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La Biennale di Venezia: Opera Aperta / Loose Work
04 june – 27 november 2011
Curator: Guus Beumer
Organisation: Mondriaan Foundation
Artists: Barbara Visser, Ernst van der Hoeven, Herman Verkerk, Johannes Schwartz, Joke Robaard, Maureen Mooren, Paul Kuipers, Sanneke van Hassel, Yannis Kyriakides, with an performance by Alexander van Slobbe.
For the 54th edition of the Venice Biennale, the Dutch Pavilion has been temporarily transformed into the model of a theater. As suggested by its title Opera Aperta / Loose Work, this is an open and collective project, in which Barbara Visser, Herman Verkerk, Johannes Schwartz, Joke Robaard, Maureen Mooren and Paul Kuipers have been invited by curator Guus Beumer to collaborate. This collaboration has led to additional contributions by Sanneke van Hassel, Yannis Kyriakides, Alexander van Slobbe, and Ernst van der Hoeven.
Opera Aperta / Loose Work raises the issue as to whether the notion of national representation and national identity, so intrinsic to the history of the Venice Biennale, can be reinterpreted through het notion of community. And it considers whether this issue can be related to the cultural infrastructure that characterizes the Netherlands to a significant degree. The title refers to that of a book by Italian cultural philosopher Umberto Eco, in which he makes a plea for ambiguity, yet it does remain distinct from this by way of a deliberately free translation and the substitution of the English 'open' with 'loose'. In addition to the Mondriaan Foundation, which commissioned the project, other institutions such as the Dutch Foundation for Literature, the Performing Arts Fund and Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion, as well as the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, have made unique contributions in terms of content as well as financial support.
Background
The cultural infrastructure of the Netherlands is a unique and complex system, within which the positions of the artist, of art and of culture have become socially embedded. Nowadays this system is mainly interpreted in terms of subsidy, but essentially this infrastructure should be seen as a public realm, in which a range of matters—postgraduate programs, centers for the arts, museums, international art policy, subsidies for projects and for individual artists—are geared to each other. Not only is the production, distribution and contemplation of the arts safeguarded by this infrastructure; it also guarantees admission to them for diverse audiences. When this project began, budget cutbacks were indeed on the way in the Netherlands, but their very legitimacy was not being discussed. Right now, however, this infrastructure is being put under great pressure.
By translating the notion of cultural infrastructure into 'community', the foundations are laid for a collective approach and resulting exhibition model, which has become the framework for several new works by individual participants. The methodology can simply be described as multidisciplinary in character. It is the point of departure for a way of working, which primarily should be seen as a—possibly distorte —reflection of the disciplinary divisions within that infrastructure.
Exhibition Model
The realized exhibition model can best be described as a 1:1 model in which the pavilion built by architect Rietveld has been completely incorporated. Added to this pavilion's modernist shape is the temporary suggestion of the theater as a stage-like landscape with wings.
An essential aspect of this project is the relationship to an audience, which due to massive crowds at the Venice Biennale, is considered problematic for a contemplative experience of art. That relationship is not only heightened by the model of the theater; the classic boundaries of a wing-stage theater have now dissolved, since the audience has been invited to go behind and between the wings.
In this model there are intentional echoes of previous, older forms of collaborative projects such as opera, the interior and the garden. The ambition of this group of artists and designers, however, goes beyond an anachronistic ideal. These initially clear points of departure are moreover subject to a reflection on the model itself. What appears to be a coherent structure from a frontal perspective later disintegrates into fragments, and the various individual contributions ultimately become visible as a result.
Contributions
That ambiguity of Opera Aperta / Loose Work is expressed in the complex status of the art object or the author within this model, which has been spatially interpreted by EventArchitectuur (Paul Kuipers and Herman Verkerk) on the basis of countless discussions among members of the group. The model can be interpreted as a succession of walls, whose front and back sides can have opposite meanings.
Ambiguity can also be sensed in the work ‘Rembrandt’ by Johannes Schwartz, which occupies a central place within the perspective of the wing-stage theater. That 'backdrop' is a wall painting: a new manifestation of Schwartz's photograph taken at the Rijksmuseum when the Dutch icon of national self-confidence—‘The Night Watch’— was removed, thus revealing an abstract blotch.
A certain ambiguity can also be seen in the contribution by Barbara Visser, ‘Opera Aperta/ Theatre Wings: The Story of Art I, II, III’, which can be interpreted as a narrative on the role of the art object itself. Barnett Newman's famous painting
‘Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III’ has been the starting point for this. And it emerges with the transcription of Plato's ‘The Statesman’ into a twelve-hour musical work by Yannis Kyriakides; the mere use of the pianola alludes, above all, to the absence of a player with this instrument.
Yet there is no room for the unambiguous within Opera Aperta / Loose Work, and certainly not if issues regarding identity and community come into play. In the photographic work and the two video works by Joke Robaard, ‘Does it work and how does it work?’, the notion of 'the fabric of society' is introduced; there arises the question as to whether this has been damaged and, if so, whether it can be repaired. And Sanneke van Hassel brings three voices to this project: each expresses a forgotten stance within the public discussion on art's utopian relationship to society.
The work of Maureen Mooren brings us back to the matter of representation, which has been emphatically raised by the temporary collective. Six writers were approached by her to write a review on the basis of an image, in which Opera Aperta/ Loose Work must be viewed as an imaginary opera. By way of these six reviews, she not only introduces the eye of the critic within the project, but further heightens the fictional quality of this truly 1:1 model and alludes to an even greater wealth of possible interpretations.
Standing outside, right in front of the pavilion, is an etagère filled with hundreds of plants, mostly with variegated leaves. This contribution by Ernst van der Hoeven comprises the introduction and the conclusion to Opera Aperta / Loose Work. As a folly, it refers to the nineteenth-century notion of display, inherently linked with the issue of national identity and characteristic of the great World's Fairs of that century.
The Mondriaan Foundation has been responsible for the Dutch entry at the Venice Biennale since 1995 and appoints a curator for each entry.
www.venicebiennale.nl
Publication Opera Aperta / Loose Work
ISBN 978-90-817355-0-6
Preview
1-3 June 2011
10.00-19.00 hrs.
Opening Dutch Pavilion
1 June 2011
12.00 hrs. with a Fashion Surprise
Giardini
Exhibition
4 June - 27 November 2011
10.00-18.00 hrs.
Closed on Mondays (except Monday 6 June, 15 August and 21 November 2011)
For more information, please contact:
International press
Neumann Luz, Keulen, Sarah Willems, t +49 221 923 59 87,
sw@neumann-luz.de
Dutch press
Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdam, Caroline Soons, t +31 20 676 20 32,
c.soons@mondriaanfoundation.nl
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