Saltz’s Postcards From the Venice Biennale - Slideshow - Vulture

June 30, 2013 9:15 pm

Saltz’s Postcards From the Venice Biennale

By Jerry Saltz

I arrive two weeks after the opening of the 55th Venice Biennale. By then the art world is in Basel, and it’s safe to see the 88 national pavilions and 158 artists in curator Massimiliano Gioni’s show, “The Encyclopedic Palace,” on my own. Gioni is currently the living master of the tightly formated narrative group show, and advance word is the most glowing I’ve ever heard. We’ll see. Click through the gallery ahead to see me navigate the good, the bad, and the overhyped in a suddenly empty Venice with my new digital camera.

*This article originally appeared in the July 8, 2013 issue of New York Magazine.

Upon arrival in Venice.

Upon arrival in Venice.

First stop is Sarah Sze’s American pavilion. Her work, which I usually love, is obsessive—worlds within worlds and endless detail. But I see a problem here, one that quickly becomes emblematic. Sze and Gioni fashion order out of chaos. But I am not looking for order; I’m looking for chaos—new chaos.

First stop is Sarah Sze’s American pavilion. Her work, which I usually love, is obsessive—worlds within worlds and endless detail. But I see a problem here, one that quickly becomes emblematic. Sze and Gioni fashion order out of chaos. But I am not looking for order; I’m looking for chaos—new chaos.

A crowd-pleasing group of nearly 200 small, unfired clay sculptures by Peter Fischli and David Weiss demonstrate the best parts of Gioni’s show—universal imagination, personal encyclopedias, and endless idiosyncratic indexes. My favorite is Mr. & Mrs. Einstein Shortly After the Conception of Their Son, the Genius Albert.

A crowd-pleasing group of nearly 200 small, unfired clay sculptures by Peter Fischli and David Weiss demonstrate the best parts of Gioni’s show—universal imagination, personal encyclopedias, and endless idiosyncratic indexes. My favorite is Mr. & Mrs. Einstein Shortly After the Conception of Their Son, the Genius Albert.

One complaint about Gioni’s show is that it isn’t “political enough.” But Gioni’s politics come through in the way he redefines who is called an artist, including scores of so-called outsiders like Morton Bartlett, whose anatomically correct sculptures of prepubescent girls with sculpted vulvas and hand-sewn clothes were discovered only after he died. On almost every outsider, Gioni nails it. He integrates this work seemlessly and beautifully and allows it take you deep. It’s the insiders who sometimes give him trouble.

One complaint about Gioni’s show is that it isn’t “political enough.” But Gioni’s politics come through in the way he redefines who is called an artist, including scores of so-called outsiders like Morton Bartlett, whose anatomically correct sculptures of prepubescent girls with sculpted vulvas and hand-sewn clothes were discovered only after he died. On almost every outsider, Gioni nails it. He integrates this work seemlessly and beautifully and allows it take you deep. It’s the insiders who sometimes give him trouble.

Leave it to British badass Sarah Lucas to provide tip-top hard-core moments—bronze casts fashioned from tights and panty hose and made into gloriously distorted golden figures, some sporting massive erections.

Leave it to British badass Sarah Lucas to provide tip-top hard-core moments—bronze casts fashioned from tights and panty hose and made into gloriously distorted golden figures, some sporting massive erections.

Outside the San Giorgio Maggiore, one of the more spectacular sites in Christendom, Marc Quinn’s lavender-colored 39-foot inflatable sculpture of Alison Lapper naked and pregnant and armless had crowds aghast and disgusted. I think the deeply human sculpture (an independent installation, not actually part of the Biennale) is about as good as this otherwise iffy artist will ever look.

Outside the San Giorgio Maggiore, one of the more spectacular sites in Christendom, Marc Quinn’s lavender-colored 39-foot inflatable sculpture of Alison Lapper naked and pregnant and armless had crowds aghast and disgusted. I think the deeply human sculpture (an independent installation, not actually part of the Biennale) is about as good as this otherwise iffy artist will ever look.

The best-pavilion prize went to Angola for a sadly derivative installation in a little-seen palazzo—sheets of paper printed with photographs like Gabriel Orozco’s, stacked like ottomans, and free for the taking like a Felix Gonzalez-Torres work. The prize gives one the disturbing feeling that the powers that be are rewarding Third World artists for self-colonizing into good little neo-neo-postmodernists.

