ARTS
Exhibitions
The 43rd Venice Biennale 1988 (Giardini di Castello and Corderie dell' Arsenale, Venice, till 25 September)
Have linen jacket, will travel
Giles Auty
From the terrace of the British pavilion placed, very reasonably, at the highest point of the gardens, one looks down, glass in hand, at those milling outside the adjacent French and German pavilions. There is a faint, chauvinistic satisfaction to be derived from this, as also from the pile of uncollected rubbish in front of the German command post. But could the aforesaid detritus be part of some modern art 'installation'? We are at the Venice Biennale so cannot be too sure. I reflect that either way the rubbish would not have been there in the time of at least one German ruler of the not-so-distant past. Such musing is unworthy, perhaps, in the light of the international camaraderie sup- posedly engendered by these regular artis- tic washdays of haut bourgeois guilt. The more aggressive and successful the trading nation, the more passionate its commit- ment to arcane artistic avant-gardism. I set out to discover in the ensuing days exactly what satisfaction some of the visiting inter- national rich — Eliot's Burbank with a Baedeker, Bleistein with a cigar — derive from the more extreme exhibits on view in the national pavilions. It is some kind of frisson akin, so far as I can gather, to sharing a jacuzzi with a close friend's wife or husband.
It is jolly hot the moment one moves out of the shade of the trees of the giardini which house the national pavilions. The cream or off-white linen jacket is much in evidence and there are rather more bearded men than one would expect to find at a Spectator party. A few women seem to have confused the week with Ascot but overall the sartorial theme is studiedly casual but intense. The artistic theme Which, by contrast, was announced openly for this the 43rd Venice Biennale is 'Actuality and Quality'. How many of the representatives of the nations present have followed the theme is hard to gauge since no one I met had any idea of its meaning. At dinner one night a party of disting- uished academics debated the matter and concluded, at length, that the exhibits might have looked little different if, as one of them suggested, 'Mendacity and Mas- turbation' had been the theme favoured.
I mentioned this post-dinner indelicacy merely to illustrate how it seems to have become the custom, even among the avant- garde's own intelligentsia, to decry the contemporary art on view at recent Bien- nales and to seek gratification, while in Venice, largely from the more durable arts of its churches, museums and restaurants. At the last, could we have become cynical about modern art in all its myriad man- ifestations? A thoughtful friend suggested 'Ventriloquist', 1983, by the American Jasper Johns, winner of this year's Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale it is the infrastructure of promotion and finance supporting the whole edifice which is now the art form. This notion comple- ments my own view that our reception of the new is coloured too much by the rhetoric of radicalism which surrounds it. Without this essential supporting prop we might be tempted to see what we look at merely as art. Even the dimmest can foresee the dangerous consequences of such an attitude.
This may be one of the reasons why modern art confines itself, in the main, to its own citadels: the collections, galleries and museums which throng the Western world. Indeed, outside the designer walls of these, and the context of its own assumptions, avant-garde art may appear remarkable largely for its insouciance. In the immortal galleries of the Accademia, which houses the greatest collection of Venetian masterpieces, somebody has seen fit to mount a particularly lightweight contemporary exhibition on temporary screens. One presumes the dangers in- volved were unpremeditated since the con- trast provided by the arts of different ages was not only staggering in its degree but dazzlingly exemplary in its message. As in the presence of a stern but benign head- master, the folly and puerility of some of our recent deeds and conceits need no pointing out. Nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus . . . but retournons a nos modernes.
The Venice Biennale began in 1895 but switched to even years in 1910. Apart from gaps caused by two world wars its continui- ty has been unbroken. The number of countries participating has trebled since the inception — 15 to 45 — and there is now a lengthy waiting list. Long-term members have designed, built and own their cultural headquarters, some in architectural styles which have lived on to embarrass them. No rival artistic events share the essential gravitas and prestige of the Venetian, nor the unique attractiveness of the venue. Each nation, through art, presents an imagined idea of itself. In a sense, informal modernism has been the official art form Of developed 'Western countries for a long time now and one suspects less developed or more repressive states may try to imply, by artistic imita- tion, that they, too, are members of the developed and liberal club. Such factors, I am sure, affect the choice of representing artists.
Britain is represented by Tony Cragg whose sculpture is modern, eclectic and internationally known, three primary pre- requisites. Aided by an habitual sobriety of colour, sculpture seems a safer bet than painting, somehow, and gives an almost inevitable appearance of monumentality. As ever, British Council organisation and preparedness were impeccable, suggesting scoutish antecedents in at least some of its officers. Other sculpture to admire in- cluded the Japanese and Israeli. Katsura Funakoshi's ice-cool wooden torsos had timeless dignity while Zadok Ben-David embodied humour and humanity in power- ful works such as 'Where it all Began'. The Japanese pavilion as a whole was a delight and provided an unforgettable lesson in elegance for would-be Western imitators. The acclaimed sculpture of Susana Solano of Spain tries to impress by size and implacable grimness, having few other qualities. I liked at least some of the mixed bag of paintings by artists shown by the German Democratic Republic, while Rus- sia showed that a dead artist, Aristarch Lentulov (1882-1943), can look more alive than most of the living on view. I admired the paintings of Jacobo Borges of Vene- zuela and Janez Bernik of Yugoslavia and would have awarded prizes to either ahead of the American Jasper Johns who was, nevertheless, the foreseeable choice of the appointed judges. Brazil exhibited strange, tented structures and the noisome dungs of assorted beasts.
Scores of the younger, lesser-known hopefuls exhibiting at the Corderie dell' Arsenale in Aperto 1988 at least tried to catch the eye, rather than the nose, by similarly unorthodox means. How many can derive any pleasure from what they are doing with their lives seems doubtful and most believe they are here on earth to instruct us in the iniquities of their chosen targets: men, South Africa, art critics etc. Most probably look on the crucifixions and martyrdoms of saints in the Accademia as irrelevant costume dramas from a forgot- ten age. In life, as in art, we think we know it all now.
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