January 28-February 28, 2005. Press days: January 27-28

Places:
Main Venue: former Lenin Museum, Moscow

Curators:
Joseph Backstein, Daniel Birnbaum, Iara Boubnova, Nicolas Bourriaud, Rosa Martinez, Hans Ulrich Obrist

Press Contact:
info@moscowbiennale.ru
www.moscowbiennale.ru

Why a new Biennale in Moscow?

The First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, initiated by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, marks an important step forward in the process of reintegrating contemporary Russian art into the international art world.

One of the most obvious consequences of political and economical stabilisation in Russia is the growing interest of Russian society in contemporary culture, and more precisely contemporary art. In the last decade a totally new Russian art infrastructure has emerged through art fairs, galleries, non-profit exhibition spaces, festivals and conferences. For these reasons, 2005 is the right time for Moscow to create a major international art event, the first of its kind in the country.

The Moscow Biennale aims to become not only a great event in the artistic life of Moscow and Russia but also to play an important social, cultural and political role internationally. It is intended to be not only a particular powerful event, but a new institutional project that will strengthen relationships between curators, art historians, managers, federal authorities, sponsors and trustees, mass media and public opinion on contemporary art both in and outside Russia itself. It is the organisers’ intention that The Moscow Biennale will become a reproducible strong structure that will find its place in the network of other major international art forums.

The Theme of the Biennale

Under the theme, Dialectics of Hope, the main exhibition will present art that focuses on one of the most fundamental experiences of a modern human being: hope. On the one hand, hope exists as a private existential feeling, touching particularly on issues of care or caring, on the other it is found in the older Utopian vision of a shared social feeling. The dialectical character of hope today as well as its emergence in different forms of contemporary art will be the focus for the exhibition, reflecting the influence that social and political changes exert on the way we attempt to anticipate our own future and the development of the societies to which we belong. In politically turbulent and worrying times, the function of hope as an organising principle of our lives becomes increasingly apparent.

Structure

The first Moscow Biennale will include a main project organized by its international curatorial team, and a series of parallel events. The selection of artists and the development of the main projects have been a collective endeavour of the curatorial team.

The 2005 exhibition is the first element of a larger project conceived as a trans-generational endeavour that will unfold in a series of steps until 2007. This first manifestation concentrates on young artists from all over the world. Its main aim is to describe the state of contemporary art and the new issues addressed by the artists of the 21st century. The same curatorial team will also work on the 2007 exhibition.

The main project of the Moscow Biennale 2005 will be accompanied by a series of special projects and a wide parallel program representing contemporary art from Russia and the former Soviet Union. The events will be held in a number of key venues in and around the centre of the city of Moscow.

Curators

Joseph Backstein, Co-ordinating Curator (Russia), Deputy Director of the State Centre for Museums and Exhibitions ROSIZO – Curator of the Russian exhibition at the 25th Biennale in Sao Paolo, 2002 – Curator of the Russian Pavilion at the 48th Venice Biennale, 1999.

Daniel Birnbaum (Sweden/Germany), Rector of the Stadelschule Art Academy, Frankfurt am Main and Director of Kunsthalle Portikus – Co-curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003 – International Foundation Manifesta Board Member (Amsterdam), since 2000.

Iara Boubnova (Bulgaria), Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia – International Foundation Manifesta Board Member, since 2002 – Co-curator of Manifesta 4 (Frankfurt am Main), 2002 – Curator of Bulgarian National Participation in the 48th Venice Biennale, 1999.

Nicolas Bourriaud (France), Director of the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (with Jerome Sans), Founder Director of the magazine Documents – Co-Curator of the Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2005 – Curator of the Aperto at the 45th Venice Biennale, 1993 – Curator of Unmoving Short Movies at the Venice Biennale, 1990.

Rosa Martinez (Spain), Artistic Director of the Arsenale, Venice Biennale, 2005 – Chief Curator of the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art – Curator of the Spanish pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003 – Curator of the 3rd SITE Santa Fe Biennale (New Mexico), 1999 – Artistic Director of the 5th International Istanbul Biennale, 1997.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (Switzerland/France), Curator at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Co-curator of the exhibitions Cities on the Move, Laboratorium, Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale, 1st Berlin Biennale, Manifesta 1. The first volume of his ongoing interview project was recently published: Hans Ulrich Obrist Interviews (Milan: Edizioni Charta, Pitti Imagine 2003).

Chairman of the Organizing Committee: Michail Shvydkoy, Head of the Federal Agency for Culture and Film.

Commissioner: Evgeny Zyablov, Director of the State Centre for Museums and Exhibitions ROSIZO.

Venues

The main project will be realised at the former Lenin Museum, in the very centre of Moscow, near the Red Square. Built in 1892 as the Moscow City Hall, in October 1917 the building became residence of the Committee on Public Security which aimed to prevent the developing revolution. When Soviet power was established, it was first occupied by the Moscow Soviet and then by the Moscow Trade Union Soviet, and since 1936 served as the Lenin Museum, a unique collection of items related to Lenin’s life and activity.

Contact
info@moscowbiennale.ru
http://moscowbiennale.ru/english

La entrada 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art 2005 se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.

Inventing Venice: A Director’s Roundtable

by Massimiliano Gioni

Rosa Martínez, ’05

How much time did you have to organize the Biennale? How did this impact your process and results?
We had only about nine months to start thinking and acting, even though I said yes as soon as I was asked by the president of the Biennale at that time, Davide Croff, since I was aware of the significance of being inscribed in the history of the event as the first woman director in its 110 years of existence. I was also thrilled at the possibility of creating a show in the amazing spaces of the Arsenale. So these challenges compensated for the short time—made more pressing by the slowness of the Italian bureaucracy—and all the other difficulties. When I learned that the president had also chosen another woman to curate the Central Pavilion, and that this woman was María de Corral, I was very happy to share this chance and yet to have different spaces. The fact that we were two women directors (instead of the classic one man) prompted Italian feminists in Milan to ask the president a funny question at the press conference: had he made this decision because in his male unconscious it took two women to equal one man?

