VB//2115;

Welcome

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NORTH KOREAN PAVILLION 2115 

Entry by UNNAMED ARTISTS 

Artist Statement: 

우리와 함께 j o i n u s

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AMERICAN PAVILLION

Entry by FALEAKA MAILEI

Nauseous Nobodies, by Faleaka Mailei, is a photograph that comprises three digitally saturated layers of acrylic paintings on canvas paper. The acrylic paintings transformed into a kaleidoscope reflect America’s major historical events such as racial segregation, drug overdose, gun violence, and the national ethos American Dream. Through its’ discordant colour scheme, Mailei poses a potential negative insight into these social issues diffusing worldwide, causing a massacre of desensitised humans – leading into an inevitable epidemic of past, unresolved social issues.

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JAPANESE PAVILLION 

Entry by TSUKI TSUKI In'utsu fukkatsu (Sombre Rebirth), by TSUKI TSUKI, is a photograph that includes Pine trees & haiku ink drawings juxtaposed with six red gloss paper made, origami butterflies. Through Mailei’s use of spot-lighting effects she depicts the subtle stages of Buddhist rebirth represented by the similar lifecycle of a butterfly. She appropriates Japanese poet Wafuu’s haiku (red ink text) which translates ‘The butterfly having disappeared,/My spirit/Came back to me.’ in order to highlight this impermanence of humans. That is, our physical bodies only temporarily exist on Earth but our souls will live in an eternal search for Nirvana; the ultimate state of tranquility which is visually represented by the Pine trees that evoke a sense of this ‘organic bliss’.

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BRITISH PAVILLION 

Entry by : 2nd Wave Young British Artists Sarah Lucas the 4th.

ARTIST STATEMENT: 

The flesh of an apple ; the flesh of our skin. Both are so delicate, soft, frail. And both are so embedded with sin. From the minute Adam & Eve put their lips upon the forbidden fruit of knowledge in the Book of Genesis, they damned us with the loss of ignorance, but through that, we lost our purity, innocence and virginity. The human desire to consume is insatiable - whether it be knowledge, violence, or flesh. My ancestor, the great Sarah Lucas, knew this. As do I. As our age morphs into one of complete digital immersion, we forget that we still creatures with carnal, dark, and lustful desires. I took Magritte’s artwork, the Son of Man, and toyed with its heavy symbolism and meaning through image manipulation and databending. Magritte understood the human itch to see the face behind the apple - the willingness to destroy, crush ignorance and beauty for simply the sake of knowledge. We already did it once with the atomic bomb. We do it daily when we make love. We tear to shreds what once was pure, we destroy what is good and innocent on a regular basis in the name of creation and intelligence. In the era of digitalism, of unlimited knowledge...will what definitively defines us, our need to consume, end us? Will our hunger be what causes us to cross the final frontier?

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AUSTRALIAN PAVILLION 2015 Entry by Marina Johnstone 

ARTIST STATEMENT: 

Consisting of 12 masks and artefact-like objects, Marina Johnstone’s ‘….’ representing the Australian pavilion, takes us into an thoughtful view of our modern landscape.  Addressing natural life conservation and cultivation, and a re-connection with Australian native wildlife - Jonestone used bark from native trees to demonstratively reveal the hybridisation of modern human life and natural life.The work is culturally relevant with the decline in native eucalyptus trees, amongst the other endangered, and extinct wildlife due to human destruction over the years.

Johnstone takes a more antiquated approach of art by making a sculpture, using traditional and non-digital means Johnstone engages the audience in a connection with the past, an archaeological ambience.

Johnstone explained “After researching into Fiona Hall’s (Australian Pavilion artist 2015) practice and the ideas she was trying to unearth, it’s hard to believe that this was being made a hundred years ago but still remains as poignant. Hall named her three main agendas being global conflict, global finances, and the environment, and 100 years later, relevant issues are still being ignored. So in turn, I hope to evoke a sense of awareness in each of our actions, and for the audience to ask themselves questions such as - how are we living and how will this effect our future?”

