52nd Venice Biennale

52nd Venice Biennale:

Think with the Senses-Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense

Africa Pavilion: Check List Luanda Pop

Venice, Italy

June 10-November 21, 2007

reviewed by Kinsey Katchka

Each of the last few editions of the Venice Biennale has been marked by a notable advance in the representation of African art/ists, both as a group and as individuals. Though the 52nd Venice Biennale has been touted as a landmark event for its inclusion of an African regional pavilion, it may be more accurate to frame it as a step in the ongoing development, dialogue, and manifestation of African participation rather than a seminal occasion. Whether it is a step towards the permanent, centrally located presence of an African pavilion within the Biennale framework remains to be seen.1

Art by contemporary artists from Africa was prominently featured in the 2007 Biennales two main venues. In addition to the African regional pavilion (situated in the Arsenale) and the Egyptian pavilion (long established in the Giardini), several African artists were integrated into both locations of the International Exhibition, both in the Arsenale building and in the Italian Pavilion located in the Giardini.

The 2007 Venice Biennale bore the mark of the director Robert Storr's international fieldwork during the previous two years, and he selected several African artists for the International Exhibition titled "Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense." Though some reviewers of the Biennale have commented on Storr's predisposition towards (1) American art, and (2) painting (see, for example, Vetrocq 2007), the Exhibition included broad-based international representation and diverse media. As Storr repeatedly noted in his catalogue essay and other forums, it has become increasingly difficult to dissect artists according to region. Artists' personal biographies defy the strict nationalist designations on which the Biennale is founded, and Storr (2007) notes his challenge was to convey a more global reality. The fluidity of such global identities is reinforced by its signature image, Yto Barradas Plate Tectonics (2003), a photograph of an educational model of the continents in tectonic motion, a sculptural global map of sorts, illustrated on the back cover of each of the catalogue's three volumes. Born in France and currently working in Morocco, Barradas biography is...