What was your budget? How much did you raise?
The budget was a big mystery. I never knew what my total budget was, but I remember that it was cut by a big amount when I said no to a request made by a sponsor. Neither I nor the artists I invited would agree to convert the Arsenale into an advertisement space for coffee machines, with chairs bearing the sponsor logo all around. So I had to ask some galleries and artists to help me balance the cut, and they did.

In curating the show, did you aim to talk to your peers or to address a wider audience?
Harald Szeemann [director of the 1999 and 2001 Venice Biennales] told me that when you do a show you always have to keep your peers in mind. However, I think that in an international event as meaningful and important as this one you have to present la bella combinazione, addressing a wider audience. You must take the event a little bit further than your predecessors took it, but you also have to make it broad and comprehensible enough to reach the general public.

What did you want to do differently than your predecessors? Did you accomplish that goal?
Being a woman, I wanted to reflect on the exclusion that female artists have suffered historically, and the Guerrilla Girls helped me very much with their statistics. Through a series of ironic, large-scale posters, they showed how in 1895 only 2.4 percent of the artists who participated in the International Exhibition in Venice were female; but the shocking thing was that one century later, in 1995, the proportion was only 9 percent. I also wanted to reflect on other political inequalities, so the sound project by Santiago Sierra at the corridor entrance was very meaningful. Among many other things, he stated how in 2005 the countries that had a national pavilion inside the Giardini represented 24 percent of the world’s population and produced 83 percent of the Global National Product, while the countries having a national pavilion outside the Giardini represented 34 percent of world’s population, producing 9 percent of GNP.

What was the most complex project you were involved with?
The installation Cube by Gregor Schneider at the Piazza San Marco was so complex it became totally impossible to achieve, even though the artist had financial support to do it. We had to go through a hard process of obstacles and face political censorship, because the piece resembled the Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam.

Which key project were you unable to pull off?
In addition to Cube, there was an ambitious project by Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba that could not be presented. Jun wanted to create a big performative installation to criticize the commercialization of domestic water by Coca-Cola in Vietnam. There was also a proposal by Gianni Motti and Christoph Büchel for which we did not get permission: they wanted to sink a container in the waters outside the Arsenale to simulate the isolated conditions of the prisoners in Guantánamo.

What was the harshest criticism you faced?
Believe it or not, the harshest criticism came from some Spanish magazine editors and art critics. The provincial envy was one of the worst things we had to face. Other power strategies could be observed in the critical reception of the event. For example some hegemonic critics dropped a line in major art magazines saying the show was not relevant, then spent four pages acclaiming their own national artists—even though those artists, while well established in the market, had very little to say about the present. But this is part of the game.

What did you risk?
I risked losing my patience, especially with the managing director of the Biennale at the time. But María de Corral was very wise in advising me to keep calm, and Robert Storr, who also suffered that manager’s dark intrigues, finally had the pleasure of seeing him resign prior to the opening of his Biennale in 2007.

What did you lose in the process of curating?What did you gain?
I did not have the chance to bring the show even further as I did not have time for deeper and wider artistic research, but I gained many pleasures: having wonderful projects by artists that I deeply believe in; becoming part of the history of an extraordinary international art event; working with a wonderful local administrative team; and, last but not least, learning to walk through the labyrinths of Venice without getting lost.

How do you think your Biennale is remembered? How do you think it impacted the history of the Biennale itself, or changed the format of what a biennial can be?
From the curatorial point of view, I intended to make the syntax of my exhibition clear and legible; I used the longitudinal walk of the Arsenale to play with similarities and oppositions between the works placed on either side. By creating conjunctions and disjunctions, contrasts and connections, I proposed an interpretation of what contemporary creation is all about. Many people understood and appreciated this, together with the political ambition, the humor or the beauty of some of the selected projects. But I was especially surprised by the sexist evaluation made by an important male dealer: he said he had never seen the Arsenale so neat and tidy, so it was obvious that a woman had taken care of it. Apart from that, my contribution to the history of biennials has to be appraised by others, taking into account other projects I’ve done, such as the 5th Istanbul Biennial in 1997, the 3rd SITE Santa Fe Biennial in 1999, the Biennial EVA 2000 in Limerick and several international exhibitions that I co-curated during the decade 2000-10. My desire and my curatorial actions have always been invested in what could be called the expanded field of contemporary art, bringing the exhibition beyond its walls, dissolving esthetic ideologies and interacting with local communities. So, in Venice, the Arsenale was beautiful and charged with meaning but still small.

2005 Prizes:

• Golden Lion for best artist of the international exhibition: Thomas Schütte
• Golden Lion for an artist under 35: Regina José Galindo
• Young Italian Art Prize: Lara Favaretto
• Golden Lion for lifetime achievement: Barbara Kruger
• Golden Lion for best national participation: France, represented by Annette Messager
  
  PHOTO: View of El Anatsui’s Fresh and Fading Memories, 2007, aluminum and cooper wire, 360 by 240 inches; installed on the exterior of the Palazzo Fortuny in the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007. Photo Giovanni Pancino. Courtesy Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

Rosa Martínez is an independent curator and art collections consultant. 

Full article: Art in America

La entrada Art In America, Nueva York, EEUU, Marzo, 2013 se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.

Hace sólo cinco meses que se dio la noticia de que dos españolas serán las comisarias de la exposición internacional en la 51ª edición de la Bienal de Venecia, que se desarrollará del 12 de junio al 6 de noviembre próximos. Ellas empezarán esta semana a presentar su programa en distintas ciudades. María de Corral y Rosa Martínez explicaron a Babelia algunas de las líneas generales de sus respectivos proyectos y las ideas que tienen sobre el mundo del arte hoy.

