POSSIBLE FUTURES AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The Venice Biennale 2024 offers an exceptional platform for examining the challenges and opportunities facing the future. The pavilions of Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Hungary trace different forms of looking at and thinking about the world to come, projecting visions of the environment, equilibrium, adaptation, world order and, of course, collective memory.
The German pavilion titled Thresholds and curated by Çağla Ilk explores the nodes that link past, present and future in a multisensory experience. The “now” is a threshold, what connections do we want to generate between what happened and what will come? The invited artists address the question of belonging, the mistakes made, the lessons learned, and what implications it has for the future of the planet.
Yael Bartana's Light to the Nations imagines a planetary exodus to new galaxies in a dystopia that reflects on environmental destruction. In the same way, Ersan Mondtag proposes a Monument to the Forgotten through the archeological reconstruction of the life of his grandfather, a Turkish immigrant who worked all his life in the Eternit factory in Berlin and who died of lung failure, intoxicated with asbestos. It is an installation of biographical fragments: the workplace, the factory, the home, the public space.
In an encompassing way: the sounds. A field of transitions, vibrations felt in the body from the work of artists Michael Akstaller, Robert Lippok and Nicole L'Huillier. Sound waves generated by loudspeakers hidden underground and transceiver systems interact with the landscape, creating a “sonic threshold” that dissolves the barriers between the present and the echoes of the past.
There are no linear destinations, but different portals to be crossed with an awareness of history, understanding the impact that the actions of our present may have.
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Pavilion of GERMANY. Thresholds 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of GERMANY. Thresholds 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of GERMANY. Thresholds 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of GERMANY. Thresholds 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
The Japan pavilion explores the future with a key: adaptation as the primary form of creativity. Yuko Mohri's installation Compose transforms the pavilion into a living space, where sound, light, and scent change according to environmental conditions. Inspired by improvised solutions seen in the Tokyo subway to contain water leaks, the work Moré Moré (Leaky) addresses small everyday crises as opportunities for creativity and resilience. In addition, the installation Decomposition recreates moments of transformation in real time: sound variations based on changes in the environment. The sounds, ranging from subtle vibrations to fragmented noises, suggest that the future is not a fixed state, but a constantly regenerating process.
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Pavilion of JAPAN Compose 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of JAPAN Compose 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of JAPAN Compose 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
The Brazilian-Swiss artist Gerreiro Do Divino Amor presents in the Swiss pavilion a dystopian, eclectic and bizarre world to reflect on the notions of power, control and the myths surrounding national identity. A caricature of the architecture of surveillance, a satire of nationalism, a call for creative resistance. Exaggeration and absurdity permeate the whole pavilion to underline the fragility of narratives based on supremacy, to question the way in which civilizations are organized, and to challenge the idea of progress.
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Pavilion of SWITZERLAND Super Superior Civilizations. 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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Pavilion of SWITZERLAND Super Superior Civilizations. 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Finally, the Hungarian pavilion presented artist Márton Nemes with Techno Zen, an installation that thinks in terms of balance: technology and meditation, calm and music, introspection and virtuality. In an increasingly digitalized world, the million-dollar question that we all ask ourselves and that no one can answer with too much certainty arises: what use do we make of technology? From a more optimistic vision, the artist seeks to integrate. Techno Zen challenges the belief that technology only brings distraction to propose new ways of using it that appeal to wellbeing and mental health, a new digital spirituality.
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