Kamikaze Loggia, Tbilisi 2007, photo © Levan Asabashvili
At the Venice Biennale 2013, Poland will be represented by Konrad Smoleński in the Polish Pavilion at Giardini, by Karolina Breguła for Romania - and by Polish curators chosen to oversee the national exhibitions of other countries.
Joanna Warsza - Georgian Pavilion
The Georgian Pavilion is set in a temporary extension building on the roof of the Venetian Arsenal, among old warehouses. This structure, typical of Tbilisi architecture, was designed by the artist Gio Sumbadze, founder of the Urban Research Lab. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became popular in Georgia to build makeshift extensions off of already existing buildings. These so-called kamikaze loggias were used as patios, outdoor fridges or artist studios. They were often built from scrap and other recycled materials, appropriated and transformed from modernist styles inherited from the Soviet Union.
The name kamikaze was first used by a Russian journalist to build a parallel between the romantic and suicidal natures of such projects, but also to refer to the fact that most Georgian surnames end in "adze". The architecture of the pavilion also refers to the local "palimpsest" technique of building, which has been used since the Middle Ages in the mountains of the Caucasus to add on new structures to old ones.
Kamikaze Loggia, Tbilisi 2007, photo. © Levan Asabashvili
In an interview with Culture.pl, curator Joanna Warsza said:
The Loggia-Pavilion is also a comment on the petrifaction of Venice. It's a city that will no longer have permanent residents in 15 to 20 years from now, and it's perhaps one of the few places on earth where informal architecture does not actually exist, or if it does, it is only for a short time as a scaffold or a terrace. Here it is not permitted to build anything new, to add anything, even though the loggia tradition originates from here. The first modified balconies were built here, in Italy, to enjoy the sun and provide shelter from the wind. These will be the weather conditions in the Georgian Pavilion.
The pavilion holds an exhibition with Group Bouillon, Thea Djordjadze, Nikoloz Lutidze, Gela Patashuri i Ei Arakawa, Siergiej Tcherepnin and Gio Sumbadze. They will represent the grassroots solutions and concepts of self-organization in Georgian art and architecture through examples of local initiatives to modify the Soviet heritage - like the kamikaze loggias, ''euroremont'' or ''beautification'' (euro-renovations and embellishment ). The project is also a look at the social, political, ideological and artistic climate of the last 20 years, in what was once the wealthiest Soviet republic.
During the three day inauguration of the 55th La Biennale di Venezia (29-31.05), various art activities, performances, meetings and dinners will take place in the Georgian Pavilion and the surrounding area. Additionally, there will be a debate (May 31 at 17:00) with Daniel Baumann, as well as Nana Kipiani and Charles Esche - the latter from the duo Slavs and Tatars, founded by a Polish woman living in Tel Aviv and an American of Iranian origin living in Paris,.
Joanna Warsza (born 1976) is a curator of visual and performance arts, and of architecture. She was co-curator with Artur Żmijewski of the 7th Biennale of Contemporary Art in Berlin. She completed two projects in Tbilisi: Betlemi-Micro-Raioni (2009) and Frozen Moments. Architecture Speaks Back (2010), which served as a draft for the Kamikaze Loggia. She is the editor of the book Ministry of Highways: A Guide to the Architecture of Tbilisi Performative published by Sternberg Press in May 2013, and a curator of the Göteborg International Biennale for Contemporary Art, which opens in September 2013.
For more information visit: www.georgian-pavilion.org and www.facebook.com / GeorgianPavillon.
Georgian Pavilion
Kamikaze Loggia
1.06 -24.11.2013
Preview: 29 - 31.05.2013
Opening: 30.05 17:15
Location: Arsenal (in front of Canale di Porta Nova, beside the Giardino delle Vergini)
Artists: Bouillon Group, Thea Djordjadze, Nikoloz Lutidze, Gela Patashuri, Ei Arakawa and Sergei Tcherepnin, Gio Sumbadze
Commissioner: Marine Mizandari, Vice-Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Georgia
Curated by Joanna Warsza
Adam Budak - Estonian Pavilion
Dénes Farkas' Evident in Advance ", 2013, photo: organizers
At the Biennale, Estonia will be represented by artist Dénes Farkas (born 1974) and his project Evident in Advance, curated by Adam Budak. Farkas's post-conceptual work is based on photographs of deja-vu interiors, spaces that we visit with the impression of having been there already.