Cuando la 51ª Bienal de Venecia abra sus puertas el próximo 12 de junio, las dos comisarias de esta edición, las españolas María de Corral y Rosa Martínez, habrán cumplido con un difícil encargo: completar las dos exposiciones internacionales en sólo nueve meses, partiendo de cero en casi todos sus aspectos. Situación menos ventajosa que la del ya designado comisario de la Bienal para 2007, el norteamericano Robert Storr. Un caramelo envenenado del que ambas han saboreado tanto lo dulce como lo amargo. María de Corral (1940) ha titulado su exposición para el Pabellón Italia La experiencia del arte, que busca los puntos comunes en la diversidad de la creación actual. Rosa Martínez (Soria, 1955) presentará en el Arsenal Siempre un poco más lejos, inspirada en uno de los libros de cómic de Corto Maltés, dibujado por el veneciano Hugo Pratt, en la que revisará las líneas más marcadas del arte del tercer milenio.

El presidente de la Bienal de Venecia, el empresario Davide Croff, declaró a la prensa, ya antes de proponer el comisariado a las dos españolas, que pretendía hacer de esta edición “una bienal de biennials”. Algo que no parece haberles transmitido a ellas.

MARÍA DE CORRAL. Lo que nos pidió es que fuera una bienal significativa, “seria”. En la que realmente se hablara de arte y se mostrase arte. Pero sin imponer nada. Al final tú tienes que hacer una bienal, no ideal porque no se puede, sino lo mejor dentro de los instrumentos y las posibilidades que tienes. Sin duda, el poco tiempo que hemos tenido es un factor que ha influido en nuestra selección, queramos o no.

ROSA MARTÍNEZ. Nos lo dijeron el 3 de septiembre y ambas teníamos otros compromisos anteriores.

M. de C. Luego, además, hemos tenido cambios. Se cayó el techo de la sala Galileo Chini, por lo que tuve que cambiar el concepto de la entrada a la exposición. Tienes que adaptarte siempre a las circunstancias.

R. M. La lógica de las biennials, tal como ha evolucionado el fenómeno bienal y la experiencia de las dos ediciones anteriores en Venecia -la de Szeemann y la de Francesco Bonami, que tuvo una media de 300 a 500 artistas-, ha dado la imagen de un gran supermercado donde cabe todo. Nosotras hemos pensado en presentar un número más limitado de artistas, alrededor de un centenar. PREGUNTA. ¿Qué visión le ha guiado en su proyecto?

R. M. María recibió el encargo de poner el acento más en lo clásico, en una mirada retrospectiva, y yo en una visión del futuro. Son campos en los que cada una ha venido trabajando a lo largo de su trayectoria, pero creo que también ha habido por parte de las dos un ejercicio conceptual y curatorial con la voluntad, en su caso, de poner artistas del presente, y en el mío, poner algunas figuras de referencia del pasado. Porque no creo que se pueda trazar una línea muy clara y decir “éstos son emergentes” simplemente porque tengan menos de 35 años. En mi caso el criterio ha sido el de buscar posiciones de artistas que durante los últimos diez años han tenido una continuidad en su trabajo y han sabido renovarse y superar los clichés estilísticos que los identificaban.

M. de C. Lo que he querido hacer yo es una exposición de arte y de artistas. Creo que la variedad y amplitud de propuestas en este momento es infinita. Tantas como artistas. Por tanto siempre tienes que seleccionar.Para mí siguen igual de vivas algunas obras de los años setenta que las de artistas que tienen ahora 28 años. No voy a desarrollar un solo tema, sino varios, que responden a las preocupaciones actuales: el cuerpo, la violencia, el dominio. También figurará el interés por asuntos que se han tratado en el pasado en el cine, en el vídeo o en la performance, y que ahora se abordan de forma diferente. Tendrán un lugar también preocupaciones como las surgidas a partir del 11-S o el 11-M, el tsunami… Los artistas las reflejan en sus obras, aunque no de forma explícita. No me interesan los artistas que se expresan de forma explícita sino los que siempre ofrecen una doble lectura.

P. En la anterior bienal, la de 2003, usted presentó en el pabellón español la obra de Santiago Sierra (el edificio tapiado en el que se exigía el pasaporte español a los visitantes). Fue una pieza impactante y polémica. ¿En su propuesta para esta bienal hay también riesgo?

R. M. Yo siempre intento que haya riesgo, ir más allá de lo que está establecido. La de Santiago Sierra no fue una propuesta romántica, creo que fue muy radical y él podría encajar en esa idea de ir “un poco más lejos” porque yo quise ir un poco más lejos en lo que se había hecho en el pabellón hasta ese momento. Ésa es la filosofía que ha inspirado todas mis exposiciones. El deseo de llevar la lógica del evento un poquito más allá. Por otro lado, procuro siempre trabajar site specific, para un lugar determinado. Cuando me invitaron a Venecia quise buscar en la densidad cultural que tiene la ciudad, en el juego de fricción entre la alta y la baja cultura, me encantó tomar como fuente de inspiración la figura de Corto Maltés, el prototipo del viajero romántico dibujado e inventado por Hugo Pratt, que es veneciano y que personifica el sueño de querer ir siempre más allá.

P. En ese riesgo que asumirá en la exposición, ¿habrá piezas impactantes para el espectador?

R. M. Creo que el poder del arte está precisamente en su polisemia. Que la lectura no sea rápida y fácil, donde el mensaje se capte a la primera, se consuma y se olvide. La lectura del muro sencillo de Sierra tenía mil resonancias: hablaba de las fronteras, de la inmigración, de muchas cosas. Una obra de arte tiene que tener este potencial semántico. Y en la selección que estoy preparando hay algunas propuestas quizá espectaculares, pero otras muy intimistas, muy delicadas, invisibles casi. Para mí es muy importante el deseo de libertad, el deseo de inclusión de la periferia, entre otras, la de las mujeres, que han estado apartadas de los discursos dominantes durante mucho tiempo.

