Ars Adriatica, No. 9, 2019.
Essays
https://doi.org/10.15291/ars.2933
“Contemporary art may or may not become historicized”: 58. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, May You Live in Interesting Times, Curator Ralph Rugoff, Venice, May 11 – November 24, 2019
Vinko Srhoj
; Department of Art History, University of Zadar
Abstract
We will remember this Biennale, just like a few previous ones, for, as a critic has put it, “a gap between the philosophical and theoretical dimensions on the one hand and the banality of the result on the other” which is “so big that the whole work seems absurd.” Indeed, there is a gap of incongruity between the rhetoric of the artists, this year’s curator, and the exhibited works. One learns very little or nothing from the interpretation of curator Ralph Rugoff, only the motives behind his choice of the interesting times and the related art. One does not even need to know the subject, or to follow the curator’s theoretical sophistries, to approach the artworks, but this is not even the biggest problem of the exhibition. It is the small amount of truly striking artworks among the multitude of exhibits that is upsetting. On the other hand, having lost the centre as well as the periphery (or to put it the other way round: today everything is centre and everything is periphery), contemporary art, as attested by the Biennale, has also lost the focus that once emanated from the centre of events, from the core of the phenomenon. The blurring of boundaries between centre and periphery has created a situation where today, indeed, no artistic phenomenon, group, or individual is a gravitational force that attracts or emanates, while the “spirit of the time” is merely a reminder of a past perfect time that does not return, even periodically.
Keywords
58th International Art Exhibition; Venice; May You Live in Interesting Times; curator Ralph Rugoff; Croatian representative Igor Grubić; Zeitgeist; center-periphery
Hrčak ID:
231323
URI
Publication date:
24.12.2019.
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