Johnstone’s work presents a rupture in time, and attempts to rectify pervasive issues of the global and environmental by fusing antiquated and contemporary practice.

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THE GREEN PAVILLION 2115 (Russia) 

Entry By Irina Nakhova

Artist Statement:

Back in 2015 Irina Nakhova produced a installation piece where audiences submerged themselves in an army camouflaged four by four room, which they were collectively told to ask as if they were on “vacation” while having told to put on a military like jacket.  The curious manner was in regards to the Russian military, having been told that during the war, they were acting as if they were on vacation and relaxing.   One hundred years later, Nakhova appropriated her previous work, depicting six images of a local Russian woman, being watched, while she relaxed. In current times, future endeavours show monitoring like never before. Private and public become merged. Homes become hacked, and alone time is non-existent. Surveillance is 24/7, when even doing nothing at all, you could be doing something wrong.

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NORTH KOREAN PAVILLION 2115 

Entry by UNNAMED ARTISTS 

Artist Statement: 

우리와 함께 j o i n u s

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GERMAN PAVILLION 2115  

Entry by THE SPOKEN WORD COLLECTIVE // die gesprochenes Wort Tarif  (Herzog de Wier, Aleksia Bölles & Viera Schmidt) 

Artistic Statement: 

In 2015, The German Pavillion presented the artwork Factory of the Sun, an exploration of how media has evolved over time. With this is consideration, the Spoken Word Collective 2115 observed the rise and fall of both media and language over the years. As Eastern culture becomes further integrated into the west, we noticed human text evolving into calligraphic pictograms, similar to that of the Elian Script, Tolkien Script and Gallifreyan. Images, predominantly, are more evocative and provide greater representation of concepts than words ever did. We took this concept of evolution and merged 2D letters into a 3D, sculptural hieroglyphs. We were inspired by the work of the legendary Pablo Picasso , and the texts of Gertrude Stein. We sought to represent the surge of popularity of a new “neo-cubist language” in the form of moving sculpture. These were created through virtual reality drives and sculpted using 3D realtime rendering softwares such as Blender 5, Google Sketchup Drive 12v2 and Cinema5D. They were then printed using polymer materials with a large scale architectural scale 3D Printer and then suspended in antigravity.

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MEET THE CURATOR

2115 marks the year the Venice Biennale opens it’s digital pavilions for all to see; this year’s theme is a centennial celebration, a reconsideration of 2015’s’  “All The World’s Futures” exhibition curated by Gabriyel Rosencrantz, and an exploration into how we have advanced into a global cyber-culture.

Gabriyel Rosencrantz (b.2078, New York)  is a curator, art critic, editor and writer, since 2111 he has been the Director of the Museum of Modern Art. Rosencrantz envised this year’s biennale to be celebratory of the artistic imagination and spirit, but also an anarchic exploration of our past and speculation of the future. Rosencrantz’s contemporary understanding of art has allowed for the smooth transition of the Venice Biennale to becoming a digital exhibition. The rising sea water that has flooded Venice metaphorically guides this year’s theme, as it solicits artists to be speculative and divergent.

Artists from across the world have approached this idea of ‘Futures’ in a number of different angles, whether it be: a step backwards, a step forwards, or a step sideways. A step backwards approach can be seen as a return and re-engagement with pre-modern concepts and understandings of the world. A step forwards often involves a sense of fantasy and agony of the future this is where we see speculative ideas of the utopia and dystopia emerge. A step sideways angle can come from a decentralisation of the subject of the world. Whatever the approach these artists create speculative works which become complex networks of understandings, engaging with national and transnational ideas, and re-connecting with artists who came before them. These artists produce a unique body of work by locating the seeds in contemporary society that give insight into possible futures, in order to think about new and interesting paths to creating speculative contemporary art.

ENTER THE FUTURE WITH THIS YEARS DIGITAL VENICE BIENNALE