M. de C. Las cosas están cambiando mucho porque, por ejemplo, yo considero que España ha estado siempre en la periferia porque nunca ha estado presente. Ahora, sin embargo, se pone de moda incluir países del Este y se crean otras periferias.

R. M. Hay una imposición del mercado que hace que de pronto esté de moda China. Lo que está haciendo Occidente es consumir al otro. En Babelia salió hace poco (el 5 de febrero) una lista de los 100 artistas más importantes del panorama internacional. Creo que el 60% eran europeos, alemanes, hombres, y había muy poca periferia. El mercado lo tiene muy claro: a los artistas les dejamos que hablen de su otredad, están obligados a documentar su sufrimiento, a expresarlo. Hay una especie de consumo de lo exótico que a muchos artistas les da la oportunidad de entrar en el mainstream. Me parece que es positivo.

P. Ya que menciona esa lista, ¿son esos artistas los que vamos a ver en la bienal?

M. de C. No. Y yo estaba tristísima cuando la vi porque no tengo casi ningún artista de éstos .

R. M. Yo tengo alguno. De todas maneras, una lista de ese tipo es una bofetada. Eso es la realidad. Lo que nosotras estamos haciendo -o cualquier intelectual- es construir un sueño efímero. Construir la ilusión de que otros territorios de libertad y de pensamiento son posibles. Por eso estamos en la bienal y no en una feria de arte.

P. ¿Va a haber más artistas españoles este año en la bienal?

M. de C. Sí, va a haber artistas españoles este año. No podemos dar los nombres todavía, por contrato.

R. M. En la edición anterior hubo sólo un artista español en la sección Utopia Station, donde hacían carteles. Y eso fue lo único. La presencia era cero.

M. de C. En la Documenta, presentar sólo a Pere Portabella como único artista español a estas alturas de la vida es una tomadura de pelo.

P. Se habla de la bienalización en el mundo del arte. ¿Se han convertido en foros multitudinarios para ver el arte actual? ¿Para hacer turismo cultural? ¿Qué papel tienen las ferias y las biennials?

M. de C. Son dos cosas muy diferentes. Cada vez más se intenta que las ferias, además de acontecimientos comerciales, sean un fenómeno cultural. Me interesan las dos desde un punto de vista diferente. Para mí ir a la feria de Basilea es muy interesante porque compro para colecciones. Ahí salen obras que de otra forma no sabes que existen, no ves artistas jóvenes que empiezan a trabajar en galerías que te inspiran confianza por su visión, interesa también ver cómo se mueve el mercado. Y luego las propuestas en Basilea, Art Unlimited, que es como los Project Rooms de Arco sólo que hechos de forma gigantesca. Ahí hay cosas que no verás en una feria ni en un museo.

P. Pero quizá haya muchos puntos en común entre biennials y ferias. ¿Qué sucede cuando las biennials parecen ferias?

R. M. …O cuando las ferias quieren parecer biennials. Yo no compro para colecciones, no he comprado nunca. Mis colecciones son el programa de mis exposiciones. Pero lo que me impresionó de Basilea el año pasado es ver esa sección Art Unlimited, que tenía el espíritu de una bienal. Pero ahí solamente estaba quien podía pagar la cantidad de dinero que ellos exigen para poder tener un stand. Y yo leí el concepto de Art Unlimited, que me hizo mucha gracia, y decía: “Una sección sin limitaciones. Sin limitaciones presupuestarias, de espacio o curatoriales”. El comisario es una limitación, y yo creo que tienen razón. Los curators somos una limitación porque tenemos criterio y porque no somos parte -quizá lejana- del mismo juego. Las ferias son hoy para mí el ejemplo más claro de las estrategias neoliberales. Quien tiene dinero está ahí. Richard Serra estaba en esta última edición con dos piezas grandiosas. Parte del rol que debemos reivindicar en una bienal es que haya una interpretación intelectual, curatorial, fuera del caos en el que nos estamos moviendo. Donde no es sólo el dinero el que marca el paso.

P. ¿Cuál es el papel del comisario ante el fin de las tendencias?

R. M. Creo que un comisario es una figura que se puede comparar a un editor, a la de un psicoanalista también y a la de una persona materna que saca lo mejor de ese artista. A un editor porque tienes la distancia crítica que te permite ver lo mejor de cada creador, e intentas presentar su obra con una coherencia discursiva que permite que los espectadores la entiendan también más claramente. A un psicoanalista porque a mí también me interesa mucho el trabajo procesual y el diálogo con los artistas. No parto de obras completas sino que empiezo con un diálogo con el artista para llegar a una conclusión común sobre lo que será mejor para cierta exposición.

M. de C. Eso también lo he hecho, incluso con los muertos. Con muestras como la de Gorki o Morandi he entrado en contacto con la familia, con la gente que expuso con él, con críticos. Siempre tienes una idea de lo que quieres hacer, pero para dar una visión que aporte algo y que esté de acuerdo con el tiempo en el que vives. Todo el arte clásico hay que mostrarlo con una visión de nuestro tiempo. De otra manera, la gente no lo va a entender igual. Por eso creo que los museos clásicos tienen que cambiar sus colecciones de acuerdo con la visión que pueden tener los artistas jóvenes del pasado.

P. Lo que sí hay es un cierto retorno a la pintura, así como un auge de los medios tecnológicos.

M. de C. Voy a tener de todo.

R. M. Para mí la fotografía y el vídeo son la continuación lógica y tecnológica de la pintura. En el siglo XV, cuando se empezó a hacer pintura al óleo, era un medio propio de la época. ¿Que hoy los artistas no pueden pintar? Sí, sí pueden. Se siguen sobreponiendo unos a otros. Pero la tecnología ha cambiado. La revolución industrial y la tecnológica han aportado nuevos soportes y nuevos medios y, por tanto, los artistas tienen que utilizarlos también.

