venice in venice

first published for a virtual biennale, line magazine

www.avirtualbiennale.tumblr.com

On the centennial of the naming of Venice, California, and the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, curators Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro have transported a group of artists whose ‘impossibly cool’ work sprang from the desolate shores of 1960s Venice, California to the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Los Angeles in the 60s saw artists draw inspiration from sunlight, the reflective surface of the ocean, car and surfboard cultures, and the influx of new technologies introduced by the local engineering and aerospace industries. Artists began experimenting with industrial materials in order to explore new possibilities for perception, light and illusion. Thus, an inevitable concern with water, and a subsequent shared unique luminosity, links the two cities of Venice. Either/or, in Goethe’s words: ‘Venice(s), like everything else which has a phenomenal existence, is subject to Time...’ to Light and Space. And Fetish.

The exhibiting artists are internationally renowned -   including James Turrell, Vija Celmins, Ed Ruscha, Robert Graham and Andy Warhol, to name a few. In total, there are 68 works, some of which are characteristic of their creators, such as James Turrell’s ‘Cross Corner Projection’ and George Herms’s various sculptural assemblages. Vija Celmins’s, however, breaks away from her monochrome drawings, and demonstrates her sculptural skill with the 1967 work Eraser. 

In essence, some of the works themselves are interesting, beautiful or spiritual and demonstrate a ‘cool’ use of the minimalist aesthetic. However, the difficulty comes with collectivity. Together, the works become a self-indulgent oeuvre, completely detached from reality. It immediately feels that everything is being taken too seriously, with ostentatious phrases spattered all over the information sheets: ‘the iris argon lights of Laddie John Dill will ooze from the baroque windows, the acoustic sounds of psychedelia [will] reverberate off the blackness of Venice’s waters.’ And it seems entirely devoid of irony - something which John Baldessari and David Hockey could have effectively contributed (although originally billed as participants, they are not actually present in the exhibition.)

It is important here to note that the majority of these works were created in the 60s. And although ‘Venice in Venice is not a re-creation, but an homage—an event that only the art, politics, and technical progress of the last 50 years can bring to life at a single event,’ it manifests like a redundant shrine to an outdated art fashion.  The reiteration of the minimalist aesthetic is tedious; Mary Corse’s ‘white inner band’ paintings, Larry Bell’s glass boxes, Peter Alexander’s resin panels. There can be no doubt of the importance of these works in the 60s, and the participants are so established it would probably be sacrilege to ruthlessly criticise their work individually. Indeed, James Turrell’s The Ganzfeld Piece is an excellent contribution to Bice Curiger’s ILLUMInations exhibition, effectively challenging our notion of what is really present. However, in ‘Venice in Venice’, Turrell’s work becomes an exhausted repetition of an overused aesthetic and ideology. 

The ideology itself is summarised in a quotation from Billy Al Bengston: ‘it’s about artists in Venice, CA who made things based upon an entirely unique vision - art. Not based on your car, your house, your sky, your woman, your tears, your anguish, your angst, or any other reference to the human condition.’ Ergo, it is art about art - a postulation which once felt intelligent and serene, and still can in moderation, feels obsolete at the 2011 Venice Biennale. The nature of the Biennale incites an engagement with the socio-political discourses pertaining to representing countries - demonstrated by numerous participants this year, such as Iraq, Israel, Romania, Poland, Greece and Haiti. Thus, with artists such as Azad Nanakeli engaging with the threatening drought in his country in the Iraqi Pavilion, ‘Venice in Venice’ suddenly looks like a misplacement of responsibility. 

According to the curators, ‘once the event touches down in Venice, Italy, the art world will never be quite the same.’ This presumptuous statement is indicative of the ultimate pitfalls of the exhibition. It is self-indulgent, overly aware of its own (mis-placed) importance, and despite its aim to ‘link’ the two cities of Venice, it is too insular to have any relevance in 2011.