In Pictures: The 56th Venice Biennale
Military occupation, Christian iconography and states of ecstasy: arts photographer Robert Battersby trawls La Biennale di Venezia 2015 and uncovers a rich diversity of provocative, contemporary art…
Main image: Chiharu Shiota’s (b. 1972, Osaka) The Key in the Hand: the feature installation of the Japanese Pavillion. Thousands of donated keys are suspended over an interwoven length of string, creating a dense, blood-red canopy.
Above: This year the (relatively new) Russian Pavilion was represented by Irina Nakhova (b. 1955, Moscow), and her piece Devastatingly Direct was one of several large-scale installations. The pavilion itself was for a time occupied by Ukranian artists in protest of Russian’s continued denial of military operations in the East of Ukraine.
Above: Sarah Lucas’s newly commissioned — yet inherently familiar — sculptures found themselves awash in a sea of yellow at the British Pavillion.
Above: The French featured artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot, who was allowed to spread out from the pavilion and into the Giardini itself; adapting a number of trees fitted with motion sensors, giving them the ability to slowly move around the space.
Above: Norway’s spacious and ambient pavilion almost received more attention than the artwork itself: Camille Norment’s sound installation, Rapture. Featuring new music composed on an 18th-century glass armonica, the instrument was invented by Benjamin Franklin and later blamed for inducing states of ecstasy and sexual arousal in women.
Above: United Dead Nations by Ivan Grubanov at the Serbian Pavillion, Giardinni. Grubanov’s 200 m2 floor installation uses the flags of nations that had ceased to exist during the 20th century — those of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Ottoman Empire, USSR, German Democratic Republic, South Vietnam, Gran Colombia, United Arab Republic, Tibet, Yugoslavia — and treats them as painting material by soaking them in chemicals and colors.
Above: Jeremy Deller returns to the Venice Biennale in Central Pavilion, featuring works such as All That is Solid Melts into Air (2013), and Motorola WT4000: a device worn on the wrist by Amazon employees to track the speed of orders general and efficiency of its staff.
Above: American artist Melvin Edwards (b. 1937, Houston) in All The World’s Futures, based in the Arsenale: an urban estate of high historical importance. A range of Edwards’ welded sculptures (including tools, knives, hooks, and machine parts) are featured very early on in the vast exhibition, reflecting the history of race, labor, violence, and themes of African Diaspora.
Above: Also featuring in All The World’s Futures: German artist Kathrina Grosse’s Untitled Trumpets (2015). A riot of coloured spray paint over mountains of styrofoam, dirt and rock.
Above: Kutlug Ataman’s THE PORTRAIT OF SAKIP SABANCI (2014). Ataman’s installation honoured Sakip Sabanic, a turkish businessman who passed away in 2004. An incredible 9216 LCD screens are suspended over the space, display the passport photographs of people that the businessman had connected with over his entire lifetime.
Above: As is traditional when the Venice Biennale returns, the entire city is been populated by nations, artists and art groups. This installation from Russian collective Conversion Recycle Group (Andrey Blokhin & Georgy Kuznetsov, curated by James Putnam) sits about 10 minutes walk from the Giardini in the stunning seventh century Sant’Antonin church. It pairs virtual information with Christian enlightenment, “where sacred knowledge formerly residing in the heavens is now located in the virtual space of ‘The Cloud’.”
Robert Battersby
All image courtesy Robert Battersby, for The Double Negative, at La Biennale di Venezia 2015
See more of Robert’s work on his website