Tired of being curated by critics, theorists and other near-architectural people, the Biennale 10 years after Massimiliano Fuksas again entrusted itself into the hands of an architect. Kazuyo Sejima is a famous Japanese architect, one of the founders of the architectural bureau SANAA, the author of the buildings of several large museums, including the New Museum in New York, as well as the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2009, winner of the 2004 Golden Lion, who received the Pritzker Prize shortly after her appointment as curator of the Biennale. She is also the first female curator in the history of the exhibition. But the main thing, according to the director of the biennale, Paolo Baratta, is that she is a practicing architect. Sejima echoes this in his curatorial message, which begins with "The 2010 Biennale will be a reflection on architecture."
In contrast to the puzzling motto 'beyond building' of its predecessor, curator Aaron Betsky in 2008, which half of the participants could not really understand, and the other half ignored, this year Kazuyo Sejima proposed a simple and accessible slogan: "People meet in architecture" which is not particularly binding. It is obvious that two things are united in it - architecture, to which, apparently, the Biennale seriously intends to return, and plus to architecture a kind of subtle sociological note, for a change. It is impossible, after all, to completely absolutize the main subject of the exhibition; something should be added to it. Architecture for something, but they are building, for example, so that people meet there. From here is a direct path to the public buildings that adorn the curator's portfolio so well. In addition to the motto, Sejima outlined several additional meanings: the exhibition focuses on the reaction of modern architecture to the changes brought about by the 21st century, to informatization and globalization; the boundaries that architecture either denotes or erases; and the quality of the architecture built - adds Paolo Baratta in his message. Thus, after a long search for truth "on the side", the main architectural exhibition of the world (and the Venice Biennale, of course, is such) is going to return to its main subject, guided by a soft and unobtrusive woman's hand. The curatorial exposition has a total of 48 participants, including not only architects, but also engineering firms.
Regarding the main curatorial exposition, which at the Biennale is always held in the Corderie Arsenal building, Sejima declared the freedom of the participants, saying in the manifesto that each participant will be "his own curator" within the "independent" fragment of the arsenal interior assigned to him. Diversity is better than unifying will, the curator says; in a word, do what you want … Complete freedom; although, walking through the exhibition, you understand that this is not entirely true.
The visitor entering the first hall of the curatorial part of the Biennale is greeted by a giant stone heart cut by a wooden ax - the ax, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a refuge with a chimney going up, a metaphor for the tragedy of the recent Chilean earthquake (a detailed story about recovery after the disaster can be found further on, on Arsenal exposition of the Chilean pavilion). Two years ago, the Arsenal exposition was opened by a funny film and video installation; in contrast to the memory of her, the heart of stone is very large, rough-rough and serious. This is some kind of gigantic object, next to it you feel like in a cannibal's cave and tune in, inevitably, seriously. The pillars of the Arsenal begin to seem like columns of a Romanesque basilica, and in general, the similarity of this famous exhibition space with a temple is somehow exacerbated. It is possible that this is what was intended.
Immediately behind the stone ax is a compact cinema hall with a film by Wim Wenders, which can be quickly walked through to get acquainted with an even larger subject from Ensamble Studio and its head Anton García-Abril. Crossing under the rows of columns and blocking the straight path, two giant I-beams rest in the space of the hall, similar to rails and judging by their gray color, most likely concrete. One gigantic beam lies on the other and its free end rests on a spring as tall as an average man. The spring, of course, does not really support anything, children play with it, but it looks very impressive. This cannot be called a "spring"; and, if in the very first hall the scale of the sculptural object placed there corresponded to the size of the interior, then this one seems to be too big even for an arsenal interior, surpasses and even suppresses it a little.