The best-pavilion prize went to Angola for a sadly derivative installation in a little-seen palazzo—sheets of paper printed with photographs like Gabriel Orozco’s, stacked like ottomans, and free for the taking like a Felix Gonzalez-Torres work. The prize gives one the disturbing feeling that the powers that be are rewarding Third World artists for self-colonizing into good little neo-neo-postmodernists.

Only women are allowed to undergo the golden shower of fake coins raining down from the Russian pavilion’s rafters—an idiotic allusion to the myth of Danae being showered with Zeus’s, um, juices.

Only women are allowed to undergo the golden shower of fake coins raining down from the Russian pavilion’s rafters—an idiotic allusion to the myth of Danae being showered with Zeus’s, um, juices.

Tino Sehgal, a Gioni favorite, lets him down. His tepid live performance of people sitting on the floor uttering primitive sounds and syllables is mediocre at best, and I call bullshit on jurors who awarded it best in show. Ragnar Kjartansson sails circles around Sehgal with his bittersweet-comic S.S. Hangover, a little dinghy with a live brass band.

Tino Sehgal, a Gioni favorite, lets him down. His tepid live performance of people sitting on the floor uttering primitive sounds and syllables is mediocre at best, and I call bullshit on jurors who awarded it best in show. Ragnar Kjartansson sails circles around Sehgal with his bittersweet-comic S.S. Hangover, a little dinghy with a live brass band.

And with Sehgal now an art-world hero, a deadly live-art epidemic is afoot among admirers and imitators. Witness the only mildly interesting reenactments of performances that have appeared in previous Biennales.

And with Sehgal now an art-world hero, a deadly live-art epidemic is afoot among admirers and imitators. Witness the only mildly interesting reenactments of performances that have appeared in previous Biennales.

Wanna know what it feels like to be a 93-year-old woman and a painter? More than a few women looking at Maria Lassnig’s self-portrait told me, “This is how I feel every day.”

Wanna know what it feels like to be a 93-year-old woman and a painter? More than a few women looking at Maria Lassnig’s self-portrait told me, “This is how I feel every day.”

Every one of China’s 1 billion people is now probably aware of Ai Weiwei, making him the most well-known artist in history. Here Ai delivers one knockout and one big flop.

Every one of China’s 1 billion people is now probably aware of Ai Weiwei, making him the most well-known artist in history. Here Ai delivers one knockout and one big flop.

His sculptural dioramas depicting his incarceration speak volumes about China’s lack of creative freedom.

His sculptural dioramas depicting his incarceration speak volumes about China’s lack of creative freedom.

But his German pavilion-filling installation of tumbling wooden stools is a snore.

But his German pavilion-filling installation of tumbling wooden stools is a snore.

And more and more artists are following the ridiculous aesthetic idea that says, “Maybe if one is boring, 15,555 will be better.”

And more and more artists are following the ridiculous aesthetic idea that says, “Maybe if one is boring, 15,555 will be better.”

Charles Ray delivers big-time in this oversize, scale-distorting female mannequin that makes you feel like a bug, a baby, or an alien. The problem is the work is over twenty years old.

Charles Ray delivers big-time in this oversize, scale-distorting female mannequin that makes you feel like a bug, a baby, or an alien. The problem is the work is over twenty years old.

The fattest-cat palace of them all is the Palazzo Grassi, owned by billionaire art collector François Pinault. Go-to optical wizard Rudolf Stingel covered the entire building with reproductions of one kilim carpet. Fall to your knees and pray, think about Orientalism, mercantilism, merchants, or magic carpets, the perfect retina clearer for the flight back to our own island on the sea: New York.

The fattest-cat palace of them all is the Palazzo Grassi, owned by billionaire art collector François Pinault. Go-to optical wizard Rudolf Stingel covered the entire building with reproductions of one kilim carpet. Fall to your knees and pray, think about Orientalism, mercantilism, merchants, or magic carpets, the perfect retina clearer for the flight back to our own island on the sea: New York.

Outside of the Biennale.

Outside of the Biennale.

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