Venice Biennale - 5 to avoid

Venice Biennale - 5 to avoid

09 June, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

There's a lot of mediocre art at the 54th Venice Biennale. Tom Jeffreys visited the very worst, so you don't have to...

1. Karla Black (Scotland)
Palazzo Pisani, Calle de le Erbe 6103
For many critics, the installation work by Turner Prize-shortlisted artist and all-round hot young thing, Karla Black, was one of the highlights of the Biennale. Not for me. Her big pile of dirt was on show at the Hayward’s British Art Show 7 back in February and it’s a disappointment to see it pop up here again. Other works include pieces made from soil, sawdust, paper, cellophane and various beauty products. “Demanding, disruptive work” according to the spiel; crude, ugly, dull and instantly forgettable I’d say.
 
2. Anish Kapoor
Basilica di San Giorgio, San Giorgio Maggiore Island
What a let-down. And he used to be so reliably brilliant. Anish Kapoor’s Ascension is one of the worst things on show in the entire Biennale. It consists of a column of vapour rising and twirling from the ground to the ceiling of the Basilica di San Giorgio. But in daylight (when it’s open) you can barely see it, and the apparatus surrounding the work is downright ugly. Poorly conceived, shoddily executed, vapid and hubristic – certainly not worth the extra boat trip.
 
3. Personal Structures
Palazzo Bembo, San Marco 4785
Lots of big name artists here, but nothing much to write home about. Lawrence Weiner, Hermann Nitsch, Francois Morellet, Carl Andre and Marina Abramovic are among a group of artists presenting recent work that suggests their best days are well behind them. It mostly just feels gimmicky and outdated – there are some intriguing little painting/collage/sculpture pieces by Melissa Kretschmer, but that’s about it.
 
4. Penelope’s Labour
San Giorgio Maggiore
A few years ago it seems, contemporary artists got the idea that tapestry was cool again, and since then they’ve been tripping over each other to produce at least something in the medium. Grayson Perry’s Walthamstow Tapestry is the most successful example, but Londoners will probably have tired of it, having seen it at Victoria Miro, Frieze and London Art Fair since 2009. What Perry does is actually engage with the medium – unlike, say, Craigie Horsfield or the execrable Marc Quinn, all on show here. There’s also an average example of a 16th century Persian carpet, and a tapestry from 1480, in terrible condition. Disappointing.
 
5. Palazzo Grassi
Campo S. Samuele
Not strictly speaking part of the Biennale, the Palazzo Grassi is a contemporary art museum, set up by François Pinault, the head of luxury goods retail company PPR. The building is rather grand, but Londoners will have seen most of the works on show at previous Saatchi Gallery shows. The art here has the same lack of depth as the worst of Saatchi, but at least there it feels light and fun. The worst part about Palazzo Grassi is the joyless way in which visitors are herded through the various galleries, as if we’re some kind of inconvenience.
 
Other disappointments:
 
ILLUMInations
Arsenale and Giardini
Supposedly the centrepiece of the whole Biennale, ILLUMInations is curated by Brice Curiger and features work by no less than 83 contemporary artists, across both the Arsenale and Giardini. It’s certainly ambitious, but also sprawling, aimless, dreary and full of some really bad works. Possibly the nadir is Urs Fischer’s candle sculptures. Fishcer is normally quite interesting, and the critics are raving about these, but they’re awful – one-dimensional, glib and utterly facile.
 
In fact, there are so many disappointments, that it'd take too long to list them all. Instead, why not check out the things that were actually good?

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Tom Jeffreys