EXPECTATIONS & DISILLUSIONS. 50TH BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

IT WAS MY FIRST "BUSINESS TRIP" TO VENICE, THOUGH I GUESS NO BUSINESS TRIP TO VENICE IS ONLY BUSINESS. THE IMPACT OF THE CITY IS SO GREAT AND HILARIOUS THAT YOU CAN’T AVOID THE MOST PLEASANT CONTACTS WITH THIS FAIRY-TALE, ALWAYS OVERCROWDED & BUSY PLACE AMIDST THE WATERS. I DID NOT WITNESS THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE BIENNALE, BUT NOW, HAVING VISITED ALL THE EVENTS, EXHIBITIONS AND PAVILIONS I DO BELIEVE MR. HOWARD JACOBSON WRITING "MY VENICE BIENNALE HELL" FOR THE GUARDIAN THAT THE PEOPLE PARTICIPATING IN THE OPENING CEREMONY WERE IF NOT MUCH MORE THEN AT LEAST NO LESS INTERESTING, ATTRACTIVE, FASCINATING AND SOPHISTICATED THAN THE EXHIBITION ITSELF. AS HE PUT IT: "ART IN QUANTITY – BLACK BOX, VIDEO, CAR-BOOT-SALE INSTALLATION ART - IS NOT A PRETTY SIGHT."

Projects and Venue

The 50th Biennale di Venezia peacefully occupied the green shadowy Giardini and the gloomy non-hospitable Arsenale, to say nothing about many other exhibitions - artistic events scattered all about the city, including the Museo Correr, and other museums and numerous palaces.

Some exhibitions that do not belong to the Biennale but coincide with it in time are notable, worth seeing, and sometimes competing with the events of the major grandiose international happening of 2003.

The motto of the Jubilee Biennale formulated by its director Francesco Bonami was "Dreams and Conflicts. The Dictatorship of the Viewer", and incorporates a number of projects, such as "Pittura/Painting: from Rauschenberg to Murakami 1964-2003" (curator - Francesco Bonami); "Delays and Revolutions" - curators Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum; "The Zone" - curator Massimiliano Gioni; "Clandestine" - curator Francesco Bonami; "Fault Lines. Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes" - curator Gilane Tawadros; "Individual Systems" - curator Igor Zabel; "Zone of Urgency" - curator Hou Hanru; "The Structure of Survival" - curator Carlos Basualdo; "Contemporary Arab Representations" - curator Catherine David; "The Everyday Altered" - curator Gabriel Orozco; "Utopia Station" - curators Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rirkrit Tiravanija. National projects match the list of participating countries, numbering more than 50.

Pittura/Painting: A Retrospective

Being devoted to visual arts I decided to start my acquaintance with the Biennale by visiting one of its central - as it seems to me - exhibitions-projects curated by the director of the Biennale Francesco Bonami "Pittura/Painting: from Rauschenberg to Murakami 1964-2003".

I try to follow the rule not to read any press-release for any art project before I see it myself. Now that I have looked keenly at every piece of painting and have come to some - probably very subjective - conclusions, I read the brilliant introductive text by Francesco Bonami which, however, did not change my opinion. He explains the idea of the exhibition as a curator, while I estimate the result as a viewer whose dictatorship was specially emphasized by the motto of the 50th Biennale: "The Dictatorship of the Viewer".

Rauschenberg's famous "Kite" of 1963 is still floating in the blue skies of the Venice Biennale... The "Pittura/Painting" exhibition impresses the viewer even if he/she is not an expert or connoisseur of contemporary art. Such names as Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Renato Guttuso, Julian Schnabel, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Bazelitz, Francis Bacon, Sigmar Polke "are carved on the scrolls" - to use an old-fashioned expression - of the history of world art of the XX century.

But I would like to note a few artists whose pictures captured me as a viewer.

To begin with, I would mention Gerhard Richter whose double portrait of "Gilbert & George", depicting more shadows than people, reaches a sense of deep psychological interaction between the one (?) or two portraitees and between the painter and viewer.

Anselm Kiefer is an artist whose works I try not to miss elsewhere - in New York, Berlin, London, or Munich, and Venice was no exception. I would have said I was happy to meet him again, but the message of the painting "And the Earth Shakes Again" from 1981 leaves no happy perspectives (acrylic, charcoal, sand on canvas, unbaked clay).

