May You Live In Interesting Times
The biennial of incertitude, of skepticism. Its title is more an insinuation than a description. It is a mix of ironic wish and sincere curse forged on the basis of a supposed Chinese proverb that has been circulating on the web, conveying some supposed folk tradition. “May you live in interesting times” is curator Ralph Rugoff’s wish to visitors at the 58thVenice Biennale.
As qualificator of “time,” the adjective “interesting” might indicate something requiring attention, as well as something you cannot completely understand—kind of like when we say in Portuguese, in Brazil, that a pregnant woman is in an “interesting” state.
In the uncertain times insinuated by the title, attraction forces and incomprehension feelings are produced by a group of works by seventy-nine different artists who pored over the issue of information. In a world as unstable as today’s, information is something frequently related to disinformation, that is, inconsistencies and lies. On the approaches of the artists selected for the 58thVenice Biennale, that is expressed through confusion between reality and fiction, as well as through fake information’s increasingly power to shape reality.
The fake news effect is perceptible and even measurable in many different social and political contexts, but most artists selected to the 58thVenice Biennale are not interested in data objectivity. On the contrary: Many works are situated in a skepticism limbo, paralyzed on the realization that information may disinform and that something that looks like (or does not look like) might be. Works by Jimmi Durhan, Stan Douglas, Jesse Darling, Martine Gutierrez, Hito Steyerl, and Jon Rafman speak for themselves—just to mention a few names.
Regarding so much unease, incertitude, and catastrophism invoked in 2015 by Nigerian Okwui Enwezor’s curatorial work, as well as the escapist decorative character of 2017 produced by French Christine Macel, the American Ralf Rugoff’s Biennale takes visitors to epokhé, to the state that skeptical philosophers call suspension of judgement. If information (or disinformation) is a constant source of incertitude or threats, this does not cause any unease for visitors of the 58thBiennale. On the contrary: epokhétakes to acceptance, to a state of contemplation that no curse can upset.
“May you live in interesting times” is, thus, first an invitation and not a curse in a proposition by a curator who—far from Enwezor’s and Macel’s globalist, diverse views—emphasizes young, mainly American productions. In his curatorial work, most artists were born, reside, or are often in the United States, and almost all of them have transit in the market setting of Berlin and London, where Rugoff has been working for years as director of the renowned Hayward Gallery.
The skeptics’ epokhéis a perfect fit to placid criticism easily accepted by the market, imposing itself even to bolder artists such as South-African Zanele Muholi, American Arthur Jaffa, Thai Korakrit Arunanondchai, and Nigerian Njideka Akunyili Crosby.
The disposition of the 58thBiennale favors this. It had been a long time since any Venice Biennale had had such detailed expography, favorable to the appreciation of the works and the invariably formal relationships between them.
The Arsenale building is covered in raw wood lattice panels defining space from a central axis, highlighting a succession of section in which the works are disposed in frontal opposition or in flanks. In the Giardini Central Pavilion—never before more adapted to the white cube logic—the disposition of the works proposes a succession of solo works or of pairs of works organized more by formal affinity than by some discourse built through spatial dislocation. All of which is well lit and identified—as we have rarely seen in any Venice Biennale. If it weren’t for the local atmosphere, impregnated with history and salty water, visitors might otherwise believe they were in an art fair.
In this skeptical—and tepid—view of information/disinformation’s possible effects in today’s world, the curatorial discourse is built from a foreword to ataraxía, the soul’s calmness. At the entrance of the Central Pavilion, Antoine Catala recommends to vistors: “Don’t worry,” “It’s over,” “Everything’s all right,” “Relax.” Here’s a suggestion: We should face this moment as if we were watching a Shakespeare comedy, after all, there’s no use for much ado about nothing. Don’t be shocked when you enter the Arsenale and face a monumental Double Elvis, that “glorification of the most abject humanity,” as artist George Condo—the brightest star in the US art scene—says. Life is not a great Shakespeare tragedy: Even though it may look like that, maybe there is nothing rotten in the state of Denmark—and maybe not in any other state. Interesting times, certainly.