M. de C. También pienso que hay una complejidad en nuestro mundo que probablemente hace cien años no existía. Seguramente lo que puedes expresar con una pintura clásica es casi un referente a la propia pintura, mientras el vídeo o la instalación son medios que están más de acuerdo con la complejidad y con la expresión actual de todo el mundo. No puedes estar todo el día con el ordenador, la televisión, el cine y la información que nos llega, y enfrentarte a un lienzo en un caballete como hace siglos. Además visualmente hay muchísimo vídeo que de lo que habla realmente es de pintura.

P. ¿El visitante va a tener que pasar muchas horas viendo vídeos en esta bienal?

R. M. En la bienal de Kuang Yu, en Corea, calcularon que el tiempo medio que un espectador estaba delante de una obra era de un minuto y medio. Y que no resistían más. El vídeo lo puedes pasar muy deprisa, al igual que una pintura, o te puedes quedar extasiada viéndola y pensándola. Vídeo habrá en la bienal…

P. En un mundo globalizado ¿se va a mantener la estructura de los viejos pabellones nacionales en la bienal?

M. de C. Supongo que sí. A mí no me parece mal. Cada país tiene su pabellón y la posibilidad de hacer una exposición. Me parece enriquecedor. Si verdaderamente el comisario del pabellón es válido, lo que tienes es una visión más amplia. Se añaden posibilidades, no se quitan.

R. M. La Bienal de Venecia es el paradigma de la convivencia de modelos de entender la nacionalidad hoy. Está el modelo de los pabellones nacionales que todavía conserva la ilusión de la soberanía, de la autonomía, y además están todos puestos en el contexto arcádico de los jardines donde parece que todos pueden convivir sin guerras. Es una construcción que responde a un cierto modelo ideológico de cómo se entendían las nacionalidades a finales del siglo XIX. La exposición internacional intenta jugar con otro ejercicio, que es el de la convivencia entre artistas de diferentes contextos geopolíticos, de distintos contextos culturales. O sea, que coexisten los dos modelos en esta bienal. Hay otras biennials posteriores, nacidas después de los años setenta, en las que los pabellones nacionales ya no existen.

Dos carreras internacionales

LAS TRAYECTORIAS profesionales de María de Corral y Rosa Martínez tienen algunas divergencias, pero también puntos en común. De Corral fue directora de exposiciones de la Fundación “la Caixa” de 1981 a 1991, donde inició la importante colección de arte contemporáneo que la institución ahora posee. En 1983 comisarió la muestra del pabellón español en la Bienal de Venecia. De 1991 a 1994 dirigió el Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, en Madrid. En 2002 dirigió el proyecto para el nuevo museo de arte contemporáneo en Santander.

Rosa Martínez empezó a coordinar actividades culturales en la Fundación “la Caixa”, para asumir de 1988 a 1992 la dirección artística de la Bienal de Barcelona. Fue co-comisaria de la Manifesta 1, en 1996; al año siguiente dirigió la Bienal de Estambul, y en 1999 la SITE de Santa Fe (Estados Unidos). De 1998 a 2002 dirigió los Project Rooms de la Feria Arco, en Madrid. En 2003 fue comisaria del pabellón español en la Bienal de Venecia, donde presentó a Santiago Sierra. Este año formó parte del equipo curatorial de la 1ª Bienal de Moscú.

Nota completa: ElPais

La entrada EL PAÍS, Madrid, 5 de marzo, 2005, Babelia se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.

Aug. 2, 2005, Venice Biennale co-curator Rosa Martínez on art and politics.

Talking a Little Further, by Augustine Zenakos

The moment one enters the exhibition “Always a Little Further” in the grand Arsenale spaces at the 51st Venice Biennale, June 12-Nov. 6, 2005, one hears disembodied voices listing the costs of past exhibitions, the salary of each successive artistic director, even the price of a single glass of wine during each year of the biennale’s 110-year history. It is a sound piece by Santiago Sierra, one of many politicized works chosen for the show by curator Rosa Martínez, who has become famous for her uncompromising feminism and for mixing art and politics. But, one wonders, can such choices be effective in the context of the world’s most visible showcase for contemporary art?Martínez sat down for a wide-ranging interview during the biennale vernissage.

Augustine Zenakos: You have a reputation for independence, as well as for taking rather risky political moves, such as inviting Greenpeace to participate in the 3rd Santa Fe Biennial, or serving as curator of the Spanish pavilion for the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, for which Santiago Sierra bricked up the pavilion entryway. How do you feel now about representing one of the strongest institutions in contemporary art?

Rosa Martínez: I am not identifying with the institution. I think it is a temporary marriage between the institution and me. One of the things we have to defend as curators is our intellectual independence. I have tried to defend it, as much as I have been able to, in this case. Even though the Italian Minister of Culture, Rocco Buttiglione, was not very happy, I am quite pleased with what I have done with the show. I have tried to bring my esthetic and intellectual statements as far as possible, even if I could not reach as far as I wanted. This is, though, the normal way to proceed, because here in Italy the administration is so complicated and everything moves so slowly. So, I think there is a clear distance between the institution and myself.

AZ: But, how do you negotiate, within your own thinking, a certain paradox that presents itself… For example, Santiago Sierra’s sound piece in “Always a Little Further” is very much about the material conditions underlying the esthetic escapade that is the Venice Biennale — a critique directed at the biennale itself. How can this critique ever be effective? How can it ever be anything more than decoration?

RM: I think that, even if we are just talking on a micro-level, it is effective. If I didn’t believe that, then I would probably do only decorative shows. But if I select pieces like those of Santiago Sierra, or of the Guerrilla Girls, or of Regina José Galindo, or of Gianni Motti and Christoph Büchel, it is because I believe that even in the context of the market and our neoliberal world, there is a space for critique. So, I don’t think it is a field totally closed, where artists are just decorators. Maybe they also decorate, but at the same time they can actively affect people’s consciousness.

AZ: So, you think that art can inspire personal change?

RM: Yes.