From such a progressive growth, you involuntarily think - my God, what will happen next. But then we find ourselves in a cloud ("life size" - as stated in the curatorial manifesto), built jointly by Japanese architect Tetsuo Kondo and engineer Matthias Schuler from the German company Transsolar, specializing in climate engineering (knowing the specifics of the company, it is easy to guess why the cloud; climate control sneaked into the Arsenal and arranged its own weather in it …). The hall is filled with a whitish mist, which is pumped through the holes in the wall by special installations. The fog spreads at the level of the galleries, and in the middle there is a helical structure, climbing along which you can go through the cloud and look at it from above. The cloud spreads in layered shreds, it is stuffy above, like in a bath, but the effect is wonderful. True, Muscovites experienced a similar effect as recently as August with the arrival of smoke in the city; in the Arsenal, however, this cloud is thicker, seemingly safe.
The curator interprets the joint work of his compatriot and a German engineer as follows: it pushes us to a new understanding of space, if only because the boundaries of the cloud are blurred. The boundaries, indeed, are blurred, although they are enclosed in the framework of the hall. Diving into the fog is fun; but it is impossible not to recall what the clouds have already done - first of all, the famous architect-artists Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio. Perhaps that is why the curator delicately notes in his message: not all installations are original in terms of style, but many represent the pinnacle of modern technology.
Indian studio Mumbai made the next large hall with scraps of wooden models, and hung classic three-blade fans from the ceiling, turning it into a "workshop" - however, for such a large space, things are still not enough, a full-fledged illusion of artistic blockages does not arise; it turned out, in comparison with the first installations, smallish, but cozy.
R & Sie (n), the Parisian architectural firm François Roche and Stéphane Laveau, who showed white models of bionic sculpture buildings in the Italian pavilion two years ago, released one of their bizarre creatures into the Arsenal room, turning it into a table on legs. On the one hand, this Martian beast is covered with glass growths, glowing with a greenish light, monitors sprout from the opposite end, in the middle above a piece of some multi-colored pseudo-mineral a device similar to a Geiger counter beeps. In the explication, the authors remember Tarkovsky's "Stalker" and talk about the boundaries of the achievements of civilization - probably, this installation should respond to the curator's thesis about "boundaries". Because, unlike its neighbors, it does not affect space in any way; rather, it shows us an exotic inhabitant living inside.
But the hall of Olafur Eliasson is very effective: in the dark, three hoses are suspended from the ceiling, which scatter around the fancifully wriggling jets of water, distinguishable in the nervous flashes of stroboscopic light. The exotic shower is mesmerizing, but difficult to photograph. I must say that Sejima's words that many of the images will not be new are true - the first similar shower Eliasson made already in 1996.
Further - light again, a wooden frame of a flat dome from a Chinese bureau with the French name Amator (which means amateur). Indeed, it was as if the amateurs were twisting these dies together with bolts; but the very ability to cross the border of the dome where it is usually impossible to cross it and literally "enter the dome" is rather curious (again, borders).
To this line, we must add the Jeanette Cardiff Music Hall, where speakers are placed in a circle, and in the center there are chairs for listening to the resulting (volumetric? Architectural?) Music. And the kit will be complete. Here are just a set of what?
The promised architecture in it, at first glance, seems to be not enough. That is, traditional layouts and tablets in a common line, of course, are found: the most noticeable to the Russian eye is the competition project of the Perm Museum building from Valerio Oldzhati, the most noticeable to the eye in general is the Taichung Opera project from Toyo Ito. This building, which looks like a small fragment carved from a very large termite mound (China after all), is presented with meticulous detail and supplied with complete documentation lying on the tables in the form of thick albums in the author's language. But the project shown in such detail is an exception and, possibly, a consequence of the freedom declared by the curator. The Arsenal's exposition is formed by installations, moreover, made not always by architects, but, as we see, by engineers and, more often, by artists who work professionally and well in this genre. For example, Olafur Eliasson - in his portfolio there are many good and different, usually large-scale installations (by the way, there are also several "clouds" there, Dealer and Scofidio are not the only ones in this genre). Matthias Schuler is an engineer. That is, the curatorial exhibition at the Arsenal has by no means become an exhibition of architects.