The concept of the exhibition was inspired by an American novel, The World as I Found It by Bruce Duffy. A humorous story about the lives of the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, it mixes truth with deceit, and fiction with reality. The artist collaborated with architect Markus Miessen to turn the Pavilion into a series of silent rooms: a hall, a library, a museum, a classroom, archives, a movie theater. Viewers are brought to a physical and mental space which is remindful of their private lives.
Instructions on how to navigate the exhibition are provided through images, objects, words and situational circumstances. It is worth carefully examining the books that were designed especially to show the way to both real and imaginary places.
Adam Budak is the curator of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and of the Kunsthaus in Graz. He has curated international exhibitions including solo exhibitions by John Baldessari, Tatiana Trouvé and Monika Sosnowska, as well as thematic exhibitions such as the Human Condition and Anabasis. Rituals of Homecoming. He co-founded two editions of the Prague Biennale (2003, 2005) and the Venice Biennale (2004). He was co-curator of Manifesta7 (2008). He collaborated with Farkas Budak on the exhibition Beyond for the Month of Photography at the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn (2010). The concept of his exhibition at the Biennale was selected among 13 projects submitted to a jury of directors from the most important Estonian cultural institutions.
For more information about the project visit: www.evident-in-advance.com.
Estonian Pavilion
Dénes Farkas
Evident in Advance
Preview: 29 - 31.05.2013
1.06 -24.11.2013
Opening: 31.05 17:00
Palazzo Malipiero, Campo San Samuele
San Marco 3199 (second floor)
Commissioner: Johannes Saar, director of the Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia
Curator: Adam Budak
Grzegorz Musiał and Tomasz Wendland's Pavilion 0
Angelika Markul and Wojciech Puś "Tristan Da Cuhna", installation, 2013: organizers
Palazzo Donà, the seat of the Venetian Signum Foundation, is being turned into Pavilion 0 - the pavilion of a country that does not exist. This exhibition about a common future will be presented in collaboration with Meditations Biennale, an international group of artists using various media. Alongside master of mistification Robert Kuśmirowski and photographer Nicolas Grospierre's art, the pavilion will display the installations of Angelika Markul and Wojciech Puś's Tristan Da Cuhna, as well as How far can you see? by Michał Martychowiec.
According to the press release,
Art responds to the changes of our reality: its globalization, virtualization, involvement of new technologies, new trends in sciences, social changes and movements. What is the role of art in such a world? Does it need to sustain a critical intention? Can it become some form of therapy? Can it open us to empathy? Can it allow us to become co-sufferers and to question and act on behalf of others? Can art help us to better understand our current world? Can it strengthen democracy and civil societies?
The Post-global art conference will focus on the specific role of art as a fragile diagnosis instrument in a post-global world. It will emphasize the fact that artistic vision not only responds to the instantly changing reality, but also can help to understand its contemporary condition and future trends.
The conference A Vision of the Future - PostGlobal Art will take place on the first day of the opening of the exhibition, the 1st of June. It will be attended by an international group of artists and art theorists. Izabela Kowalczyk, Jarosław Lubiak, Sławomir Sobczak, Tomasz Wendland and Małgorzata Wosińska will be among representants of Poland. The conference will present an "award for an artist of especially significant international importance" - a glass statuette of a lion, a copy of the Palazzo Donà's specially made by the Berengo Studio in Murano.
Pavilion 0
1.06 - 30.09.2013
Preview: 29 - 31.05.2013
Opening: 31.05 g 20:00
Signum Foundation
Palazzo Donà, Campo San Polo 2177, Venice
Artists: Andrzej Bednarczyk, Dorothy Chilińska, Stephen Cornford, Clemens Fürtler, Guy Goldstein / Ariel Efron, Margaret Goliszewska, Nicolas Grospierre, Dieter Jung, Dariusz Kowalski, Takashi Kunitani, Kuśmirowski, Ryota Kuwakubo, Sang Nam Lee, Daniel Lergon, Angelika Markul / Wojciech Puś, Michael Martychowiec, Renato Nicolodi, Yoko Ono, Maciej Rudzin, Saburo Teshigawara, José Ángel Toirac, Koen Vanmechelen, Andrzej Wasilewski, Li Xiaofei
Curated by Grzegorz Musial, Tomasz Wendland
Source: Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, www.georgian-pavilion.org, Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia, www.evident-in-advance.com, Signum Foundation, Mediations Biennale, own material
Author: Agnieszka Sural, 28/05/2013
Translation: LB, 29/05/2013