Gino de Dominicis' "Untitled" fascinated me - his blue portraitlike veil-vague tempera painting.

Jenny Saville's "Knead" and Margherita Manzelli's "Nottem" paralyzed my attention with their vivid horrors depicting the female beings. Probably, John Currin's "Ramona" might be included with them, although it is less cruel to the model.

I might seem impolite not to mention the only Russian in this international company: Erik Bulatov with his sky-blue and clouds- white "New York" of 1989.

To end with the newest painting - one should certainly name Murakami with his "Superflat Jellyfish Eyes" - a moving/movable childish game-like painting for which the words "mixed media" are more than justified: wood, silk, acrylic dyes, foil, metal, platinum, paper. This painting from 2003 is the best present to the anniversary of the Biennale di Venezia, resembling Murano glass pieces. One of the Murano glass artists of Venice - Pino Signoretto - makes eye-sculptures, but of course unlike Takashi Murakami's pieces his are not superflat.

Any worded impression should imply a message. Mine is the following: a painter can express any feeling, attitude, social position (if any), philosophy, etc. by means of this very kind of art. That is, using the old and new, and forthcoming means and media, playing or not playing on colour and light interactions, etc. But nowadays, and the 50th Venice Biennale is a good example of this, words too often substitute for an image, or visual art in general. Such is a tendency in the world art movement: poetry denies words, painting rejects an image or colour or other devices to leave a trace of something on the canvas... Music is still using sounds, but... After Cage's experiments soundlessness becomes music too...

Here are just two examples.

Agnes Martin's "Untitled" - a striped square canvas playing with grey tones. The very sophisticated explanatory text accompanying this painting does not persuade the viewer of the outstanding mastership of the artist. The painter is in the position of somebody "who knows it better", but what stands behind this position? If only "a steady and endless meditation", then why refer it to painting and not to Yoga?!

And Robert Ryman's "Untitled". Another square canvas as empty of any image as a part of a white-painted wall. I might sound very conservative, but how can a viewer "like" a painting "that never begins"... And as a result there is nothing to view, nothing to observe, nothing to perceive: no visual art, but words.

The concept of "Pittura/Painting?" with its question mark formulated by the curator reads: ".a strictly chronologically organized exhibition to show how artists were using painting either to express their biographical relation with painting, or their psychological relation with it, the relation of painting with historical momentum, and the definition of painting through a very specific, well-defined style that locked their language into a clear and unique identity". To my mind the four principles mentioned above are able to describe the position of the artist valid in other times and places. Can we not apply these four theses to Rembrandt, Steen, Spencer, Chagall, etc.?

Biennale/Museums

Next day, luckily and quite by chance, I stepped into the San Stae early morning to find "The Falling Garden" - a luxuriant but delicate installation. This artwork was created by Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger as a part of the Swiss contribution to the 50th Biennale di Venezia. The start of the day was very promising. The algorithm applied by the artists was far from new, but the result. You lie comfortably on a kind of a bed in the center of the nave and seeds, blossoms and twigs - real as well as artificial - make you feel that you are somewhere very far from the Earth with its earthly troubles and atrocities.

In that mood I came to think that the rest of the Biennale would be no less impressive. Of course, my discourse about the Biennale was not straightforward and logical, i.e. following strictly the map of the Biennale and its enumerated projects. As the Biennale itself contradicted and contrasted with the city of Venice, overwhelmed as it is with masterpieces of Italian art from the remote but glorious past, I combined the past and the present, and probably the future as well, allowing myself to enjoy the Frari with Titian (a good addition to my London impressions from this year), and the Scuola Grande di San Roch with huge and imposing Tintoretto, or the Academia Gallery.

So when I entered the Gallery of Modern Art, it was not simply by chance, relying on the serendipity principle. I was expecting something valuable for these notes and momentary impressions. Intuition did not fail me since many of the pieces, composing the nucleus of the museum collection, were acquired at the previous Venice Biennales. My keen interest was in Russian artists, and I was happily impressed to see Kandinsky, Chagall, Malyavin, Deineka and Zadkin alongside Klimt, Klinger, Dufy, Ernst, Klee, Tanguy…

Quite naturally I asked myself: what and/or who (from all I am to see at this year Biennale) could match these artists and their works? Thus I started the tiresome job of an art critic who could not miss such a great event as the 50th Biennale di Venezia.

