moscow art
critic andrey kovalev
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Francesco Bonami. Biennale Is Not a Total Installation. Interview by
Andrey Kovalev Francesco Bonami has recently been named among the ten most influential
art persons by a Daily Telegraph poll. He was born in Florence in 1955, and
since 1987 has been living and working in the United States, headed the American
editorial board of the Flash Art magazine, and is now director of the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Chicago. His latest appointment was chief curator of the 50th
Venice Biennale to be opened in June. Certain gerontocratic tendencies
prevailing in the area have made sure that the 47-year-old Bonami appears
absurdly young in this capacity. Therefore the world art community looks up to
Bonami to tackle the most topical issues of modern art. On the other hand, his
penchant for figurative painting has already earned him a disparaging label of
“Zdanovite.” The motto for the next Venice Biennale is “Dreams and Conflicts”. What I mean is you cannot display your dream, art for art’s sake. Nor can you focus on a simple description of the world. In my boondocks I remain blissfully convinced that the purpose of art is criticism and analysis of community languages. So the second motto, “Dictatorship of the Viewer”, also sounds kind of revisionist to me: Last century’s art used to impose its own strategies of world outlook on the public. Are things very different now? I don’t think so. Obviously we are all obsessed by the idea of “public” as a certain abstract group of individuals. But it is necessary to work with the individual viewer in mind. Especially, if you’re getting up a major exhibition where the viewer will have very little time for examining any one item. Still, you are a curator of a large American museum. And in the United States, the best museum is the one that makes blockbuster shows. However, now it is generally assumed that this kind of approach is uncomfortably close to showbiz methods and turns an exhibition into a species of Disneyland. The last thing I want is a trite effect. My chief objective is not just to illustrate some abstract idea, but to show the metaphors it sprouts. I do not intend to offer the viewer a master key to understanding, my aim is to achieve the purity of idea representation. That is the end result could be described in Ilya Kabakov’s phraseology as a total installation? The Biennale consists of a variety of shows made by different curators in which different artists take part. And every one of them has a personal end to achieve. So there is no question of a total installation; the opposite seems to be the case. Naturally, there will also be certain points of collision between art and the viewer. This is humane. Kabakov said in a 1994 interview you took for Flash Art that in the center of the total installation makeup was repression and fear. Incidentally, what do you think of the idea that a curator is a superartist? He isn’t. Curator merely selects works for a show. He is not an author, he does not create works of art but simply provides opportunities for their creation. The artist comes first, then the viewer, and the curator is in the third place. There are lots of artists I like, and yet I have not included their pictures in the show because I see no point in that. I have invited six curators, each of them is in charge of a relevant section of Bienalle. Each looks after their own show, while I merely point out to them the direction of the work and do not look into the particulars of what they are doing. And now you are in a position to answer the vital question: How Russian topical art is perceived in the West. The thing is that Russia both is and is not a part of Europe. Russian art is going through a transition period, and it will take some time for it to exert any real influence. It is my impression that Russian artists pay too much attention to social and political matters. It must be the repressive political regime you had ten years ago, when the body was the only experimentation ground, the only bit of freedom space. Possibly that is why some Russian artists are so exclusive. You are an Italian curator working in the United States. What kind of problem are Italians or Americans likely to encounter? Some American artists are busy maintaining the existence of metaphor in this world. And they speak of their personal situation as though they could separate themselves from the rest of the world. The artists who have failed to overcome this conflict turn into idealists. The Italians’ trouble is that they are focused on themselves and consider man to be the center of the universe. However, the artists taking part in the Biennale will be very different. And every one of them will try to emphasize their uniqueness. This is something of a problem, because they do not communicate with each other. You have come to Moscow to take part in the Major Project for Russia symposium where they discussed instituting something along the Biennale lines in Moscow. What is your vision of a “project for Russia”? The Documenta in Kassel show was launched after WWII, and the Venice Biennale in the late 19th century, when nation states were coming into their own. Every major exhibition has its own set of distinctive features that are place- and time-related. Possibly Moscow will be destined to create a 21st century project, but it will have to be carefully matched to the geographical, cultural and political context Russia is creating in this world. Meanwhile, the matter that interests us most is who will represent Russia in Venice. What could you say about the project Viktor Misiano, the Russian Pavilion curator, is preparing? I cannot disclose details as yet. On the whole, the idea is that each project artist examines and analyzes the works by the other project artists. This is a most interesting approach, because it will not be just the artist’s works going on display, but there will also be shown other artists’ opinion of these works. Which Russian artists will take part in the Biennale international projects? Slovenian curator Igor Zabel, who knows the contemporary Russian art situation at first hand, has selected three artists to be represented at the Individual Systems show in the Arsenale hall. Could one ask the names of those self-sufficient individualists? I’d rather not name any names at this point, but the complete list of participants will be made public at the press conference in Rome on March 25.
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Andey Kovalev - [email protected], [email protected] |