The Milk of Dreams or the milking of nightmares? Venice Biennale 2022 (I)
The namesake of Leonora Carringon’s illustrated book for children, Venice Biennale of 2022 theme is The Milk of Dreams. Unlike Carringon’s whimsical and fantastic stories though, some artifacts of the main biennale exhibitions at the Arsenale and the Giardini leave one wonder which dreams we are these, how we can relate, and how they may inspire or elevate one’s existence?
A swift two days walk that certainly requires a second and possibly third visit, left an impression of a wide field full of boldly function issue and sexual exploration of darkness and fear, sometimes syncopated by the occasional unrelated elegance. Milk of Dreams? In which way has that factored in? Milk perhaps, if you consider a simen a milk but dreams? In no way, unless it is a wet dream.
An elaborate, forcible bend into the reminiscent of body parts and presumably bodily fluids, blue drops, covered by mozaic and tied with the hanging chains, sculptures are presented as the exploration of the “the stages in one’s search for identity.” is probably a quintessence of the Biennale vibe: women, transgender, body, sexual exploration, meak and amorphous esthetic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T57cDkMQWCw&t=6s
Raphaela Vogel, The Milk of Dreams, 2022 is another good example of the matters of interest favored by the Biennale curator and mastermind Cecilia Alemani.
The most puzzling question to me was what is happening in global human society that finds so many artists, the people who are presumably some of the most sensitive souls, to tune out the global tragedies of the world, the war and violence, the unjust societies and focus on their own guts?
And not in the sense of exploration for the sake of knowing thyself to get better, but just to produce some guttural sounds. How did such tone deaf escapism become a dominant mood at one of the most prestigious and well known world art shows? There are exceptions to this stream.
It is probably a topic for a longer discussion, but in all fairness, there were some ouvres that spoke of a different approach to reality that seemed a bit more relevant to the contemporary state of human condition.
One can find aesthetic and philosophical search for deeper meaning in the Ignaciao Abali’s Correccion in the Spanish pavilion:
Persona, by Gerardo Goldwasser of Uruguay:
A violently loud live guitar accompaniment to the Marco Fusinato’s DESASTRES video/slideshow in the Australian pavilion. A video work by finnish artist recording a multi-angled view of a workshop with a Finnish police force researching that point at which human interaction may become violent. Morphologically substantial and thematically relevant work by Simone Leigh
at the USA pavilion where unity of body and spirit are manifested in artistically significant forms.
Serbian pavilion with a minimal and powerful work of Vladimir Nikolic provides some relief as if addressing the viewer to the fundamentals of our existence and examining their roots.
Francis Alys’ video work installed in the Belgian pavilion invites the viewer to immerse in the world of the children’s games during the pandemic times, and that is probably where the world of the whimsical and magical happens despite all odds.
Multitude galleries are showing all over Venice and all the art lovers of the world may have a chance to find some artwork which they may be inspired by.
Veronica Shimanovskaya, Dreaming of Andy and the Times Changed, 2021. Fondamenta Tana. @ArtBox Projects.