Non-Revolutionary Delays

“Delays and Revolutions” - this project interested me to no less extent than "Pittura/Painting", Mr. Bonami being one of the curators; the second one was the no less renowned Daniel Birnbaum. His introductory text turned out to be more impressive than the exhibition project itself - at least to my verbally-oriented mind.

"Delays and Revolutions" ...endeavors to trace connections and links across generations and continents in order to draft a short history of change", Daniel Birnbaum states.

Daniel Birnbaum's foreword pays much attention to Dan Graham's installations which to my mind (if a viewer hasn't read the text, and I believe most of those coming to see the exhibition have not read it) might be perceived with an misunderstanding smile: 1974 - a recollection of the time when technical renovations seemed revolutionary. Revolutions in technology have great impact on changes in life style, but not so often in art. One thing might be noted in connection with the delayed or revolutionary 1974: since the 1970s art needs more and more explanations, commentaries, deciphering, project-doctors and curators...

Thus a few words on the artistic events exhibited as Delays that did not happen to become Revolutions, though the viewer might find some recollections in them. A re-staged 2002-year version by Felix Gmelin of Gerd Conrad's 1968 revolutionary race in Berlin - a very persuasive example of revolution delayed: to hold a red flag is not enough for a revolution. David Hammons' "Praying to Safety", 1997 (Thai bronze statues, string and safety pin): is a safety pin a safe instrument to stop Time? Efrat Shvily's gallery of black-and-white photo-portraits of Palestinian political leaders: an obvious demonstration of binary politics. Damien Hirst's "Standing Alone on the Precipice Overlooking the Arctic Wasteland of Pure Terror" (1999-2000), a stainless steel and glass cabinet with metal and plaster pills resembles an abstract delicate colorful drawing, not being hand-made. It works. But what was presented depicting the present which is never present? Perhaps, "Seven Ends of the World" (2003) by Tobias Rehberger, Murano double glass lamps forever changing, glittering the space and producing a rainbow-like colourgram, probably of the world at large.

You cannot help appreciating Dinh Q. Lee's "Paramount" (2003) - C-print and linen tape like multilayer "interwoven" images of America's glorious Paramount Pictures and of American memory of the Vietnam war (Vietnam Destruction of Memory), and a quite original work by Giuseppe Gabellone (hard polyurethane foam) "The Japanese", made of polyurethane spagetti.

I was happy to see a remake of a Rembrandt entitled by Glenn Brown "Dark Star" (2003, oil on canvas) - he also impressed me in the Pittura/Painting project with his "The Riches of the Poor", also from 2003. Carsten Hoeller's "Y 2003" project, far from traditional visual art with its walls covered with foil, is no doubt popular with viewers: lots of pinned notes, scratches, and finger-made holes prove that the dialogue between the foil walls and the viewer is constantly developing - as a sort of a happening.

As for Lucy McKenzie's mural (2003) with the «Mmm! Ahh! Ohh!» - I shrug my shoulders at that. One needs an absolutely exceptional sense of humor to take it for a piece of art. One must be patient, live long and stay vigorous to see what - of what seems revolutionary today - will make a real contribution to the past. What we see today - and here I will let myself quote Daniel Birnbaum again - is "not one accumulation or linear narration, but rather a zigzag of detours".

I am not going to value all the projects participating at the 50th Biennale di Venezia, in spite of the position of viewer-dictator. Who am I but a humble viewer? And can I know better about this Biennale than the world-known curators, gallery owners, museum officials, etc? But I have an opinion - why not? Someone was even prepared to die to give someone else the opportunity to have a different opinion...

Utopia Altered

The introductory text to the project "The Everyday Altered" curated by Gabriel Orozco and written by him, ends with the word morte. This is the least sophisticated text of all. But not the least... Based on the repetition of the only word vita, forming the lines of the "text", this "vital" message by Gabriel Orozco interrupted by the "intarsia" of such words as paura or amore - just a few times; the word bomba takes a whole line of the text.

