2:00 P.M.EDT
20:00 CEST
20:00 CEST
october
12
Photo: Ilya Rabinovich
Placed into the framework of the 59th Venice Biennale by landing on different pavilions of the countries with history of Jewish presence and migration, Yiddishland Pavilion is challenging the principle of national division embedded at the core of the biennale. This principle, inherited by the Venice Biennale from the world fairs of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and introduced into the art realm, «represented a certain order of things and, in it, an order of the world». It also «obeyed the discourse of nationalism and imperialism» and reproduced global power relations and structures. Throughout the history of the biennale there were numerous attempts to shift this order and rethink the concept of national representation and reflect upon global processes - for instance, this year, Russian Pavilion was closed because the artists and the curator withdrew from participation due the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Estonian Pavilion was located in the building of the Pavilion of the Netherlands and the Pavilion of Nordic countries was transformed into Sámi Pavilion in order to provide a platform for indigenous artists and narratives. However, matters of citizenship, national belonging and dominance still largely prevail when an artist/artists are being chosen to represent their country at the biennale.
The discussion brings together examples of various alternative pavilions and non-conventional strategies of national representation in different years. It will touch upon questions of selection and inclusion in the art world and their interdependence with political climate while also discussing various mechanisms of challenging the paradigm of national division and shifting power structures in the institutionalized art world.
Curator and cultural theorist Suzana Milevska sheds some light on the contradictions and paradoxes stemming from the overall context of the project Yiddishland – that is the “schizophrenic” and neoliberal concept of the Venice Biennial. Although the oldest international art exhibition is mainly split between its two major sections: the “national pavilions” with art and artists exhibited as representation of individual or group of states (even if there are no physical and permanent pavilions), and the artists invited by the Chief Curator in the international exhibition, there are also independently curated projects that are part of the section known as “collateral events”. Unlike the “national pavilions” based on problematic concepts as nation-state, territoriality, belonging, and property that often show art projects that are at odds with the overall concept of the Biennial, the “collateral events” are where the opposite is supposed to take place.
Laced with the promise of independence from any particular state’s administration and political entities, these projects aim towards critical artistic and curatorial strategies that are to overcome the systemic normativity and conservative institutional structures. However, given the contradictions stemming from the prevailing neoliberal tendencies that affect the publicity and branding of contemporary art by focusing on geopolitical and national identity such promises often fall short. That is not the same as to say that such initiatives and projects are inevitably doomed to failure, and that cannot offer complex imaginariness and relevant art practices. They often ponder various urgencies as deterritorialised flows of minoritarean and hybrid identities, transnationality, transindividual singularities, and intersecting memories and temporalities. Yet, Suzana finds it relevant to critically address the perpetuated contradictions and conundrums stemming from such aspirations to belong and integrate in the existing and prevailing cultural and curatorial configurations. Such was the example of the 2011 initiative of the project Call the Witness that was the 2nd Roma Pavilion.
Curator Galit Eilat speaks about the official Polish participation in the Polish national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, the video installation '… and Europe will be stunned ' by the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana. Bartana was the first foreign national to represent Poland in the history of the Venice Biennale and only the third foreign national in the biennale's history (at that time) to exhibit in a pavilion other than that of her citizenry.
The video installation traverses a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and militarisms, overflowing with the narratives of the Israeli settlement movement, Zionist dreams, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the Palestinian right of return. Bartana's fictive mise-en-scène was invited by Poland's Ministry of Culture and used the state representation to place a narrative sited within a national pavilion (accorded with the artwork's subject matter) which invited 3 million Jews to return to Poland. In this way, the project attempted to blur between the artistic imagination and political act and between the possible and impossible, the national and transnational.
Artist Sislej Xhafa will speak about his peregrinations around the grounds of the 48th Biennale with a soccer ball and Albanian flag, which served as a precursor to these alter-international pavilion interventions. His illegal performance Clandestine Albanian Pavilion criticized the marginalizing policies toward Albanian migrants in Western countries while raising a question about who gets to exhibit at the Venice biennale
This event is part of the discussion series "Yiddishland Pavilion at The James Gallery: Transnationality, Memory and Museology" organized in a collaboration between Yiddishland Pavilion and James Gallery. The discussions that touch upon the topics of (trans)national representation at the Venice biennale, integration of contemporary art into Jewish museums and artistic female voices that find alternative ways to be heard are held in a hybrid format: online and at James Gallery in October - November 2022.
James Gallery brings artists and scholars into public dialogue on topics of mutual concern through exhibitions as a form of advanced research. As a window into the research work of The Graduate Center and a hub of international discussion, The James Gallery is central to The Graduate Center’s and the City University of New York’s contribution to the cultural life of New York City. The gallery works with scholars, students, artists and the public to explore working methods that may lie outside usual disciplinary boundaries.
