India is a no-show on the Venice Biennale — and this can be factor 

Croatia will exhibit “nothing” on the Venice Biennale this yr.

Tomo Savić-Gecan, the nation’s consultant artist on the Olympics of the artwork world, reveals “nothing” as a rule, and has as an alternative created a man-made intelligence that may information 5 performers to maneuver round Venice inconspicuously. On condition that the 59th version of the Biennale, which opens to the general public tomorrow, takes its title ‘The Milk of Goals’ from the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, this post-truth presentation could be very a lot at residence.

It’s not all surrealism and spectacle although. Alongside the Central Pavilion curated by Cecilia Alemani, there are 80 nationwide pavilions set to make sturdy socio-political statements at what stays the up to date artwork world’s most prestigious biennial occasion.  It was postponed final yr because of the pandemic, one thing that has solely occurred twice within the occasion’s 127-year historical past, throughout the two World Wars.

‘Paradise Camp’ by Yuki Kihara, New Zealand pavilion.
| Picture Credit score: Luke Walker

The worldwide ecological disaster (Chile, Georgia, North Macedonia, Serbia) and the standing of indigenous folks (Canada, New Zealand, Peru) look like focal factors this yr. Within the New Zealand pavilion, Yuki Kihara would be the first artist of Pacific descent to characterize the nation, focussing on stereotypes about individuals who establish as Fa’afafine, the Samoan phrase for the third gender. 

In her poetic curator’s assertion, Alemani asks, ‘How is the definition of the human altering? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human?’ whereas underlining that artwork might help us think about new modes of co-existence and infinite prospects of transformation. 

I’m wanting ahead to 2 nationwide pavilions particularly. The Nordic pavilion, which represents Norway, Finland, and Sweden, has modified its identify to the Sámi pavilion in honour of the three indigenous artists who will take over the area. The Sámi are indigenous folks scattered throughout the Nordic international locations and Russia’s Kola peninsula. Residing on the perilous fringe of local weather disaster — threatened by mining, logging, international warming and new culling legal guidelines — they are going to take their place as a nation for the primary time. Artist Máret Anne Sara, born to a reindeer-herding household, views the animal as an in depth relative. “People, nature and animals are interdependent and equal. So destroying any a part of that is like suicide from our perspective. What’s taking place to the reindeer is our story as effectively,” she mentioned in a current interview in The Guardian.

Archaeologist and museologist Liisa-Rávná Finbog, co-curator of the Sámi pavilion.
| Picture Credit score: Eirin Torgersen

A few of Sara’s strongest artwork has been protest artwork. In 2017, in entrance of the Norwegian parliament constructing in Oslo, she made a “curtain” of 400 bullet-ridden reindeer skulls. One other artist exhibiting within the Sámi pavilion is Pauliina Feodoroff from the Finnish-Russian border. Her work is a conceptual undertaking the place she auctions rights to view pristine Arctic wilderness, and makes use of the proceeds to purchase and defend the land.

It is just pure for an artwork occasion of such scale and prominence to be entangled within the geopolitics of the second. The opposite potential headliner at this yr’s occasion would be the Ukraine pavilion which is continuing as deliberate (Russian artists and curators have withdrawn their participation). Extra tributes to Ukraine embrace an exhibition of works by famed Ukrainian folks artist Maria Prymachenko, whose work had been reportedly destroyed by Russian forces.

None of that is stunning. The Biennale has persistently made room for political statements, each sharp and refined. In 2015, the Iran pavilion featured artists from the Indian subcontinent — Bani Abidi, T.V. Santosh and Riyas Komu — in addition to these from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Central Asian republics, the Kurdish area and Iran, in an try to handle the flows of energy and affect throughout these elements of Asia. That very same yr, Indian artwork patron Feroze Gujral sponsored a collateral occasion titled My East is Your West that juxtaposed the works of artists Rashid Rana (Pakistan) and Shilpa Gupta (India). This yr, the Dutch have handed over their prized location to Estonia, to “welcome younger nations to the centre of the Biennale.”

“I’m wondering what an India pavilion would have chosen to current this yr. In contrast to artwork festivals, a biennale has no direct business proposition and permits artists and curators to chart new routes in up to date artwork and public discourse”

When, after its late arrival to this international artwork get together in 2011, India was a no-show within the 2013 version, artist Bharti Kher was amongst those that expressed exasperation on the state of India’s arts infrastructure. In an e-mail circulated inside the artwork fraternity, she wrote: “As I sit these mornings and take a look at my mailbox one thing about the place I’m from bothers me because the information from the Venice Biennale filters in: pavilions from Angola (inhabitants 19.6 million, civil wars 1975 to 2002), Azerbaijan (9.173 million), Bangladesh, Tuvalu (inhabitants 9,847)… sure smaller than Lajpat Nagar! Iraq, Kuwait, Maldives, Montenegro… particular participations from Palestine, Tibet…We didn’t trouble to make it occur. Once more.” 

Eight years later, in 2019, India did handle to current its second nationwide pavilion. This yr would have been the version to maintain up a everlasting presence. However there is no such thing as a India pavilion on the Venice Biennale. Once more. The large Indian connections on the Biennale this yr are Subodh Gupta cooking inside an set up fabricated from used utensils (a collateral occasion organised by Galleria Continua), and Prabhakar Pachpute’s and the late Mrinalini Mukherjee’s works as a part of Alemani’s Central Pavilion. For context, Nepal is exhibiting for the primary time this yr, as are the Republic of Cameroon, Namibia, the Sultanate of Oman and Uganda.

A show of the Biennale in Venice.
| Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures

Whereas I’ve shared Kher’s disappointment all these years, I’m now relieved. The 2019 presentation was a sophisticated affair: organised underneath the aegis of the Ministry of Tradition, with the Confederation of Indian Trade as a companion, the Director Normal of the Nationwide Gallery of Trendy Artwork as commissioner, and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Artwork as curator. Mahatma Gandhi’s a hundred and fiftieth start anniversary celebrations had been prolonged to create a theme for the pavilion. In interviews I performed across the time, a curator, on situation of anonymity, advised me that “the singular celebration of Gandhi as a logo at this level in our historical past as a nation and broader area is ridiculous.” 

I’m wondering what an India pavilion would have chosen to current this yr. In contrast to artwork festivals, a biennale has no direct business proposition and permits artists and curators to chart new routes in up to date artwork and public discourse. The island nation of Tuvalu, as an illustration, forecast to be one of many first international locations to vanish on account of rising sea ranges, used its first nationwide pavilion in 2015 to focus on the consequences of worldwide warming on the island. 

All artwork shouldn’t be political, however no artwork is freed from politics. The nation-based format of the Biennale calls for statements. Would the India pavilion draw consideration to the varied ecological crises plaguing the nation? Would it not, just like the Nordic pavilion, accord the concept of a nation state to the disenfranchised Miya Muslims from Assam, to Adivasis struggling for land rights in varied pockets of the nation, to migrant labourers who discovered themselves in no-man’s land when the pandemic struck? Would the India pavilion concentrate on communal hate crimes or focused violence towards Dalit girls? I’m pretty sure of the reply, which is why I’m glad there is no such thing as a India pavilion on the Venice Biennale this yr.

To not communicate in any respect is healthier than to whimper on a world stage. 

ON SHOW: Biennale Arte 2022: The Milk Of Goals; Venice; until November 27, 2022.

The humanities journalist and editor is predicated in Mumbai. Her debut novel The Illuminated was printed in 2021.