The author seems to formulate laconically the formula of life; we have had such an experience in contemporary Russian poetry when Andrei Voznesensky wrote a poem "Lyod" (Ice), consisting of thousand times repeated word "lyod".

I did appreciate Damian Ortega's "Cosmic Thing" (2001), Beetle 83, from the Museum of Contemporary Art, LA - not only because I admire Calder's mobile pieces, but because the Beetle 83, though disintegrated into parts, forms a complete one-piece 3D image and produces a sense of emotional striving of the disintegrated parts to unite.

The next project provoked an immediate association with the Soviet totalitarian past, when people were fed with different kinds of utopia (like "equality", or "communism") - and fed up with them: "Utopia Station", which I would have called "Station Utopia" - closer to the Italian "Stazione Utopia". I cannot but share the opinion of the curators that despite all our disillusions and despite many a utopian fantastical phenomenon having been brought to life, "utopia cannot be removed from the world in spite of everything" (as Ernst Bloch formulated it). Utopia opposes reality giving vent to imagination, fantasy, dreams and expectations (which are very often groundless).

As for the artistic results, in a number of cases they are - to my highly conservative personal opinion - approaching the zero state, or station, if you like it more. We had it in the USSR for more than 70 years, when art was fully ideological, or in other words was producing artefacts on the theme (idea, slogan, maxima, etc.): a very high level of realization of ideas, when what took the upper hand over how.

I did like the "Patatopia", really freeing our imagination when the potato - the everyday product so familiar and tasty - appears to live a life of its own, in a continuous process of transformation and transfiguration. Its visual effect was strengthened by an olfactory one. The dusty smell of old potato was not a happy "dressing" to the overheated atmosphere.

In 1973 John Lennon and Yoko Ono presented their "Declaration of Nutopia". Another utopian project of the XX century. It declared: "WE announce the birth of a conceptual country, Nutopia. .Nutopia has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people".

The participation of Yoko Ono with her declaration "Peace Event" (for John Lennon), February, 2003; and her appeal to the World "Imagine Peace" , summer 2003, is no doubt a real contribution to the project.

And of course, there are real achievements.

Golden Lions

The Golden Lion for best artist under 35 years of age in the International Exhibition awarded to Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, for having created a work that does examine neither yesterday, nor tomorrow, but above all today, the present time in the most immediate sense. Their work reflects urban culture, and the suspicion between generations is authentic, abstract and closely observed. It tells of solitude and courage of the young generations in a universal language (see: "Gentlemen", 2003).

The Golden Lion for best work exhibited in the International Exhibition awarded to Peter Fischli and David Weiss in recognition of their long and coherent collaboration, their modesty, clarity and artistic quality, for asking questions that help us to understand one another, and for having created a work that captures the true nature of dreams and conflicts.

The two lifetime achievement awards given to Carol Rama and Michelangelo Pistoletto confirm the influence of two Italian established artists upon younger generations. These awards stress the importance of the ongoing discourse between different generations of artists, a key issue in order to continue to build a contemporary culture in open conversation with the world.

Love Difference

I give my preference to the "Love Difference" subproject, though in this artistic movement for an Inter Mediterranean Politic I experience a feeling of idiosyncrasy in the word "politic". Probably it might be that the Mediterranean is indeed "an ideal starting place to understand, accept and love differences", as stated in its manifesto. In this case the movement, coloured with some ethnic cultural peculiarities brought in together on an international basis, might promote these interactions.

I admired Patricia Piccinini's solo show "We Are Family" in the Australian pavilion and would like to mention it in connection with the "Love Difference" project. Piccinini is lucky to awake in the viewers the strongest impressions catching not only breath but infiltrating much deeper into the depths of the soul. Constructing her own "biosphere", Piccinini creates a family of cross species, formulating in the visual images - sculpture figures - one of the most topical ethical issues of today: What is - or is not - normal? Who is controlling the process of life? What are our interactions with animals? Though odd and ugly, her statues are worthy of care, tenderness and love. They "teach" us to love the different, to love differences. (This project is one of the rare cases when the verbal commentary on the presentation, though very professional and detailed, is nevertheless narrower and less significant than what the viewer sees.)