AZ: Because I think we have probably abandoned the prospect of social change…

RM: Yes, in general it is quite abandoned. But I still think there is some hope in the work of several anti-globalization movements and certain activists like the Guerrilla Girls. I still think there is a little bit of hope…

AZ: Davide Croff, the president of the Foundation La Biennale di Venezia, said in an interview in the Financial Times that he wanted to increase the amount of private funds in the biennale’s €30 million budget from 35 percent to 45 percent, and also that he intended to try to export the biennale to other countries, primarily to China. I know Croff has a background in banking, and his plan for the biennale sounds a little like he’s talking about a state-owned telecom business or a supermarket chain. He even had an advertising slogan: “There are people who cannot come to Venice, so we will take Venice to them.” Now, when one walks into your exhibition, one is confronted by all those political statements — feminist social criticism, like the Guerrilla Girls’ posters, or the big chandelier made with tampons by Joana Vasconcelos. Does political art fit into a program of cultural export? In the last analysis, is everything a product?

RM: How does the Guggenheim Museum act? I mean, how are museums acting today? We are living in a moment where cultural industries have provided a very important economic strategy for the development of cities. We see it in Bilbao, we see it in Venice. We cannot avoid and we cannot hide that even we, as intellectuals, are a part of that game. In the analysis that Santiago Sierra makes of the biennale, in his sound-piece, among other things he counts which countries have a national pavilion in the Giardinni della Biennale, and which are outside. The countries in the Giardinni are the hegemonic countries. We are living in a world where it is very difficult to escape these neoliberal capitalist strategies. The biennales and the museums are a part of that.

AZ: Then, I suppose, the question is whether, since “they” use “you” or “us” for the production of some sort of value (because it is not strictly a case of promoting or selling works of art, but also of selling hotel rooms, paninis, espressos, water-taxi rides, etc.), are “you” or “we” also in a position to use “them” for our own ends?

RM: It is a David and Goliath fight. We are part of the game, but even if we are instrumentalized, we have to defend our territory of intellectual freedom and the possibility of acting critically, and we cannot allow the politicians or the sponsors to intervene or to create obstacles for us. I can maybe give you a little example: Illy Café, a sponsor of this show, proposed to have coffee machines and chairs throughout the exhibition. I rejected the proposal, of course, because from my point of view it was perverting the whole Arsenale into the performative space of a sponsor. I said that this was not acceptable for the artists, this was not acceptable for me, and we wouldn’t do it.

Then, my budget was cut — and the Illy Café coffee kiosks were back in. So, I had to suffer a lot, and I had to find myself some other support for the artists, but in that way I think I protected the minimum of dignity that an exhibition has to have. I can also tell you that when I went to the Basel Art Fair last year, in the Art Unlimited section, which looks very much like a biennale, I read the official statement there, and they were saying something like “Art Unlimited: An exhibition with no limits. No budget limits. No space limits. No curatorial limits.” This means that today, curators are no longer the people who open up the frontiers. We are the people that must create frontiers for the voracity of the market and the sponsors.

AZ: How do you think this situation is affecting artistic production? I feel that the prevalent idea is still that artists do what they do, as always, and the market, or the curators, they all come into the picture afterwards, after the artists have done what they do. Maybe, though, this situation affects what they do. Maybe some, like Santiago Sierra, react consciously to it, but it seems to me that most of them submit to how things are and they try to work with this situation.

RM: I think we all have to submit to a certain degree to the economic and social conditions of our time. The artists need the market to keep on living, to keep on selling. One problem occurs when the market, the galleries, the commercial institutions, the private collectors and even the museums work to oblige the artist to produce a certain kind of product. You know, if an artist becomes famous for doing something, then everybody wants this kind of product. Everybody wants a successful product. The market, however, has a positive side. I don’t remember which anthropologist it was who was saying that commerce is very positive, that it helps societies to develop. We cannot see things in black and white, the market is good or the market is bad. Everything is interactive.

AZ: Yes, I suppose commercialism in that sense comes a bit into what I am saying, but I am referring more to the ways the market has found to move previously “unmovable” products. For example, one orthodox analysis that one may encounter quite often is that an artistic production with projects in situ, or ongoing engagements with local societies, or quasi-activist performances in public spaces, is somehow anti-commercial. Nevertheless, it produces value. Even if we get to the point where there is no actual object at all, then we are still left with the persona of the artist. It seems that we are faced with a system of distribution that can move absolutely anything, and there is nothing an artist can do to subvert that, is there?

RM: I think it is very difficult to subvert anything. You can resist a little bit. Or you can try to subvert in other ways, I mean, I remember the work of an artist who was creating markets of interchange, where elementary interchange does not happen with money, but someone brings an object, and they take something else. So, there are certain ways to react — but the system is very strong.

AZ: In a book about Conceptual Art in the U.S. in the 1960s, I came across a statement by an executive of a company who was saying that just as businesses are looking for constant innovation in products and services, so contemporary artists are doing the same in art. The point is, more or less, that contemporary art provides a symbolic equivalent for a capitalist market. Would you say that is the case?

RM: I think there is a difference. Creating new thoughts, creating new ways of understanding reality is a way of going further. That is, of course, what I am interested in, and not simply to create novelty, or to create something new for this voracious market. Creating new ways of thinking is a way that can enable us to analyze and to criticize this society and these strategies, which oblige us all to follow a flux of production. There is a difference between intellectual innovation and consumerist innovation. So to the question if we can escape this logic of constant innovation that the neoliberal capitalist market upholds — I say again that we can resist. Most of the artists in my exhibition are not new or emerging, I have been working with them for the past ten years, I have followed their paths, and I think that they are innovative in a very honest and serious way. I do not see them as trying to satisfy the demands of the market, in fact some of them sell very badly. Giving shape to one’s thoughts is perhaps a value that the market doesn’t recognize, but maybe the context of a biennale still has a way to present this aspect of things.

