Russo-Ukrainian War at Venice Biennale Breaks the Dream

VENICE – “What happened to freedom of expression in Italy?” On Wednesday morning, one of the 50 or so spectators shouted at the Venice Biennale as a security guard stood in front of a lone anti-war protester and tried to block his message.

Berlin-based Russian artist Vadim Zakharov has just unfurled a banner in front of the shuttered national pavilion where he represents his country at the 2013 Biennale. Two artists and curators preparing to present their work for Russia in this year’s edition Withdrew in February after Russia invaded Ukraine. The pavilion has since been closed.

A member of the radical Moscow Conceptualist art movement in the late 1970s, Zakharov, standing still and silent, held a handwritten message that partially read: “I protest Russia’s propaganda and the Russian occupation.”

The Italian guard, a member of the biennial’s own security services, immediately called for support. The banner was confiscated, but after polite discussions, the protester was allowed to interview journalists for about 20 minutes and then left.

“I’m not in Red Square,” said Zakharov, smiling as he walked through the Biennial’s garden area, among the lucky ones to have tickets for perhaps the four-day preview of the world’s most prestigious and elegant art event. The fashionable sneaky crowd perhaps wasn’t quite ready for political activism at the time.

This year’s Venice Biennale Opens to the public on Saturday and runs through November 27, the first to be held since 1942 while a war of foreign aggression was raging in Europe. The main exhibition was inspired by 20th-century Surrealism, and the event had an absolutely surreal feel to it: Ukraine was being hammered by missiles and hardly any Russians in sight, as a crowd of swanky contemporary art swam through the exhibits. But curators, collectors, dealers and artists were holding many events in support of Ukraine, and a passionate personal speech by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky finally saved the Biennale from his dream.

The Biennial’s main exhibition titled “Milk of Dreams” was an exhibition of more than 200 artists, predominantly women and non-binary. Chosen by Cecilia AlemaniHe is the director and chief curator of High Line Art in New York. Based on the creative world of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, the curatorial theme of “a world full of possibilities, free” seems to have been dominated by events. But the sprawling two-space presentation’s emphasis on contemporary artists challenging the supposed universal ideal of a “white, male ‘Man of Man’” was certainly appropriate for the moment.

“These are some of the more blatantly violent work I’ve done,” said the Los Angeles-based artist. Christina QuarlesA large 2021 canvas speaking in front of “Hangin’ There Baby”, appearing to depict mutilated body parts hanging from a tree in the show, and evoking disturbing memories of Goya’s “Disasters of War” series.

“People, what does art matter when so much happens in real life?” he asks. Quarles, one of the most respected young painters of the international art world, said: “One of the things that art can do is to make these unexpected connections.”

In response to the Russian invasion on March 2, Biennale announced he said in this year’s edition that he will “cooperate in every way with the national participation of Ukraine”. At the same time, he said that the Biennale “will not accept any activity by official delegations, institutions or persons affiliated with the Russian government in any capacity”.

Russian visitors – and their yachts – have been blatantly absent this year. Roman Abramovich in 2011 angry local Venetians Anchoring her nearly 400-metre mega yacht in the waters just a three-minute walk from the Biennale. Abramovich is currently one of many Russian billionaires. international sanctionsand some of their yachts captured by authorities around the world

“I’ve never heard of Russians,” Ukrainian-American curator Konstantin Akinsha said in an interview at a cafe in Zattere, at the southern tip of Venice. “There would have been a lot of them by now. In the golden days, Abramovich’s yacht would come, and then there would be another and another, ”she added.

“International contemporary art was seen in Russia as a symbol of modernity, of a return to the West. Now this is a symbol of politician subversion,” said Akinsha. He pointed to the nearby VAC Foundation, a contemporary art museum in a seaside palazzo created by Russian billionaire Leonid Mikhelson in 2017 and also funding huge capital. GES-2 museum in Moscow. The wood and bronze doors of the VAC were firmly locked on Wednesday, and the museum said in an email that its activities are “currently suspended”.

While the Russians stay away, the Biennale and the art world are doing their best to help Ukraine. Ukrainian steel magnate and art collector Victor Pinchuk, who in recent years has spent millions on award-winning works by international stars such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, and also established a contemporary art center in Kiev, was the driving force behind the exhibition.This is Ukraine: Defending Freedom”, in the recently restored Scuola Grande della Misericordia, north of Venice.

A two-part presentation, an official Biennial satellite event, exclusively by Pinchuk From Ukrainian contemporary artists, including Nikita Kadan, who has exhibited internationally, as well as international names like Hirst, Marina Abramovic, and Olafur Eliasson. It also features two paintings by self-taught 20th-century folk artist Maria Prymachenko on display with dozens of works. destroyed by Russian troops in the early days of the war.

At the Thursday evening opening of “This Is Ukraine,” jointly organized by the country’s ministry of culture, attendees were given a live-streamed speech by Zelensky, who vividly described the horrors endured by his people. Wearing his trademark khaki skin and a digital Ukrainian flag waving behind him, Zelensky said, “There is no tyranny that does not try to limit art. Because they can see the power of art. Art can tell the world things that cannot be shared otherwise.”

Two hours later, virtuoso auctioneer Simon de Pury held a gala sale of 15 works by some of the most well-known names in the contemporary art world to benefit museums, at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which is even more magnificent with famous paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto. and charities in Ukraine. More than 200 people attended and tickets cost up to 10,000 Euros. The auction itself raised €1.2 million and the highest price for a 2021 painting by Richard Prince was €375,000. An online-only auction of more than 40 works will end on Sunday.

“We have to offer something,” protesting artist Zakharov said as he left the Russian pavilion on Wednesday. Smartphones were notifying past Biennale goers that the Russian army was threatening to “eliminate” the remaining defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine.

“The world is getting crazier,” said Zakharov. “We’re doing what we can.”