A history of cultures and confusions at the Venice Biennale

This year's Venice Biennale has already had a few controversies even before it has started.

The Irish have chosen Emily-Jane Kirwan, as the commissioner for the Irish Pavilion. She is a director at the Pace Gallery in New York and strangely enough the Irish entry this year is Corban Walker, who exhibits at the same Manhattan gallery.

This mixing of the commercial world with public institutions has had many artists and curator outraged with one curator saying it was a terrible decision.

“Everyone has become so cynical that they no longer see any difference between the public and the private sectors and simply do not care about conflicts of interest. Certain lines must not be crossed, certain categories must not be confused or conflated, and ethical standards must be strictly applied,” said a veteran biennale curator who did not want to be named.

Jenny Harper, the director of the Christchurch Art Gallery and the 2009 and 2011 New Zealand pavilion commissioner also expressed her misgivings at the “blurring of the lines”.

The South Africans also have a problem. The commissioner of their official exhibition of four artists is Lethole Mokoena who is also the owner of the dealer gallery, Gallery Momo in Johannesburg.

Two of the artists – Mary Sibande and Lyndi Sales – are in gallery’s stable of artists. One of the other artist, Artist Zwelethu Mthethwa was also to be included on the exhibition, but says he has withdrawn from the process: ‘I am not happy with what is going on’, said Mthethwa, ‘I don’t want to be a pawn in this project.’

The biennale, which first opened in 1895 has always had a controversial edge not the least in that it originated in a movement aimed at opening up the culture of the city as part of a city marketing campaign. It was seen as a way of generating more tourism and generally developing the city's economy.

The first biennale was dominated by naturalist German and British artists. Their works were chosen by a distinguished group of artists including Gustav Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Edward Burnes-Jones, John Millais and Max Lieberman.

The grand prize for the first biennale was won by the now forgotten Francesco Michetti but there were other prizes including one awarded to James Whistler.

American portraitist John Singer Sargent, Swiss symbolist Arnold Bocklin and Gustav Klimnt showed in 1899. Claude Monet exhibited in 1897 and also in 1903, along with Camille Pissaro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In 1910 Renoir had a large exhibition at the Biennale in 1910, making him the first impressionist to have a major one-man show.

In the 1920s the French used their pavilion to showcase a number of the impressionists, post-impressionists and fauves while the Germans showed artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

The Dutch used it to mount a major show of Vincent van Gogh in 1920 and Piet Mondrian in 1928 while the Soviet Union showed some of its new abstract artists such as Alexander Archipenko.

After World War II the biennale became a major focus for a number of countries, with many more pavilions being established. In 1948 Peggy Guggenheim showed several Americans, including Jackson Pollock and Clifford Still. This was also the first year Pablo Picasso exhibited, with prizes awarded to Georges Braque, Albert Moore and Marc Chagall.

Pop art was given a major international launch in 1964 when the Americans showed off a number of pop artists and Robert Rauschenberg was awarded a prize.

The showcasing of important artists continues up till the present. A few years ago controversial British artist Damien Hurst had his major outing at the biennale and several documentaries made about his Venice show increased his profile dramatically.

The Australians have included their more significant artists, including in the 1999 show Howard Arkley who unfortunately died while his show was still on.

The 1999 biennale featured American Ann Hamilton whose show consisted of a huge braille work. Visitors to the gallery were lightly showered with a red powder which settled on surfaces around the exhibitions and resulted in tracks of the red dust throughout the city.

Armani used the exhibition as the venue to launch a new collection which created additional interest in the pavilion.

In 1972 for the 36th biennale there was an international print exhibition and New Zealand was represented by Kate Coolahan and Stanley Palmer who both sold a number of works to international buyers.

In 1991 the Architectural Biennale award was won by students from the University of Auckland School of Architecture with an inventive conceptual project which incorporated models, drawings, constructions and photography. Models derived from standard building regulations and traditional methods of carpentry connected and interacted with variants of Polynesian navigational aids.

The biennale has always been a contentious event and remains so today. In 1986 American artist Richard Lowenberg had a large installation that made use of military surveillance images, talking computers that discussed information theory, military communications and surveillance techniques along with details of US nuclear installations and infrastructure. The New Zealand artist et al exhibited work with a similar theme in 2005.

Lowenberg’s show however was mysteriously closed down after a few days and all evidence of the work removed.

In 1999 Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang won the major award for his work Rent Collectors Courtyard. The work was originally created at the height of the Cultural Revolution as a collaboration between students and teachers at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts.
The appropriated work was condemned by the Chinese authorities who announced they would take the artist and the Venice Biennale to court for violation of copyright. As yet no action has been taken.