Parties less exuberant, art a bit harsher: 1 view from 53rd Venice Biennale

53rd Venice Biennale opens

VENICE, Italy — Quieter parties. Harsher art.

That’s one view from the 53rd Venice Biennale, the oldest and one of the most influential contemporary art fairs, seen this year through the lens of the world economic meltdown.

No comment was more cutting than the joint exhibit of the Nordic and Danish pavilions called “The Collectors” where curators Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset created a mock-up of adjacent homes of wealthy art collectors, now up for sale.

The crash of the high-flying art market has taken its toll: A body floats face down in a pool outside as real estate agents (docents) lead potential buyers (art aficionados) on a tour of the two properties, the creation of 24 international artists.

Still, there was debate about the extent to which the world financial crisis has or has not permeated this edition of the Venice Biennale, which opens to the public on Sunday and closes Nov. 22. Many had the impression there were fewer critics and fewer dealers coming to scope out new talent.

“There seems to be less of the irrationally exuberant parties that there were year ago. And the art seems to be more earnest and harsh,” said David Resnicow, a New York-based art consultant. “I think it is a different mood.”

Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Museum of art who was also curator of the Biennale’s architecture show last year, said he didn’t see the crisis reflected in the art itself “other than a reference here or there.”

But no artist backed out because of money, said Daniel Birnbaum, the rotating director of this year’s Biennale under the title “Making Worlds,” an invitation to artists to represent a vision of the world and not to see art as objects, a commodity.

“It permeates your vision,” Birnbaum said of the crisis. “The selection was already done and I would not have selected any differently, because I don’t think it is about whether there is an art market or isn’t an art market. Many of the projects have very little to do with the art market in the end, because they emphasize works that are not about sellable, buyable, collectible, erratic origins.”

The Biennale itself is operating with $1.41 million less than the 2007 edition, said Biennale President Paolo Baratta, who raised the entrance price from $21.25 to $25.51 and asked Birnbaum to economize by having some artists find funding for the transport and insurance on their work.

The budget of the contemporary art section of the Biennale is somewhere around $12.7 million, including not only the transport but permanent Biennale staff and infrastructure, which also support the Biennale events from dance to film to architecture.

The 77 nations with their own pavilions in the central Giardini venue or spaces in the adjacent Arsenal and throughout the city fund their own exhibitions, with a mix of private and public funding reflecting their national proclivities and arts politics.

Of the $992,127.80 it cost to assemble the Russian Pavilion, Moscow contributed just 10 percent, said Olga Sviblova, director of Moscow’s Multimedia Art Museum and curator of the Russian Pavilion. The rest of the money came from private donors — including Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov and the private gas company Novatech.

Because the Biennale cycle begins more than a year before the show opens, Sviblova was deep into the planning when the worst of the crisis hit last fall.

“I was very worried. Everyone lost money. But this didn’t change the support,” she said.

The Russian Pavilion featured seven artists exploring the utopian concept of victory — six newcomers alongside Andre Moldkin, whose installation featured two small figures of the “Winged Victory,” one that fills with oil, the other with blood donated by a Russian soldier in Chechnya in a statement on the ambiguity of victory.

In the next room are paintings of Chechen artist Alexei Kallima of a stadium full of figures glowing under fluorescent light, the room deafened with their cheers, until the lights are switched on and the room goes silent.

“They are all young and as artists they are free, free from ideology pressing on them,” Sviblova said. “Today we need energy, because the crisis is depressing for everyone. We’re afraid of the future.”

The U.S. Pavilion featured works by Bruce Nauman, whose media spans sculpture, neon, performance, video and photography. He has been invited several times to represent the United States at Venice but had until now declined.

Many of Nauman’s works are pieces created over his four-decade long career, some adapted for the Venice space, including his famous outdoor neon sign titled “Vices and Virtues,” which is installed around the colonial facade of the U.S. Pavilion. Overlapping pairs of neon words flash alternately: justice/avarice; hope/envy; faith/lust; faith/chairty.