If Piccinini is humanizing animal-like beings, Daniel Lee (Taiwan) - "108 Windows" - in his project "Limbo Zone" is animalizing human beings. The digital transformation of male and female faces takes place before your eyes as a video presentation. Intriguing, provocative, aggressive, but very artistic indeed!

The Russian Pavilion & Post-Soviet Art outside Russia

I made a zigzag to the participating countries, explained by my keen interest in the Russian pavilion and the former Soviet republics.

Russia participated with the project (curated by Victor Miziano) "The Return of the Artist", the team of artists being Sergei Bratkov, Valery Koshliakov, Konstantin Zvezdochetov, Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov. And the viewers, including myself, received an absolutely great impression in Valery Koshliakov's room with "Polyhymnia, or Search for the Space", 2003. The whole space is dedicated to sometimes destroyed or collapsed vague images of Moscow seen through the veil of Time.

Viewers appreciated Valery Koshliakov much more than others because his "Polyhymnia, or Search for the Space" can be perceived without any background knowledge of specific Russian realities. It is a story or a saga told by the artist about a city that once existed but then either was dramatically changed or vanished. The feeling of futility is re-enforced by the no-longer-new cardboard packing material on which the images are painted. The material anticipated its short-term lifespan, producing a hint of immateriality, of the ever changing and ever destructible Space in the given period of Time.

As for Dubossarsky/Vinogradov's 13 parts "Under the Water" (2003), it is another example of a good interpretation of an idea leading to poor artistic results. Zvezdochetov's "Moscow Types" says something to the Russian but almost nothing to non-Russian viewers.

I interviewed several people - visitors to the Russian pavilion - Germans, Italians, British, American, Dutch - asking them the one question: What do you like most? All of them appreciated Koshliakov's work.

Only once a couple from the USA remarked they liked "so noble looking terrorists" (by Zvezdochetov) too.

To go on I will switch to the former Soviet republics...

I will first of all mention the Ukrainian project - not only because it has a great banner looking over the Canale Grande.

The solo show by Victor Sydorenko "The Millstones of Time" was one of the happiest projects of the 50th Biennale, in which the idea - clearly formulated and conceptually biased - finds its outstanding artistic implementation, combining visual presentation with high-quality painting (building a strong association with "The Last Supper" subject), and a unique (using Ukrainian expertise) installation - a cone crystal producing light from invisible emanation. This crystal - as the artist puts it - is a "reservoir of memory", but "memory which does not show, but conceals its contents".

Another national project worth mentioning is that of Lithuania. Again here we encounter multi-faceted, multi-plan realization of the project, no doubt one of the most fascinating on display. Video presentation, huge drawings, sculptures - the S&P Stanikas (participating artists) manage to unite all these art forms to achieve their goal: to resist the senselessness of words in order to convey to the viewer their message. And that message is that life is everything mixed in oneness - tragedy and happiness, sexuality and innocence, cruelty and kindness...

Among other former Soviet republics which participated were Georgia (represented by Tea Gvetadze and Tamara K.E., and Levan A.Chogoshvili); Armenia (David Kareyan & Eva Khachatrian), and Estonia (Marko Maaetamm & Kaido Ole).

Identity: Loss and Search

A number of national projects dealt with the well-known phenomenon of "loss of identity". It was understood and interpreted somewhat peculiarly, as is always the case with artists when they eagerly apply philosophical or psychological terminology to such a far-from-scientific sphere of life as visual art.

Thus Brazil presented Rosangela Renno's digital C-prints in red. These prints might be regarded as slightly recognizable images lost in their blood-red colour and gradually "extracted" by the viewer's sight - images identical to themselves, or to the viewer's life experiences or reminiscences. That is how we look at old photographs trying to recognize our remote relatives, sometimes concentrating on the faces, sometimes on some details of the costume, as characteristic of the epoch...

The theme of the loss of gender identity manifested itself in a more straightforward manner at Croatia's National Exhibition with Ana Opalic's self-portrait series (limited edition of five, gelatin silver print). It is a work in progress - since 1994. In these self-portraits against a landscape background, using Rene Magritte's principle of the back side of one's head being equal to the face, Ana Opalic plays with the viewer and puzzles him/her with the provocative question: Am I she or he?

