One of the most surprisingly good pavilions this year was the Australian. I dont know why I say 'surprising' really, I guess it's because I almost missed it, since it was tucked away and wasn't anything impressive. It also had a car (above) parked outside and a motorcycle (below) halfway into the structure.
The work was that of Shaun Gladwell. He presented a group of videos, photos and sculptures influenced by the Australian outback and the Mad Max movies. His work deals with a 'sort of journey or passage, an exploration of the sublime; action portrayed in slow motion, the human figure seen as a moving sculpture, and the strive for balance' both literally and metaphorically.
In this series titled " MADDESTMAXIMVS", Gladwell presents a slow moving high definition video of the Mad Max-like character standing on top of a souped-up car, car surfing if you will, as it flies at high-speeds down a never-ending dirt road without a driver. The character then stretches his arms wide resembling Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man". (Very appropriate -since the actual da Vinci drawing is housed in Venice). The character slowly climbs back into the car through the window. This piece seemed to be integrated into the biennale quite well- the paradox being that there are no streets in Venice.
If you remember, the apocalyptic character of the Mad Max movies, played by young Mel Gibson, was taking on revenge after the death of his family by a road gang. Mad Max goes on a raging chase to find and kill the responsible parties. In this video above- "Apology to Roadkill" by Gladwell, a character wearing his full on black motorcycle leather get-up, pulls his bike over and cradles a dead kangaroo desperately, on the side of an Australian highway. Both visually stunning and heartbreaking, he paces back and forth with this large kangaroo's limbs dangling from his arms. Doing a bit of research led me to something I was expecting- that Kangaroos are hit in Australian roadways at an increasing rate due to highway construction in major kangaroo habitats. The work was very simplistic, a mix of humor and turmoil, but quite enjoyable nonetheless.
A second pavilion worth mentioning as a good surprise was the Japanese pavilion- the artist was Miwa Yagani. The exhibition included 5 oversized picture frames containing these black and white photographs of half naked giant characters set against devastated landscapes in the background. If you were to peek around behind these, you would have found smaller portraits of women on the wall (one which was sweeping sand from the floor.)
The lighting was not that good inside here, so the images came out a little blurry.
The exhibition also included a video housed in a black tent, low to the ground. In the video: five set of feet under a black tent, moving across the desert. To parallel the work inside, the Japanese pavilion itself was also covered under a giant black tent. When entering Yagani's monumental installation "Windswept Women: The Old Girls' Troupe", your personal sense of scale turned to miniature ( 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids' feeling). The fact that the artist played around with the concept of the word "pavilion", was the best thing for me in the exhibition. The fact that the word was originally intended to be that of a temporary structure, yet in the context of the biennale- these structures have been up for 50+ years. Addressing this concept, the video inside shows a tent running around a desert in constant motion. The viewer is required to crouch down as if to enter the tent; entering a child's paradigm- reinforcing the shift of scale and perspective.
Thanks for sending me your emails, I will send the Aleksandra Mir postcards today. I still have a few- so make sure to get yours.
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