60th Biennale Arte

Venice: Flight, downfall and spaceship

Nachrichten
17.04.2024 14:50

The art biennale in Venice is about to officially open - it will take place from April 20 to November 24. The Austrian pavilion is dedicated to the language and forms of expression of non-violent resistance. 

Anna Jermolaewa calls her work "A Language of Resistance". Born in Leningrad in 1970, she had to flee the Soviet Union in 1989 and found a new home in Austria. She summarizes her experience of flight and migration in several focal points.

In "Rehearsal for Swan Lake", she created a video installation together with the Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer Oksana Serheieva, which stages Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" as a Soviet instrument of distraction and censorship. Dancers rehearse for the change of power in Russia, as Russian television once played "Swan Lake" on a continuous loop after a regime change in order to conceal unrest.

Anna Jermolaewa and Oksana Serheieva, rehearsal for "Swan Lake", 2024 (Bild: Franziska Trost)
Anna Jermolaewa and Oksana Serheieva, rehearsal for "Swan Lake", 2024

In the post-war era of the Soviet Union, new music trends such as jazz and rock, especially those coming from the USA, were not allowed to be kept in domestic record collections. However, creative sound technicians quickly found a way out and were able to engrave soundtracks into discarded X-ray recordings. They found masses of X-ray films in hospital waste, so that the frowned-upon music could be captured on numerous bones and rib recordings.

The "Music On Bones" soon sold like hot cakes on the black market. Jermolaewa staged another room in the Hoffmann Pavilion in Austria with such bone images.

X-ray images as sound carriers on a record player: symbolic circumvention of Soviet censorship in the Austria Pavilion at the 2024 Biennale (Bild: zvg)
X-ray images as sound carriers on a record player: symbolic circumvention of Soviet censorship in the Austria Pavilion at the 2024 Biennale
Anna Jermolaewa's installation "Ribs" from 2022 (Bild: © Markus Krottendorfer and Bildrecht)
Anna Jermolaewa's installation "Ribs" from 2022

A spaceship and Turkish earth play an important role in the German pavilion "Germania". The main entrance is filled with earth. A dark installation opens up via a side entrance. Ersan Mondtag, an artist and director living in Germany, mixes actors and music with multimedia artist Bartana Videos to create gray images that visitors can literally enter over several floors.

Mondtag is commemorating his grandfather Hasan Aygün, a Turkish factory worker who died of cancer in 2001 after many years in a Berlin asbestos factory. Anatolian earth is strewn under and in front of the pavilion, in the pavilion actors lie on the floor like corpses in a neglected workers' apartment.

(Bild: zvg)
In the Germany pavilion "Germania": actors lie like corpses, the visitors have to walk around them, they are part of the gloomy staging. (Bild: zvg)
In the Germany pavilion "Germania": actors lie like corpses, the visitors have to walk around them, they are part of the gloomy staging.

Everything is contaminated, the way out is offered by a spaceship on which an artificial, better world has been created. "Last Generation" criticism echoes, but it remains unclear why the spaceship has to take off into space to create a better world. Nevertheless, the images are very strong. The prospects are less good, no way out is shown. Migration and destruction are staged, the world is at a crossroads, where it is going remains completely open. Is there really only doom left?

The Israel pavilion remains closed. (Bild: zvg)
The Israel pavilion remains closed.

The traces of terror and war are particularly present at the Israel pavilion, where a sign in front of the closed entrance indicates that the pavilion will not reopen until there is a ceasefire and the hostages are released.

(Bild: zvg)
Influences of international cultures: the art of Jeffrey Gibson in the US pavilion (Bild: zvg)
Influences of international cultures: the art of Jeffrey Gibson in the US pavilion

Warmer images are shown in the America pavilion. Jeffrey Gibson uses colorful images to create a framework for American, indigenous and international cultures. The US artist lived in South Korea and Germany for many years.

Porträt von Dr. Christoph Dichand
Dr. Christoph Dichand
Loading...
00:00 / 00:00
Abspielen
Schließen
Aufklappen
Loading...
Vorige 10 Sekunden
Zum Vorigen Wechseln
Abspielen
Zum Nächsten Wechseln
Nächste 10 Sekunden
00:00
00:00
1.0x Geschwindigkeit
Loading
Kommentare

Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,

die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team

User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.

Kostenlose Spiele
Vorteilswelt