Organizing a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a challenge for any curator. From a practical perspective, the unique, historic buildings at the Giardini often have protected elements; conceptually, the complicated idea of national representation must be carefully considered.
Many of this year’s curators are breaking out of traditional structures, in some cases by remodeling existing buildings; in others, working extensively with diasporic teams. While the concept of each pavilion was conceived before the theme of the biennale’s main exhibition, “Foreigners Everywhere,” was announced, the idea of challenging nationalism and embracing a global sense of belonging resonates with many of the national presentations.
In the run-up to the 60th Venice Biennale, which opens on April 20th, five curators spoke to Artsy about the ideas they are working with, and the recurring obstacles in creating a show for such an iconic global event.
Aindrea Emelife, Nigerian pavilion
With works by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ndidi Dike, Onyeka Igwe, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Abraham Oghobase, Yinka Shonibare, Fatimah Tuggar, and Precious Okoyomon
Aindrea Emelife, a British Nigerian curator at the Museum of West African Art in London, is curating the second-ever iteration of the Nigerian pavilion, showing a cross-generational group of artists under the title “Nigeria Imaginary.” The exhibition will look hopefully to the future, while considering Nigeria’s history. Emelife is also including a pop culture element, with audio excerpts of contemporary music and sound from a project first initiated by the curator last year with local musicians in Lagos and Benin City; and an accompanying playlist produced in collaboration with the Nigerian label Native Records.
“It’s such a weird and complicated task trying to figure out how to represent a country,” Emelife said. “The theme ‘Nigeria Imaginary’ came first. At the beginning of the year [2023], Nigeria was going through our elections and that’s always an interesting time when everyone is quite optimistic but also reflective, thinking about the country so far and things that could have been. I was also thinking about my role as a curator: I’m Nigerian, but I’m diaspora. There are different relationships to Nigeria throughout the pavilion; different types of interaction.”
Emelife set out to present a nuanced picture of the country’s artistic scene. “One of the greatest pieces of advice I was given was to think about what people need to see at this moment. If you’re a young artist in Nigeria, what do you wish people around the world might understand about the country?” she said. “I hope that some of the misconceptions about Nigeria might change. A great deal of success would be for people to feel as hopeful and invested in the potential of the country as I think Nigerian creatives are and to have their views truly expanded. It’s also important that with utopia there is also criticality; the exhibition isn’t just a place of dreaming, it’s also looking at the state of things, which is important for this space of imagining.”
Agustín Pérez Rubio, Spanish pavilion
With works by Sandra Gamarra Heshiki
Working with Peruvian artist Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, with whom he has previously collaborated, the independent curator and art historian Agustín Pérez Rubio is reimagining the concept of a national museum through a critical, anti-colonial lens. In the presentation, titled “Pinacoteca migrante” (“Migrant art gallery”), the artist is reinterpreting famous artworks held within Spain’s museums, presenting paintings, sculptures, and botanical specimens from the perspective of the colonized.
“When you enter a national pavilion at the biennale, it is like an embassy. This is the land of each country. I said, ‘We have to transform something,’” said Rubio. “Sandra started research into all the different museums in Spain which have a colonial past. We have created a critical vision of what is happening, from the time of the colonies until now. Migration, instructivism, and diversity of race and gender are the subjects of this fake institution.”
The pavilion will include design elements that visitors will recognize from museums around the world. Rubio aims to challenge the ways in which these conventions create a sense of authority and objective truth: “The idea is to revise this very normative approach of museums towards museology. Truth is something that is made with the lighting, the color of the walls, the labeling. The paintings are then going to use these contra-narratives, to invert and subvert what was originally portrayed. Sandra wants people to take off the glasses of Eurocentricity.”
Çağla Ilk, German pavilion
With works by Yael Bartana, Ersan Mondtag, Michael Akstaller, Nicole L’Huillier, Robert Lippok, and Jan St. Werner
Çağla Ilk, architect and co-director of Germany’s Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, is curating a group exhibition, “Thresholds,” within and beyond the German pavilion. The presentation in the Giardini will bridge to a secondary site on the publicly accessible island of La Certosa. Ilk was inspired by Georgi Gospodinov’s 2020 book Time Shelter, which explores how we can conceive of a hopeful future while holding a traumatic past and catastrophic present in mind. In both the exhibition’s theme and the physical expansion of the pavilion, Ilk challenges the notion of national enclosure.