Another example of the loss of (probably, national) identity is humorously implied in the Serbia and Montenegro national pavilion presenting a most creative project "International Exhibition of Modern Art Featuring Museum of Modern Art, New York". I witnessed the reactions of some part of the public (maybe not very well educated in modern art): this exhibition was perceived as something unbelievably shocking. What a happy chance, indeed, to see a de Chirico (though from 1993!), or a Braque (from 1991!), or a Kandinsky (1976!), or a Duchamp (2019!). I would call this exhibition "homonymous": the two paintings - the original (exhibited at the famous Armory Show of 1913 in N.Y.) and a copy - "sound", or in this case, look alike. Thus the word Yugoslavia sounds like it once was - meaning the name of the country, but when pronounced today reflects only a mnestic recollection of something which exists no longer.

The Yugoslavia pavilion - the pavilion of the non-existing European state which "disappeared like ancient Atlantis" - shows another project, "Facade" by Milica Tomic. The artist covered the facade with countless electric lamps flashing at certain intervals, blinding the eyes of a viewer. Thus, this is the moment of catching the message of the artist: no light - no Yugoslavia - no pavilion. Lost national identity.
Turkey has made its contribution to the theme too. Finding themselves amidst one of the centres of a resistant immigrant culture, Turkish intellectuals are fully aware of the contradiction: "identity" vs. "otherness". The artists or, in a wider sense, national art "must discover new strategies and actions to provide answers to the conflicts of everyday life and to larger emergencies" (Beral Madra). Specifically, I would mention the good and persuasive work by Gul Ilgaz "Between Two Lands and a River: We Find Ourselves in the Middle of this Geography, that Penetrates into Our Genes" (2001-2002, digital print). Ideology is penetrating into Art .

Often an idea was followed very strictly, and when taken too seriously reached its absurd realization in the end. Complete loss of identity - NO WAY WITHOUT ID! - was demonstrated, and demonstrated in a blackly humorous manner, I would say, in the pavilion of Spain. Garbage, cement, dust, broken stones - and at the other entrance to the pavilion two policemen: no passport - no permission to cross the frontier. A good mockery of the immigration rules. Good, very good for some political action inspired by artists - why not? The girl distributing information material about the show was so sincerely disappointed by the stupid viewer who could not fully appreciate the idea so intricately presented by the artist Santiago Sierra, and so eloquently formulated by Rosa Martinez.

One should mention a good reminiscence of the late 1960s (presented at the Biennale) - that time period when European artists constituted an active part of the student revolt, in open support of the leftists. Some states are still under such pressure, given the current political situation in their countries (or elsewhere in the world). Thus Afghanistan presents a profoundly heartbreaking video project "The dead Afghani before the Camera and before Death".

African artists demonstrated the visualization of the idea of the search for environmental identity, having built, for example, "an asphalt quarter" (Wael Shawky, "Untitled (City)", 1999) - this installation coincides with the idea of "Fault Lines", or made double media pictures using photos of former rural dwellers trying to find their place in a hostile urban environment (Sabah Naim's "City People", 2003). The left part of each picture is a photo, and the right half - which produces from a distance a non-drawn graphic effect - is made of carefully scrutinized newspapers, forming rounds, horizontal and vertical lines in different combinations. No urban life, indeed, without newspapers, without politics... Koreans Sora Kim & Gimhongsok exhibited an installation "CHIS - Chronic Historical Interpretation Syndrom, 2003" - reflecting the theme of political crisis in the "Zone of Urgency": no monuments forever!

A very harmonious, aesthetic project presented by the UK artist of African origin - Chris Ofili - might be a valuable plus to the idea of reestablishing identity. The painting of imaginary exotic foliage resembles African bead handicraft. The surface of the canvas is covered all over by tiny relief semi-spherical dots. The viewer's attention is strongly attracted to the canvases, plugging into the medium of the combination of black, red, and green. That is probably how the artist imagines the land of his ancestors.

The USA exhibition of Fred Wilson, "Speak of Me as I Am", is a very happy attempt to verify one's identity, using the brilliant examples of Venetian Renaissance art following the appearance of Moors. The exotic figures depicted by Carpaccio, Veronese and others remind the viewer of the best known Venetian Moor- Othello. This, as well as Wilson's installations, combine the Past and the Present, creating an intrigue and persuading the viewer to speak about Fred Wilson as he is and of Venice as it was, is and will be - a multinational mixture of peoples and a cross-cultural crossroad.

