Guest blogger Claudio Cravero: ‘Viva Arte Viva’ at the Venice Biennial

Is ‘Live, Art Alive’ the summer craze of the 57th Venice Biennial? Does it mostly reflect an artist’s or a curator’s standpoint? Without a strong curatorial statement, guest writer Claudio Cravero questions what kind of narrative is still to be written to tell the pulse of today’s art.

French curator Christine Macel stated that ‘Viva Arte Viva’ would like to put art at the very core of her main exhibition at the Giardini and the Arsenale. After both Enwezor’s Biennial (‘All The World’s Futures’, 2015) and Gioni’s edition (‘Encyclopedic Palace’, 2013), Christine Macel’s desire was clearly to lighten the experience we can have when visiting an exhibition of such a weight. Hence, the curator claims that art in her exhibition is on display simply for what it is. Sculptures, installations, paintings, open labs, participatory projects, and so forth, are told be directly showcased through the artists’ voice. Although ‘Viva Arte Viva’ is visibly structured as if it were a novel with its prologue and its ensuing chapters, the works of art pretend to lay bare the living process behind their creation without a precise curatorial narrative. The result? Quite tedious, honestly, as well as is the overall display. There is a handful of not-to-be-missed artwork we could easily bring home. But, which international art exhibition hasn’t anything memorable too? Among them, Younes Rahmoun and Hassan Sharif, whose works were already exhibited in lesser-known Biennials (Marrakesh and Sharjah, respectively). Also, it is noteworthy the rediscovery of more established and recently revamped artists like the Pakistani Rasheed Araeen and the Italian Maria Lai. However, what ultimately draws attention to everyone’s eyes in the exhibition ends up being a lovelorn artwork chosen to fill the corridor of an art fair venue whatsoever.

But where is the tension that shakes the status quo of today’s art? It seems that the perturbing play of forces at play we seek in an artwork only resonates in the sort of lab-cum-studio that artists bring forth in person within the main exhibition. For example, Olafur Eliason invites both students and migrants to build lamps that are worth 250 Euro each, and once they are sold the money is going to be given to some international Ong. In the Giardini, but out of the exhibition ‘Viva Arte Viva’, the American Mark Bradford also works with local prisoners to sustain the sale of their products made thanks to the Italian rehabilitant labor plans. Throughout Venice’s streets (calle), also the Tunisian Pavilion, which is back to the Biennial after a long 60-year absence, presents a project that focuses on migration and freedom of movement by releasing a ‘travel document’.
Eventually, the ongoing art venue includes the newborn NSK State Pavilion, the Diaspora Pavilion, and the Research Pavilion. Regardless of their importance as an attempt to redefine the territories of the art system by pushing the boundaries of the concept of statehood through socially engaged art projects, they brought their statement on purpose in the glitzy Venice, and not elsewhere. This fact is a sign that the 122-year old Biennial still represents the topical place-to-be to rethinking the transformation of art and its being alive. Or its survival.