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Bonami on the Biennale, Artists in Uniform, and More
BONAMI EXPANDS ON BIENNALE
The theme of the upcoming Venice Biennale, "Dreams and Conflicts: Dictatorship of the Spectator,” has gained new urgency in the wake of the Iraq war. Il Manifesto’s Arianne di Genova checked in with director of visual arts Francesco Bonami for an update on the exhibition in light of current events.
"Even though ‘Dreams and Conflicts’ has a tragic actuality today, the title was meant to refer to the specificity of art,” explained Bonami to Il Manifesto. "I don’t believe it’s possible to create an isolated exhibition for pure aesthetic enjoyment. Artistic investigation is something that is always joined with the world. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s right to present only documents, without any transformation. The spectator chooses the threshold to be crossed.”
Bonami also reveals more works to be shown, including Kader Attia’s project concerning Algerian immigrants living in France, Kevin Hanley’s morbid portrayal of Fidel Castro, and Damien Hirst’s pharmacy, as well as an unnamed project by Maurizio Cattelan. Patti Smith will contribute to "Delays and Revolutions” in the Italian pavilion, which includes forty international artists working in a variety of media. Because the Italian pavilion features artists from around the world, the Italian artists Alessandra Ariatti, Micol Assael, Anna De Manincor, Diego Perrone, and Patrick Tuttofuoco will exhibit in a separate installation that has been designed by the architectural collective Gruppo A12 for the Giardini.
In a separate article, Genova provides an overview of the national pavilions in the Giardini. Bonami’s promise to build a pavilion for Palestine met with resistance; now, the architects Alessandro Petti and Sandy Hilal will install a gigantic passport that will greet visitors at the Biennale entrance, entitled “Stateless Nation.” Countries with officially recognized pavilions will be represented as follows: Jana Sterbak (Canada), Olafur Eliasson (Denmark), Chris Ofili (Great Britain), Fred Wilson (United States), Martin Kippenberger and Candida Höfer (Germany), Santiago Sierra (Spain), Michal Rovner (Israel), Abbas Kiarostami (Iran), Jean-Marc Bustamente (France), and M. Gaba and C. Amorales (the Netherlands).
Genova also lists shows that will take place at other locations in Venice during the Biennale. At the Museo Correr, Bonami’s "Pittura/Painting: From Rauschenberg to Murakami (1964–2003)” will be on view. Fabio Mauri will show at the Nuova Icona gallery in the Giudecca. The exhibition "Pellerossasogna (Indian Dream)” will take place at the University of Venice, while Ilya and Emilia Kabakov will set up an installation at the Querini Stampalia Foundation's gallery. Finally, a work called the cord will "narrate” the entire Biennale with the help of a scattered tubular structure.
FRANZEN AND BUTLER WEIGH IN ON THE WAR
Last week, Die Welt featured an interview with Jonathan Franzen, the acclaimed American author of The Corrections. When asked if the current war was a form of "correction,” Franzen replied, “ ‘Correction’ in my novel refers to the sudden end of a period of insanity, heresy, or enchantment. The most recent actions of the Bush administration are more like a deepening of insanity, heresy and enchantment.”
Franzen claims that Bush’s strongest argument for the war was its inevitabilty. "For many weeks now, it’s been clear that, unless Saddam Hussein suddenly stepped down, it would be impossible for Bush not to begin a war," Franzen told Die Welt. "His most important argument for a war was that there would be a war.”
Il Manifesto featured a front-page essay, "We, the Anti-Patriots,” by philosopher Judith Butler. Butler laments that the antiwar protests in the US have been largely ignored by the media. "My European friends ask me, with some anxiety, if it’s really true that all Americans are behind the war effort,” writes Butler in Il Manifesto. "It’s important to know that millions of Americans are against this war, without ‘if's or ‘but's. The demonstrations in San Francisco, New York, and Washington, to name just a few, don’t get as much media attention as they might have received in the first Gulf War or during the Vietnam War, when one still could count upon a certain sympathy for the antiwar movement.”
"The Bush administration, in preparing this war, has advertised its military forces as a visual phenomenon,” writes Butler in Il Manifesto. "The fact that the US government and military baptized its strategy as ‘shock and awe’ indicates that they are putting a visual spectacle into action that deadens the senses and, like the sublime, marginalizes the capacity to think. [...] The ‘shock and awe’ strategy aims not only to construct an aesthetic dimension in the war but also to exploit and to instrumentalize visual asethetics as a part of the same war strategy.” A German translation of Butler’s essay can be read in the Frankfurter Rundschau.
SOLDIER-ARTISTS AT THE FRONT
Die Tageszeitung’s André Meier profiles an exceptional member of the US military: painter Sergeant Elzie Golden. Currently stationed at the US Army Center of Military History in Washington, DC, Golden is one of several soldiers in the "Staff Artist Program” who will soon be sent to Iraq to create images of the war for the center’s permanent collection.
Like the British military forces, the United States Army, Air Force, and Marines have been sending soldier-artists to the front since World War I. Over the last ninety years, approximately fifteen thousand works have been produced depicting US troops in action from Normandy to Kosovo. Meier reports that the director of the center, Brigadier General John Brown, promises to make the collection available to the public by 2009, when the US Army Museum is due to open in the capital.
"It’s not propaganda,” insists Army Art Curator Renée Klish, reviewing works in the "Desert Storm Art” depot, including the paintings Don’t Mess with the 101st and The Man of Year by Golden’s predecessor Sergeant Peter Varisano. Klish points to significant changes in the depiction of war in the last century. While World War II works were dominated by black and brown tones, the Vietnam War produced a different palette. "A lot of acrylic, shrill yellow, green, or orange—a psychedelic touch lies over all of the works,” explains Klish.
Works by American soldier-artists are not the only ones in the permanent collection, Meier reports. The US Army seized 8,722 Nazi artworks from Germany at the end of World War II. Many of the paintings, which often feature dogs, adorned the walls of the Pentagon until they were returned to Germany in 1985. However, the Center kept more than 450 works, including several by Hitler, for both historical and curatorial reasons. As Klish explains, "It’s really nice when one can show how the other side experienced the war.”
APPEALS ON BEHALF OF IRAQ'S ANTIQUITIES
While Tageszeitung considers art produced by the war, in the Frankfurter Rundschau Claus-Peter Haase calls attention to cultural treasures threatened with destruction by the conflict. The director of Berlin’s Museum for Islamic Art, Haase fears that "collateral damage” may wipe out important archaeological sites across Iraq, including ones that have not yet been excavated.
"One of the lists drawn up by Iraq’s board of antiquities registered around ten thousand known archaeological sites,” writes Haase. "But this is only a fraction of the actual traces of settlements and monuments from an ancient culture which exist throughout the country.” In another article, Haase presents a list of threatened sites, from Baghdad’s East Wall, built in the eighth century, to the temple and fortress ruins in Hatra, one of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.
Meanwhile,La Repubblica reports that UNESCO has launched an appeal to the US government to spare cultural sites in Iraq from destruction. According to the paper, UNESCO director Koichiro Matsuura requested "that all possible measures be taken to protect and preserve the exceptionally rich cultural heritage of Iraq for the benefit of future generations.” UNESCO also confirms that experts have briefed the Pentagon on the importance of the country’s antiquities. But the arguments, however convincing, may fall on deaf ears. As La Repubblica notes, neither the United States nor Britain ratified the 1954 convention on the protection of cultural heritage in times of war.