The Iranian painter's (Ahmad Nadalian) project "There is Still Fish in the River" answers to the general motto of the 50th Biennale - "Dreams and Conflicts". The quickly running clear waters still have fish in spite of the threatening proximity of a construction site. Instead of a fisherman with a rod the viewer sees the artist carving the images of fish on the water-and-time- polished stones. They are returned to the Haraz river (65 km from the Tehran-Amol road) waters, and one can really enjoy the sight of fish that is still there. Another example of the striving for an environmental identity, probably a slight attempt to return as far as to the prehistoric cave wall painting.

Egypt's national pavilion was occupied by the project of Ahmed Nawar - a prominent national artist who is one of the leaders of the country's contemporary art movement. His exhibition lies in the framework of the Biennale and evidently is one of its best implementations. "Conflicts and Dreams" in his optical illusions are separated into two zones - the zone of Dream (white doves), and the zone of Struggle (a nightmare in gloomy red).

The Icelandic painter Ruri demonstrated an intriguing exhibition called "Archive" - a stand for keeping paintings to be moved out in order to be seen. So the viewer can certainly become a dictator, according to whose will any picture comes out to him through a slight gesture of one's hand. But instead of pictures the viewer receives large-size slides depicting an Icelandic river - but not only that. Each slide is accompanied by an individual sound-track with the noise of running and falling waters. Another successful attempt to bring the viewer close to Nature, to a non-man-made reality. The rivers are making sounds and not dying... Thanks God, there are rivers in Iceland!

The culmination reached its highest semantic and artistic level in the Luxembourg national exhibition: the project's title was "Air Conditioned". Everyone in Venice suffered from the "unprecedented" heat of July 2003; the eye of the tourist was looking for the "air conditioned" sign on any shop, cafe, restaurant or boutique door to have a comfortable rest and to cool one's emotions and sun-burned skin. Su-Mei Tse, a Luxembourg artist of Chinese origin - also a musician - created a sophisticated exhibition, playing upon polysemy of the English word "conditioned", and the French word "l'air" and other words alluding phonetically to it: "ere" (era) - "aire" (surface, floor).

The visual image is accompanied by the sounds of a cello, and of the sounds produced by the desert sweepers (sounds resembling very much those of running water). The musician- artist plays the cello on an absolutely green grassy piece of land next to a cliffy mountain. She wears loud red, sitting with her back to the viewer, as if not paying any attention to him/her, but being in constant strong communication with the mountain. She plays a phrase, and the mountain echoes it. She goes on, and the mountain goes on.

The figure of the artist plays the role of a collage, later proved by the fact that all this is a combination of three pictures, and the idea to record the echoes in a natural setting failed. Thus, to achieve the effect of communication via echo the artist-musician used computer technologies. One room - a muffled space - is soundless, meaning that when exhausted one is eager to stay alone in complete silence just to listen to it. Meanwhile a metronome is indifferently watching the time. So will an artistic action echo in the heart of a viewer?..

The project got the first prize of the 50th Biennale di Venezia.

Host Country

Italy gave its grounds to the open competition "Young Italian Art". In the end four artists were chosen. The viewer is given a chance to participate - to mark the best one on a card with the names of the artists. I voted for Avish Khebrehzadeh. And - I was happy to read about it when I came back to Moscow - he won!

The prize for best young Italian artist was awarded to Khe- brehzadeh for the grace of animation work, the subtlety of narration, and the ability to merge countless influences in the art work.

Extra-Biennale: The Absolut

It was a challenge on the part of the director of Biennale di Venezia Francesco Bonami, an unprecedented gesture to include the ABSOLUT GENERATIONS as one of the "Extra 50" events. I thought it an absolute necessity to see for myself the numerous works of art incorporating the exhibition and representing the ABSOLUT ART COLLECTION which was started in 1985. I was impatient to see the result of the marriage between art and advertising. There was another argument - the participation of Russia in the project, Russia - the country in which a gulp of Absolut vodka for generations seemed a lucky strike. I was not surprised to see among the participants of the project Oleg Kulik + Blue Noses (this group was represented by Vyacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburov). Kulik's connection with Absolut was demonstrated last year at the FIAC in Paris, and the echo of the previous project reached Venice - Oleg Kulik with baby's nipples on the pictured body provoking the viewer to suck vodka...