AZ: In the last Venice Biennale, though, there was quite a break on your part with a lot of things that the biennale stands for. I mean, when Santiago Sierra bricks up the doorway to the Spanish pavilion and prohibits entry to all who do not hold a Spanish passport, there is a clear attempt to subvert what national representation — an important aspect of the Biennale’s identity — is all about. It was you who curated this show. And I seem to remember that the artistic director at the time, Francesco Bonami, was not pleased at all, in fact he was giving interviews saying that he hated everything about Santiago Sierra. Having done what you did in 2003, weren’t you at all nervous taking up the whole show in the Arsenale this year?

RM: No, why? I was more nervous about doing the Spanish pavilion than I was about doing the Arsenale. For the last 20 years I have been working in the field of international biennales, and I have been defending through my exhibitions a concept of internationality. Then, suddenly, I was confronted with my own nationality. But, in 2003, together with Sierra, we analyzed the idea of nationality, the model of sovereignty from the 19th century. When you come to the Venice Biennale, you have the illusion that all the countries live together, but still the hegemony of the United States or Great Britain is very much a reality. We thought that we could break the illusion by reinforcing the autonomy of one pavilion and saying: you cannot enter here. So, that made me feel nervous. When it was proposed to me to co-direct the whole Biennale with Maria de Corral, I was just sad that there was not enough time to develop a stronger project. I am happy with what I have done, but I think with more time I would have been able to accept all the invitations to travel to many other countries, to research the production in certain areas of the planet that I do not know. I couldn’t do that. I had to work with the background that I have from other biennales.

AZ: This illusion you mentioned — that all countries live together — is not something you tried to maintain in this biennale. Nevertheless, you did not make any moves as radical as that of the Spanish pavilion, did you?

RM: No, because I did not have the time to do it, and I did not have appropriate conditions. When I was the curator for the Spanish pavilion, the politicians in my country gave me total freedom. Here, I had very little time, and I also had the difficulty of working with a machine that is very bureaucratic, very slow, which eats up all your intellectual energy. When you want to get permission for something, you have to spend four months fighting every day. I thought that since the Venice Biennale has been going on for over 100 years, the machine would be well-oiled. But in many respects, it was as if the biennale was starting from zero. In a way, it is easier to do the Istanbul Biennale, because there is more anxiety, more passion.

AZ: Apart from the bureaucracy, did you have real political trouble?

RM: A little. But I think this is normal in all exhibitions. I am an ambitious curator, and I try to do difficult projects. There were at least two projects that were not realized, and at least for one of them, a project by Gregor Schneider [a five-story-tall black cube, modeled on the Ka’ba in Mecca, to be installed in the Paazzo San Marco], I was never told why. I was not allowed to talk to the responsible parties either in the city government or in the culture ministry. Had I been allowed to talk to them, I think I might have convinced them. But I was told by the biennale that the culture ministry would not allow it, and that was that. The artist and I felt a bit excluded from the negotiations. Biennial president Davide Croff told me to trust the biennale, and I said, ‘I will trust the Biennale, when I can see what the reasons are.’ I was not able to see.

AZ: Italy has quite a conservative government, one that is often criticized around the world. At the same time, the Venice Biennale is a valuable asset for Italy, a sort of cultural banner. Do you think Italian politicians were a bit unnerved that your exhibition is so politicized?

RM: Rocco Buttiglione, the culture minister, made reference to creating a scandal or a provocation, all of which shows that he is not very happy. But we are not trying to provoke anybody. The scandal and the provocation happen in reality, not in the artworks. Art is a mirror. I am not trying to create a scandal; I am just trying to show how artists think today. The scandal is outside, in the world.

AUGUSTINE ZENAKOS is an art critic who lives in Athens.

La entrada ARTNET, Nueva York, EEUU, 2 de Agosto, 2005 se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.

Curator: Rosa Martinez
Venue: Istanbul Modern
Dates: September 18th, 2005, January 8th, 2006

Istanbul Modern
Meclis-i Mebusan Cad. Liman Sahasi
Antrepo No:4 Karakoy – Istanbul
Tel: +90 212 334 73 00
Fax: +90 212 243 43 19
info@istanbulmodern.org
http://www.istanbulmodern.org
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00 to 18:00; Thursdays: 10:00 to 20:00
Closed on Mondays

For further information please contact:
Handan Senkoken, Press Office
Tel: + 90 212 243 65 61
Fax: +90 212 243 43 19
handan.senkoken@istanbulmodern.org

The notion of “Centre of Gravity” applied to the world of art refers to the continuous play between equilibrium and uncertainty to create new and meaningful conceptual and aesthetic worlds. The multiplicity of trends in contemporary art and the emergence of new geographical centres of cultural significance have introduced relevant transformations in pictorial and sculptural languages and have also facilitated the balance between centre and periphery, creating new centres of gravity outside the classical hegemonic ones.

Interrelating many levels of meaning and multiple aesthetic perspectives, the exhibition entitled Centre of Gravity marks certain significant moments in the aesthetic production of the past few decades, presenting artists of international renown such as Haluk Akakçe, Pilar Albarracín, Ghada Amer, Janine Antoni, Christian Boltanski, Monica Bonvicini, Louise Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor, Gülsün Karamustafa, Rem Koolhaas, Jeff Koons, Juan Muñoz, Kemal Önsoy, Santiago Sierra, Richard Wentworth and Maaria Wirkkala.. The exhibition is held coinciding with the celebration of the 9th International Istanbul Biennial and other cultural events that complement one another, turning the city into a genuine international centre of gravity. While the Biennial diligently pursues its consolidation as a reference for new artistic developments, Istanbul Modern, which opened on 11 December 2004, is taking its first steps with the aim of institutionalising the memory of modern art produced in Turkey and of bringing to Istanbul outstanding works by established artists who have revealed some of the aesthetical, social and political concerns of our convulsed world. The title of this first international exhibition also plays with the idea of Istanbul Modern as a new gravitational centre in relation to its geopolitical area and to the global context of new international museums. The artists are presenting works subtly united by an invisible common thread: that of reflection on equilibrium, either in the physical, the psychological, the cultural or the political sphere.

