Sense of abandonment and invisibility takes theme for Great Britain in this Venice Biennale

The more and more read about Great Britain's entries for the Venice Biennale a sense of familiarity in theme crops up. That it seems is an overall focus on abandonment and invisibility. Scotland's representative Martin Boyce on visiting the site initially for his proposed work at a 15th Century 'Palazzo Pisani', states, ' There was something in the atmosphere and the journey through the different rooms that stayed with me...It had a sense of abandonment.....For some reason I kept imagining the Palazzo as an abandoned garden'.1 His sculptural/installation, 'No Reflections' disrupts the dichotomy between constructed space and real/natural space together with displacing the original building's solidarity or roots reinterpreting your perception of the space. It's the perceived abandonment of the Palazzo that led Boyce to envision the exterior natural space re-entering and re-gaining or sweeping in on the lost space. Boyce's use of, chain made bins and bits of furniture and bedframes adds a sad sense of abandonment to the space. However then there are deconstructed letters on the wall and Boyce has replaced the Venetian chandeliers with Constructivist sculpture in black aluminium which begins to stir up Boyce's previous preoccupation with constructed space, it's interesting that he's deconstructed the letters? Any sense of the living/history, natural elements or resources he sucks the life out of or turns into the functional/constructed. The main piece includes two for one, 'A River in the Trees' and 'Evaporated Pools'. The use of concrete stepping stones together with fake leaves and a dryed up or 'marble pool' again restates his theme of constructed, superficial space. Such abandonment of nature leads to the title, 'No Reflections'. Amazingly this was Boyce's first visit to Venice and clearly it had a huge impact, he commented on the lack of traffic and a general sense of abandonment throughout the city, interesting that he takes Venice's central feature water and drains the life out of it so as to refuse reflection. The piece is quite powerful in the sense that he dares to take the 'majestic beauty' out of Venice, naturally and historically and instead replace it with the irony of a new re-interpreted/ fake 'natural beauty' constructed for you, nature becoming invisible. It raises many questions within the context of one of the places in the World valued so much for it's natural beauty and light together with it's position as forefronter in the creation of constructed artistic beauty. Is it about loss of respect for nature, natural beauty, abandonment of nature/invisibility of its value, the power of the man- made to control and overpower nature and beauty?
What's very strange is that Brit representative Steve McQueen in his video, 'Giardini' takes an almost too simalar approach to that of Boyce, his two screen film piece revolving around Venice mid-winter, post Biennale, post season, post peak life or presence. He again breaks away from conventional views or perceptions of Venetian life but rather than reconstructing nature McQueen presents the winter wildlife of Venice as eerie minimalistic vision of the area around Giardini. What both Boyce and McQueen do take from Venice however, that seeps into their work is a feeling of the gothic,the British Pavilion as the 'haunted castle on the hill'. The 'invisibility' of unseen aspects of Venice or the 'everyday', wild dogs, rain, bells chiming in the background become elevated in importance visually in his minimalist approach. A work very different from his other politically rooted works such as Camera D'Or winner Hunger, 2008 based on the 1981 IRA hunger strikes, focused on Bobby Sands and the British governments treatment of him or his ongoing Queen and Country project which juxtaposes the images of soldiers who've lost their lives in Iraq with the Queen's head on individual stamps as commemorations.
As mentioned in an earlier post the Wales representative this year is Velvet Underground's John Cale with his audio-visual work, 'Dark Days'. Here Cale looks back to his roots and produces a work which expresses the struggle between the disbanding of his homeland and reasons for doing so expressed in the title and respect for his beginnings in the Welsh Youth Orchestra and family. Cale bears resemblance to the above works also in his approach to filming adding a ghostly gothic feel to the piece through his audio/visual autobiographical journey through his old house, focusing on everyday features and his phantom piano playing within the spiritual Welsh chapel, at one point he sits, gets up, sits but never once ends up playing the piano. Its almost a ghostlike travelling back through his past, a past thats there, that made him but was abandoned due to its 'darkness'. He also combines narration, Welsh rugby anthems and the violin one note humming creating ambient edgy moods throughout enhancing artistic experience.However the darkness appears again in the contrasting of this with images of waterboarding, highlighting how the nostalgia contrasts with torture, he himself has claimed he abandoned his home as he felt there was more out there. He wanted to be visible.
Finally the last artist is an extremely interesting up and coming one, Northern Ireland's representative, Susan MacWilliam. She is known for her focus on the paranormal and psychic perception and investigation, focusing on the laboratorial and scientific processes involved. The work is titled, 'Remote Viewing' and involves three works, there is Dermo Optics, 2006 in which she travels to the Dermo Optical Laboratory of Dr Yvonne Duplessis in Paris, where she becomes involved in experiments testing ‘fingertip vision' or a sensory technique in which the eye vision/visiblity is denied as proof. An example of this is an ability to say visualise the colour of something just by touching it say blindfolded. Of course there's a fine art approach to filming, enhancing the experience of the event.The next work is 'Eileen', a fine art biography of the famous Irish medium, Eileen J. Garrett. It features interviews with family and friends and so takes a personal subjective approach studying the social interaction in her life combined with the objective relationship between camera and psychic both portals of exposure, one of life and one of the afterlife.Both exposing a sense of invisibility or the 'unknown', one the scientific depth of parapsychology and the parapsychic scientific process in life many of us don't have a clue about and the other a connection or interaction with a possible afterlife/afterworld.
Finally a series of photographs by Thomas Glendinning Hamilton takes place in the work, F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N, 2009.The title references French astronomer and psychical researcher Camille Flammarion and also includes a redevelopment of TG Hamilton’s séance cabinet, the Belfast poet/writer Ciaran Carson together with poltergeist researcher Dr. William G Roll.

1 Boyce,M., 'Visual Arts Review: Martin Boyce', 2009, 05/06/09, http://www.scotlandandvenice.com/news/visual-arts-review-martin-boyce

First British showing of Luke Fowler's films at Serpentine

Winner of the Jarman Award 2008 for filmakers and having gained international success it's now time for the Glaswegian to showcase in Britain at the Serpentine until the 14th June. The Jarman Award recognises filmakers who move outside of the filmaking box, pushing boundaries and refreshing perception, Fowler has been compared by critics to the 50s New Wave of British filmakers who broke the mould with their kitchen-sink realism and gritty filming, idealism flushed down the toilet.Fowler produced four 3 minute wonders for Channel Four which involved taking 'everyday life' as a subject. He documents flat tenants, Anna, Helen, David and Lester, in the Victorian house Fowler he used to live in in the West End of Glasgow, some being his neighbours whom he never met previously. Fowler claims he's interested mostly in the relationships of people and between them but approaches filming in his own unconventional way. He takes his work one step further when he moves from everyday subject-matter to individuals who too break with convention in their lives, biographies of unconvention represented unconventionally.For example their is Pilgrimage From Scattered Points, 2006, which covers Cornelius Cardew, an English composer who broke tradition with his alternative, experimental Scratch Orchestra. In The Nine Monads of David Bell, 2006, the life of David, a patient at Kingsley Hall, a centre set up by rebel psychiatrist R.D. Laing. This is a personal project for Fowler who experienced the treatment of mental illness within his own family. Laing believed madness was a product of family and society nothing else and used radical techniques and experimented with LSD in his treatments. Fowler follows Bell’s psychological journey within this context together with including a film that recreates his dreams. Works on paper, including newspapers, which Bell wrote and expressed on are also included.