This time Kulik added four verite waxworks, with "The Sportswoman" (resembling Anna Kurnikova with her plaited hair) and "Death in Venice". Comics-video project by Kulik and Blue Noses - though in Russia drunkards are usually associated with red noses - leaves no hope that at least at some time one can expect to see something decent, reasonable and good humoured under the umbrella of Kulik. The whole thing is to be viewed to the accompaniment of the opera hit - Mephistopheles's aria, a very uncamouflaged hint: give money - I will do everything. But to be absolutely just and open-minded I would say that Russia's contribution to Absolut Generations is not the worst.

But there is the BEST Absolut - the project by Louise Bourgeois and Aspassio Haronitaki. And if I marked many projects connected to the Loss of Identity, here I must speak about obtaining a second identity - one's second animalistic self. As Haronitaki puts it: "The animality of man has been continuously hidden and battled against by the evolution of civilization. In my pictures I try to reveal this counterfeited part of our identity." And he managed it!

Extra-Biennale: The Kabakovs

Another Extra 50 project that I couldn't miss was "Where is Our Place?" by Ilya Kabakov & Emilia Kabakov, and I pay all credit to Chiara Bertola whose description of the project is really worth reading. The Kabakovs create a museum inside the Museum, making the viewer who comes not only view the viewer of the past (one can see only their giant legs), not only to interact with the so-called present (the Soviet past with realities and details recognizable only to ex-Soviets), but also to read poetic works by Russian poets, extracts that have nothing to do with the photos and lacking (in English) all the charm of original Russian poetry. Under the feet of the viewer lies an artificial landscape of our future. As for the exhibition itself, it is so far from being persuasive, so uninteresting to the viewer (here the singular is more than applicable since the largest number of viewers registered by an attentive young girl on duty on Friday - the day when the exhibition was open from 10 a.m. till 10 p.m. - was equal to 10, while she said that on other days it was twice fewer), that the moment a newcomer enters the first room of the exhibition he/she leaves it. I do not believe that the aim was "an empty way of seeing".

Nothing catches the eye or appeals to the emotions. I witnessed it, and then to check myself I had a detailed conversation with an official who confirmed my freshly made observations. Hope you have no doubt that I carefully examined every room and every corner of the exhibition, read its verses, stared at all the feet and legs... There is no overall impression, only the question mark borrowed from the title.

Apropos, I liked the sketches for the project published in the Biennale catalogue. They are vivid, humorous, alive. I guess because Kabakov demonstrated his artistic skills and introduced an interested viewer in them.

Dreaming Peace

The moment I stepped into the Uruguay pavilion it struck me that whatever I would write about the Biennale I would conclude it with Pablo Atchugarry. His marble "Dreaming Peace", 2003 - a multipart composition which probably reaches the highest expression of the general theme of the 50th Biennale "Dreams and Conflicts". The whole exhibition of Atchugarry's marbles is a white-coloured enlightened Dream, though not without inner conflicts felt within each separate piece. And if there were to be a monument to this Biennale, then "Dreaming Peace" might have been the best choice.

Venice was, is and until November 2 will be under the provocative impact of the Biennale due to "Links" - another very demanding project for the host or hostess-city (surely Venice is a woman in the glory of her beauty). Everywhere one can come across the fragments of the steel container, the cord of more than 200 meters long. Cut into fragments connecting various places it combines ads and art, information and art. Walk into the cylinder and be informed or sleep inside, being overinformed.

As for the "inner" part of the Biennale, awfully tiresome and exhausting for the viewers, to comfort them and give a place to rest after the restless perception of art, there is Illymind - all in loud red contrasting the dusty grey walls of the Arsenale.

I can't cut my long story short, for this will not make it shorter.

I must say that the 50th Biennale di Venezia is really something, something to see, to appreciate, to accept or to reject. It is NOT FOR SALE. The Viewer - not the buyer - is the Dictator.

I left this Jubilee artistic event overwhelmed with controversial emotions and impressions that will not make an impressionist of me, but will certainly make me a devoted advocate of Biennale di Venezia.