All the works displayed are propounded as centres for condensing meaning in order to transform the exhibition into a place for symbolic exchange between artists and the community. Helping to form critical and sensitive citizens and to promote new aesthetic and political dialogues are undoubtedly fundamental tasks for museums. Aesthetic experience implies a breach in the automatic reading of signs, for it reflects and subverts representational space proposing new gazes, new reflections. Paul Valéry wrote that poetic creation is the creation of expectation, and political hope for social change can also be included in this will. Today, it is necessary to encourage new relations based on desire, to establish transferences with people, objects or symbolic systems to favour the creation of that ‘transferential plasticity’ that will help us recover and heal the world in which we live. Expectation, pleasure and reflection are what we hope this exhibition, within its bounds, will help to generate.

On the occassion of the exhibition a full colour catalogue has been produced. In addition to the essay by the curator, texts by Homi Bhabha, Louise Bourgeois, Christian Boltanski, Rem Koolhaas, Jan-Erik Lundström and other significant writers will be included together with an interview to the Nobel Physiscs prize Ilya Prigogine realized by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Exhibition Sponsor: Türk Ekonomi Bankasi

ISTANBUL MODERN
Founder: Eczacibasi
Main Sponsors: Avea – Hedef Alliance

La entrada Centre of Gravity, Istanbul Modern. Estambul 2005 se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.

GIRL POWER
Romping on the Rialto

Venice Biennale. Jun 2nd 2005 | Venice | http://www.economist.com

ROSA MARTINEZ and María de Corral, the directors of this year’s Venice Biennale which opens on June 12th, are like stars from a Pedro Almodóvar film. Clever, stylish, funny and well-connected, the duo is juggling to complete the job at hand in record time, on a reduced budget and amidst a Byzantine bureaucracy. If they are not yet on the verge, it is only because this is business as usual at the Biennale.
After the 2003 event—dubbed death in Venice because of the crippling heat and chaotic artists’ installations—the 110-year-old art funfair has decided to restructure. Its new president, Davide Croff, a former banker, is trying to rationalise the event both financially (by encouraging private finance to supplement a dwindling public subsidy) and curatorially by creating a three-year plan in which the two Spanish women will be followed by a New Yorker, Robert Storr, in 2007.

Ms de Corral, a former director of the Reina Sofía museum and of the Fundación La Caixa collection in Barcelona, Spain’s most important contemporary art collection, likes to take the long view. Her exhibition in the labyrinthine Italian pavilion will present a series of “constellations” of contemporary artists, rather than a single dominant view of how art is now. “I am interested in highlighting the relation between artists of different generations, in ideas that emerge like fragments and sketches.” On entering, viewers will see a massive cast staircase by Rachel Whiteread, a British sculptor, and then a series of galleries showing emerging artists such as Jorge Macchi, an Argentine, mixed with works by Francis Bacon, Philip Guston and Antoni Tapies.

Ms Martínez, on the other hand, is the baroness of biennali, having made her name as a peripatetic curator of international contemporary art expos in her native Barcelona, Istanbul, Busan (South Korea) and, most recently, Moscow. A biennial exhibition has an obligation to test the present, to challenge it, she says. “It provides a temporary global agora, a place for encounters between people…a chance to create new kinds of neighbourhoods between artists and audiences.”
Ms Martínez’s domain is the Arsenale, the monumental Renaissance armoury that once supplied the Venetian navy and is now open only for the Biennale. Traditionally this is the space for the most avant-garde art, and Ms Martínez is like an inmate who has taken over the asylum. She believes in art’s power to transform the status quo. “It can subvert established systems, rather than reinforce them.”
Since the two were appointed last August, much has been made of the fact that they are the first women to have done the job and they have chosen a record number of female artists—more than a third of the 92 names whose work is appearing in their respective exhibitions. But the curators differ on whether this Biennale is a feminist event. Ms de Corral says it is not. “I do not have a deliberate agenda to include more women.” But she has devoted space to Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer. Although they are best known for the radical feminist works they made in the 1970s, Ms de Corral has chosen to emphasise their prophetic qualities by selecting some of their word-based works that criticise the abuse of power in the media. “In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist artists used their bodies to express ideas, but these two were the first to use their minds. Their work has been incredibly influential.”

Ms Martínez believes this Biennale is none other than a feminist statement. She has invited the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist artist’s collective, to perform, and is trying to include as many female artists as possible. “I believe in positive discrimination”, she says. “I wanted half of the artists to be female. But I couldn’t find enough because women artists have children, relationships, break-ups that slow down their careers. These things happen to male artists too but somehow their careers continue. Women cannot afford to relax.”

Ms Martínez titled her show “Always a Little Further”, inspired by her favourite Corto Maltese comic strip, in which the hero is always pushing the envelope and making one more journey. She has no qualms about injecting the pop culture of comics into an exhibition that also includes a Samuel Beckett play, Rem Koolhaas’s architecture and installations by esteemed contemporary artists like the nonagenarian Louise Bourgeois. “I like to mix art forms, generations, media, genders,” Ms Martínez says. Among the more radical works here is Joana Vasconcelos’s chandelier made of tampons, which, from a distance, look like shiny white glass. “It is pop and ironic, beautiful and rich in metaphor—and it uses industrial materials in new ways,” she says with a grin.

According to Ms Martínez, curators are more necessary than ever. Art and commerce have always been interdependent. But, she sees herself as a mediator who strikes a balance between the economic necessities of the market and the utopian dreams of artists. “Like a therapist or an editor, a curator is someone who finds meaning in the chaos of messages that surround us. My motto comes from the philosopher Gilles Deleuze—we have to think, create, resist.” His words are a good banner for the Venice Biennale.

La entrada The Economist, Londres, Reino Unido, Junio, 2005 se publicó primero en Rosa Martínez - Independent Art Curator.