“It was about redefining the borders of a nation-state pavilion,” she said. “This is why I chose the theme of thresholds; it’s about being in between. It was important to extend beyond the Giardini and to a space that it’s possible for everyone to visit. It is for the people of Venice—it’s one of the rare spaces you can go with your dog, your children, and enjoy a walk.”
Ilk said it was a “positive shock” when the main theme of the exhibition was announced, as it chimes so closely with her ideas. “Who is German and who is not? We are a multicultural society, which is often not accepted. We’re not only in Germany, but in the world,” she said.
“I want people to spend time in [the exhibition] with all the artists. I want to have a connection with the people who visit, thinking about a better future and not forgetting the past. I see this as a very important political mission. I believe in borderless, non-nation-state living.”
Asrin Haidari, Nordic pavilion
With work by Lap-See Lam, Kholod Hawash, and Tze Yeung Ho
For the Nordic pavilion, Swedish artist Lap-See Lam has reimagined a ship in the form of a dragon, inspired by a three-story Chinese ship which was towed from Shanghai to Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1991. Lam’s giant dragon’s head and prow will travel from the Arctic Archipelago to the Venetian Lagoon and frame the outside of the permanent pavilion structure. Inside the pavilion, Asrin Haidari—curator at Sweden’s Moderna Museet—has worked with Lam, composer Tze Yeung Ho, and artist Kholod Hawash to create the one-hour program The Altersea Opera.
The piece brings together video, music, sculpture, and textile, and centers around Lo Ting, a mythological half-human, half-fish figure who exists across time periods, far from the sea and culture to which he belongs. When he finally returns to Fragrant Harbour (a historical nickname for Hong Kong), he finds it has changed beyond recognition.
“The visitors become passengers on this journey,” said Haidari. “It’s not easy to go out of the premises of the Nordic pavilion! But we wanted to take on the whole building and transform it. There are a lot of limitations in the pavilion, which can be inspiring. You have to think about all these things with humidity, not damaging the beautiful concrete walls and marble floor.”
Representing three countries—Norway, Finland, and Sweden—the Nordic pavilion has long fostered a sense of cross-cultural collaboration, something Haidari was keen to continue. “It’s such a richly layered production with a lot of different collaborators. We have an ensemble in the opera, playing different instruments and characters, and they live all over the world. With the multilingual and diverse cultural background of the three artists, it is very much about hybridity and spaces in between and migratory histories,” she said. “I hope that emotional state of exile and alienation, but also reconciliation and kinship, that has fed into the project is felt.”
Jacob Fabricius and Seolhui Lee, South Korean pavilion
With works by Koo Jeong A
Jacob Fabricius, director of Art Hub Copenhagen, and Seolhui Lee, curator at Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark, are working with a sense that is typically understimulated at a primarily visual event: smell. For the South Korean pavilion, artist Koo Jeong A has invited over 600 people to share their scent memories of Korea. From these memories, one commercial perfume and 16 installation scents have been created in collaboration with perfume company NonFiction. The resulting installation, which will also contain painting and sculpture, creates a portrait of the Korean peninsula drawn from contributors born in both North and South Korea, as well as visitors.
“The more we get to know Koo Jeong A, we are really fascinated by how she deals with lots of mediums,” said Lee. “There is no boundary to how she works with different mediums, from immersive scent [to] beautiful poetic drawings and funny video artwork.”
The curators also feel a sense of kinship with the main exhibition. While the scents speak directly to a geographical place, they reflect global input. “We are aware that smells and scents have no borders,” said Fabricius. “In that respect, it doesn’t matter if it’s on the North Korean side of the border or South, it will enter the other. Those 17 smells have been produced by 14 different perfumers, and 13 of them are foreign to Korea, interpreting the scent memories of Korea. That creates another beautifully abstract layer to being a foreigner.”
“I hope the scents will spark curiosity, and that may open a small door in your brain that you forgot about for many years, that you can now enter,” he added.
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