Biennale in Berlin

biennale contemporary art

Art today is capable of much, but hardly anyone would dare to suspect in it only a necrophiliac and melancholic, and not a loud reasoner or at least a clown. But the curators of the Fourth Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art decided to look at modernity from an unusual angle: they canceled the concept and relied only on their own taste. ALEXEY MOKROUSOV, especially for Kommersant, was surprised at the accuracy of this decision, which absolutely satisfied the happy audience.

Residential apartments and an ordinary office, former postal stables and a construction container in the middle of the street, an evangelical church and even an old garrison cemetery - the imagination of the curators of the Berlin Biennale knew no bounds in the selection of exhibition spaces. If you could imagine a place where art is unimaginable, then it is there. The public is invited to take solace in the fact that all these spaces are located practically on the same street - Auguststrasse, famous for its concentration of art galleries, and entrance tickets here have practically been canceled - they are asked only at two exhibitions out of a dozen: at the Kunstwerk Art Factory, the main exhibition space , and in a former school for Jewish girls.

And, for example, the work of Tony Zegal, a participant in the last Venice Biennale (where the caretakers unexpectedly began to sing and dance in his hall) is available to everyone. You walk into a ballroom of the last century, and here, right on the floor, a couple hugs, kisses and speaks to each other in half-whispers of tenderness. Just when you have time to think: the students of the capitalist West have completely lost their shame and conscience, it dawns on you - this is such an action, art! And the lovers' poses are just a quote from classical poses, starting with Rodin's "The Kiss". The couple will receive them until the end of May.

The latest biennale (budget: €3 million) has a title taken from John Steinbeck, whose novel Of Mice and Men inspired the curators. This year there are three of them: the famous artist Maurizio Catellan and two critics - Ali Subotnik and Massimiliano Gioni. Classic reflections from the series “for three” ended in an almost scandalous choice: the curators abandoned any concept. They relied on their own taste, and this subjectivity turned out to be the only declaration. At the same time, it is impossible to call such a position simply shocking or taken out of thin air. The curators worked honestly for a year and a half. They regularly showed preliminary exhibitions at Berlin's Gagosian Gallery, and for a long time ran a column on contemporary art in the city's cultural news magazine, based on questions from readers. Various concepts were discussed: a biennale without art, a biennale without objects, a biennale with objects, but those that are not art... As a result, we decided to simply make an exhibition that we would like to go to ourselves. Done. Let's go. Crowds followed them.

As a result of such a non-standard decision, which even offended some, quality took precedence over quantity, as well as over blind loyalty to the concept of “first freshness”. The public is shown works that are not necessarily from recent years. Some of them have long been known, like the video with a horse by the Albanian artist Anri Sala, who is now fashionable in Europe, or the installation on the theme of violence by the American classic Bruce Nauman. Others belong entirely to history, like the works of the Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor (1914-1990) or the Viennese actionist Otto Mühl. His short films date from 1965, when most of the Berlin Biennale's visitors were not yet born. The recent retrospective of Mühl in his homeland was accompanied by monstrous scandals and almost protest demonstrations. The artist, famous among other things for his youth commune that existed in the 70s, was recently released from prison. He served eight years for child molestation. It was precisely the former victims of his sexual and artistic practices that demanded that Muhl’s exhibition be banned, threatening to destroy the works right in the halls as a protest. But Berlin, it seems, has no time for Mühl; here everything goes calmly.

In general, the Biennale at first looks like a nice, but not very obligatory statement about current modernity. Perhaps there is more interest in Eastern Europe this time than usual. Russia, for example, is represented by the work of Viktor Alimpiev, whose video arrived on the banks of the Spree from the Regina gallery (and the public, it must be said, watches a short film about girls drumming their fingers on a table, tensely and for a long time). Alimpiev is shown in the Jewish School, a building with a spectacular late 20s facade in the spirit of “new materiality”, which is on the verge of destruction inside. It is here that the main semantic accents of the entire biennale are placed, the mood of the curators and the artistic language they prefer become clear.

Melancholy in an age of cruelty and violence, nostalgia as a means of salvation and a way of thinking - this is how their subconscious ideas and interests are ultimately formulated. Thematically, this echoes the main hit of the current season in Berlin, the exhibition “Melancholy”, which arrived here from Paris (in the New National Gallery, most of the works are, of course, classical). But the biennale has its own stories. Some of them are necrophiliac, like the video film by the American Aida Ruilova, dedicated to the attraction of a beautiful woman to a dead old man (the beauty, of course, would have been forgiven a lot in these scenes if he had turned out to be her father or at least her uncle). Others are about the cruelty of life. In the photo series about childbirth at home by American Cora McCorkle, there is so much blood and suffering, so vivid physiological details, that the happy ending of the story (the mother clutches her baby with bloody hands) looks happy more for its participants than for the public.

The third series of stories is about the subconscious fear of the inevitable, but never happens. In the film by Romanian Mircea Cantor, a wolf and a roe deer meet on screen. They are locked in the same room and look at each other all the time - she is in fearful anticipation, he is in bewilderment: why am I delaying, they say. Although the provocation is short in duration, only 2 minutes 43 seconds, it lasts an excruciatingly long time. In the end, nothing happens (the wolf, apparently, was full), but Alfred Hitchcock himself would envy the suspense.

But the main thing was the historical subtext. Its symbol may be Paul McCarthy's work on the "hysterical house". The doors in the gym are constantly slamming, they also move along with their walls. The result is not only deafeningly loud, but also terrifying: a slamming door with a wall looming towards the viewer can turn any melancholic into a choleric. Like most of the biennial, McCarthy is shown in the former Jewish school, whose neglected appearance, shabby walls and dilapidated ceilings create a very special atmosphere, sad and at the same time imbuing what is happening with a special meaning. It characterizes not only a time of depression and fatigue, uncertainty of goals and general disorientation, so characteristic of the new century. The atmosphere from outside penetrates into the work of art. Thanks to this, it becomes clear how important for art today is not only “what” and “how,” but also “where.” The circumstance of place turns out to be the main member of the sentence, its predicate and subject at the same time.

The place paints the artist