James Gallery website
The James Gallery address
365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
other events of the series:
October 26, 2022
Jewish Museums and Contemporary Art: Preservation of Memory or Forging Futurity?
November 9, 2022
Herstories, Uncomforbale Narratives, and Power Asymmetries
The discussion brings together examples of various alternative pavilions and non-conventional strategies of national representation in different years. It will touch upon questions of selection and inclusion in the art world and their interdependence with political climate while also discussing various mechanisms of challenging the paradigm of national division and shifting power structures in the institutionalized art world.
Curator and cultural theorist Suzana Milevska sheds some light on the contradictions and paradoxes stemming from the overall context of the project Yiddishland – that is the “schizophrenic” and neoliberal concept of the Venice Biennial. Although the oldest international art exhibition is mainly split between its two major sections: the “national pavilions” with art and artists exhibited as representation of individual or group of states (even if there are no physical and permanent pavilions), and the artists invited by the Chief Curator in the international exhibition, there are also independently curated projects that are part of the section known as “collateral events”. Unlike the “national pavilions” based on problematic concepts as nation-state, territoriality, belonging, and property that often show art projects that are at odds with the overall concept of the Biennial, the “collateral events” are where the opposite is supposed to take place.
Laced with the promise of independence from any particular state’s administration and political entities, these projects aim towards critical artistic and curatorial strategies that are to overcome the systemic normativity and conservative institutional structures. However, given the contradictions stemming from the prevailing neoliberal tendencies that affect the publicity and branding of contemporary art by focusing on geopolitical and national identity such promises often fall short. That is not the same as to say that such initiatives and projects are inevitably doomed to failure, and that cannot offer complex imaginariness and relevant art practices. They often ponder various urgencies as deterritorialised flows of minoritarean and hybrid identities, transnationality, transindividual singularities, and intersecting memories and temporalities. Yet, Suzana finds it relevant to critically address the perpetuated contradictions and conundrums stemming from such aspirations to belong and integrate in the existing and prevailing cultural and curatorial configurations. Such was the example of the 2011 initiative of the project Call the Witness that was the 2nd Roma Pavilion.
Curator Galit Eilat speaks about the official Polish participation in the Polish national pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, the video installation '… and Europe will be stunned ' by the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana. Bartana was the first foreign national to represent Poland in the history of the Venice Biennale and only the third foreign national in the biennale's history (at that time) to exhibit in a pavilion other than that of her citizenry.
The video installation traverses a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and militarisms, overflowing with the narratives of the Israeli settlement movement, Zionist dreams, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and the Palestinian right of return. Bartana's fictive mise-en-scène was invited by Poland's Ministry of Culture and used the state representation to place a narrative sited within a national pavilion (accorded with the artwork's subject matter) which invited 3 million Jews to return to Poland. In this way, the project attempted to blur between the artistic imagination and political act and between the possible and impossible, the national and transnational.
Artist Sislej Xhafa will speak about his peregrinations around the grounds of the 48th Biennale with a soccer ball and Albanian flag, which served as a precursor to these alter-international pavilion interventions. His illegal performance Clandestine Albanian Pavilion criticized the marginalizing policies toward Albanian migrants in Western countries while raising a question about who gets to exhibit at the Venice biennale
This event is part of the discussion series "Yiddishland Pavilion at The James Gallery: Transnationality, Memory and Museology" organized in a collaboration between Yiddishland Pavilion and James Gallery. The discussions that touch upon the topics of (trans)national representation at the Venice biennale, integration of contemporary art into Jewish museums and artistic female voices that find alternative ways to be heard are held in a hybrid format: online and at James Gallery in October - November 2022.
James Gallery brings artists and scholars into public dialogue on topics of mutual concern through exhibitions as a form of advanced research. As a window into the research work of The Graduate Center and a hub of international discussion, The James Gallery is central to The Graduate Center’s and the City University of New York’s contribution to the cultural life of New York City. The gallery works with scholars, students, artists and the public to explore working methods that may lie outside usual disciplinary boundaries.
James Gallery website
The James Gallery address
365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016
other events of the series:
October 26, 2022
Jewish Museums and Contemporary Art: Preservation of Memory or Forging Futurity?
November 9, 2022
Herstories, Uncomforbale Narratives, and Power Asymmetries
Online-offline
discussion
discussion
THE JAMES GALLERY & ZOOM
CHALLENGING THE NATIONAL DIVISION: TRANSNATIONAL, ALTERNATIVE, AND "PAVILIONS-IN-PAVILIONS" AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
