Venetian public’. What a joke, now look who this ’public’ is nowadays … a global middle-class mills through the area and enjoys the 29 national pavilions .. most head directly to ’their own country’, and of course you know that much more of them are in the Arsenale now or elsewhere in the city, than here around me.
I remember of course when I was still called the Padiglione Italia, for the last time in 2008. They changed my name in 2009 and I hosted a show of all Biennale posters in my new book shop! It was great, reminiscing all the glamorous and interesting events since 1895 … the style of the plackards changing with the times, made by the best graphic designers even before they were called that, but then as now in the service of sale … Wonderful times … now I am the Padiglione Centrale … what a downfall, I do not even think people care for me any more. Do you remember, in 2011, when that crazy sculptor put dead pigeons all over my solemn columned facade, without anybody noticing them? And all over my inner rooms as well! People just don’t see what they see, do they? Pigeon shit on high-end-art … it was like a foreboding of my present loss of importance. Ah, those main curators … this year it is Massimiliano Gioni … he simply brought everything from all over the world and amassed it in the exhibition halls … ethnic art, beauty of nature (well, now that nature is almost gone, it gets worshipped as art …), and every popular and religious paraphernalia he could get his hands on. Ppphhttt, ’enciclopedico’ … meaning ’anything goes’. Maybe I’ll change my name again, to ’dumpster of world art’ or something like that … It would surely attract people again, at least once … but then, I heard that a guy from Chile made this work called Venezia! Venezia: the Giardini and all us pavilions, drowning! And where could such a dreadful vision happen? In the Arsenale of course … It gives me bad dreams …
And so we might go on, from the first pavilions built on the onset of World War I, mirroring the imperialist, Eurocentric world order; to the inter-war time and the turmoil of Italian Fascism, and on to post-Second-World-War with its new world order that included de-colonisation, the ideology clash of the Cold War, and a general interest in peace-keeping (at least at the warring grounds of the media and the popular culture).
These European post-war years included wars in oversea regions like Vietnam and Latin America, anti-colonial revolutions and military coups, and an economic re-structuring of global conditions since 1980.
1975 was the high point of European national industrialism. Be it capitalist or communist/socialist, countries ran their national steel, automobile and agricultural machine plants, and they controlled import of oil in a heavily pushed world-wide big business of fossile fuel and petrochemicals. The big Western European nations and (former) empires Great Britain, Germany, and Italy, but also small states like Austria were in the throes of a transformation: from socialist governments with welfare state politics of redistribution to neo-liberal rule. 1980 saw not only Harald Szeemann’s and Achille Bonito Oliva’s Aperto, but also, for example, a military coup in Turkey: both spurred the evolvement of neoliberal economic globalization, and with them the present-day strong art market with its world-wide dimensions.
The proliferation of pavilions since the 1990s took place outside the Giardini, but not exclusively: semi-permanent structures, the Para-Pavilions were erected as the seasonal project of 2011 under the main curator Bice Curiger. The concept of pavilions was approached with transitional buildings, for example the concrete sculpture called The Tree by Oscar Tuazon on the meadow in front of the pavilions of Greece, Romania, Poland, and Brasil; the sound installation inside the walls were by Asier Mendizabal, and the mural, showing blue palm trees, by Ida Ekblad.
However, the fall of the Soviet Union, or rather, its inclusion in the capitalist world with the following re-nationalization of the former Eastern Block, had impact on the Giardini pavilions. Russia 1914, as the building proudly sports in decorative white font, became the Russian Federation in 1992: Russia again, after having been taken over by the Soviet Union in 1917. Its history from then until re-Russianization was rocky, and is about to be blurred history.
Affected by war, the pavilion of Yugoslavia was taken over by Serbia. Situated on the far left in the stretched, marble-white building complex on the island St. Helena, it was ingeniously blurred out by Milica Tomic in 2003. Her light installation National Pavilion – The Work of Art in the State of Exile vitually blinded the viewers, very fitting for the 50th Biennale curated by Francesco Bonami under the title Dreams and Conflicts: The Viewer’s Dictatorship.
Romania has also had a pavilion in that complex since 1938. The stone heading has been intact all the years, as has that of ’Jugoslavia’. In 2011, its facade was written on by artists Mona Lisa Chisa and Lucia Tkacova in their work 80:20, in which they had cheekily listed the pros and contras of their participation in the Biennale.
Another pavilion affected by Central and Eastern European politics is the pavilion of former Czechoslovakia. Now usually shared by artists from both countries, their separation took place in 1993 in what is called the velvet divorce. Mona Lisa Chisa writes in her contribution to the exhibition journal Der Drang nach Osten: Parallels to Post-Colonialism and Coloniality within the Central European Space (curated by Ivan Jurica in 2010, HIT Gallery Bratislava) that ’we are in a colonization trap where the art and the “history“ of only local features of art are unacceptable because they lead to a total isolation, while direct import and adaptation of “valid“ methodologies or measures is a certain form of selfcolonization.’ She recommends instead approaches that are ’partially hermetic vis-a-vis the Western reading and resist(s) the maximum satisfaction of the Western expectations of what should the Eastern European art talk about’ (’Uncomfortable Heritage and Self-Colonization Slovak and Czeck Art After ’89’).
Self-colonization, self-exotication as ideologies, but also as strategy on the global art market: how nations use art pavilions in the Venice Biennale to position themselves on the global art market, but also generally to show their economic ability to join in the big race for power in general, is an ever fresh topic. The past and present of the pavilions and other national exhibition spaces in Venice is a unique opportunity to observe how nations use contemporary art for positioning their economies and ideologies on the world market: the pavilions still have a lot to tell us.
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1Claire Bishop’s article on the Venice Biennial in artforum 9/2011
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Iman Ithram is an a.k.a. of Danila Mayer. As an artist and anthropologist, she has been interested in the Venice Biennials since 2009, and has also published about the Istanbul Biennial. As an artist, she tries to break up opinions that are taken for granted; as a researcher, she has written about working-class youth in public space in Vienna, and contributed to the study of migration.