This does not mean that there is no architecture in it. It seems to me that, being the author of museum spaces, Kazuo Sejima turned the entire exhibition into architecture itself: she did not design it as a designer and did not even compose it as a curator, but built it, combining most of the installations into a chain in which each participant offers his own way of artistic comprehending the space of the Arsenal. Thus, the Arsenal itself became the main exhibit. And I must say the attitude to this exhibition space is paradoxical - everyone loves it very much, but when organizing exhibitions in it, they pay little attention to it, simply placing something inside. Arsenal is probably offended by such disdain, looks gloomy and presses on the audience with scale. But he is good in himself, and it's nice that the new curator noticed this.
In this case, the curatorial exposition does not so much exhibit architecture as it is itself. And the passage through the exhibition becomes not reading, not contemplation and not looking, but - immersion in architecture (so immersed in a foreign language). And the participants of the exposition, "supposedly free" artists and engineers, became for Sejima the means of architectural comprehension of the Arsenal's space. Which, by the way, is true if we remember that architecture is the main art, and the rest once obeyed it. Here is a curator from SANAA and subdued them all, but very, very unobtrusively. She did not arrange the exposition in the interior, but filled the space with content. The interior of the Arsenal, as if, reciprocated her, joined in the role of the "main exhibit" and became more pleasant. In any case, now I want to look at it and the long passage through the Arsenal this time is not as tiring as it was two years ago.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that it has a lot of voids and not very much content - a solid form, and even that weightless, Japanese-Shinto: light, darkness (intertwined inside like yin and yang), stone, cloud, water, sound … You can probably even say that Sejima arranged a number of reproductions of already known installations at the Arsenal, using them as a means for an architect to work with elusive elements, to capture the elusive, glare, shadow - things in which Japanese culture is so strong. It is worth experiencing while at Arsenal.
As a whole piece and a reflection on the main elements, the exhibition is well received. Words, however, are a little lacking; there are key ones - such as space and border, which Sejima talks about constantly, including at yesterday's press conference. All other words are collected in "strictly designated places"; Arsenal has an interview room filled with chairs and monitors with headphones - lovers of words can enjoy speeches there for a very long time, the list of speakers takes up an entire wall.
In short, the curatorial exhibition at the Arsenal seems to be right to perceive as another architectural work of SANAA.
Otherwise, the structure of the exhibition, familiar to many, has remained unchanged. Curatorial exhibition at the Arsenal, in the former “pavilion of Italy”, renamed Palazzo Espozicione (Palace of Exhibitions); exhibitions of national pavilions in Giardini and a "parallel program" in the city. The current Biennale is to some extent a jubilee - 35 years have passed since the first architectural exhibition from the Venice Biennale cycle. Hence the anniversary events and memories of past biennials. In the Column Hall of the Palazzo Justinian (the palace where the headquarters of the organizing committee of the Biennale is located), an exhibition opened yesterday on the history of the last 11 years of the Venice Biennale, a kind of report on the achievements of the Venetian exhibition economy; it also hosts the LUMA exhibition, presenting Frank Gehry's “architecture program for a new cultural model”.
Another part of the anniversary program of the Biennale will be "Architectural Saturdays" - as the press release of the organizers says, for three months on Saturdays in Venice there will be meetings with important figures of past exhibitions, including the curators of the previous Biennials Vittorio Gregotti (Vittorio Gregotti, 1975 1976, 1978), Paolo Portoghesi (1980, 1982, 1992), Francesco Dal Co (1988, 1991), Hans Hollein (1996), Massimiliano Fuksas (2000), Dian Sudjic (2002), Kurt W. Forster (2004), Richard Burdett (2006), Aaron Betsky (2008).
We plan to gradually publish more detailed reports on the exhibitions and events of the Biennale. The exhibition will run until November 21.
