On Venice

Words, Sam Hasler

Painting, On Venice, mixed media on sandpaper. 23cm x26cm, Iwan Bala, 2010

Swansea, Wales, 30th of June 2010: A symposium was held concerning Wales’ participation at the Venice Biennale. In attendance were a wide range of artists, curators, and arts administrators with varying degrees of involvement in the current and previous ‘Wales in Venice’ Projects. There had been for some time a sense of unrest within the arts community about the representation of Wales at the Venice Biennale. Importantly the unrest appears to come within a framework of overall support for the participation in the Venice Biennale. However an event such as this in the international art calendar and the complicated issue of ‘representation’ raises the stakes, viewpoints are varied, communications have been strained, the big questions needed asking...

‘On Venice’ en route.

Driving in and the landscape rises up either side of the road : hills, green city walls... outside is industry, and the wild throes of the landscape, inside are the people. The bowl of the city starts on the inner hillside settling to rest on ridges and flats, and welling up by the water side. The bay. The outer limits. The rest of the world starts here. Only water between here and Bristol, Marseille, Manhattan... Venice.

Overcast yesterday and overcast night have blended into the morning. Park the car, walk past the hospital, in through the high-rise estate of university buildings, past ‘Le Cafe’ Parisian romance ends at the name, tucked into the side of a concrete block, collecting scaffolds. Steps, concrete, stippled stonework, car park... and Taliesin arts centre.

I could tell you about the things people said at the symposium without all the journey, the coffee, the tables and chairs, the sleepless night organising price increases and decreases in a Cardiff supermarket... But I won’t. The words and events take place somewhere real. The events take place in Swansea, Wales, UK. A great many of the audience members and speakers travelled over significant distances to be present at this symposium. They saw the city, sea and the hills, maybe they stopped in ‘Le Cafe’ for a cigarette whilst on their way there. All travelling to talk and to listen. The smell of coffee is better than the taste of coffee ...readies the mind.

Now sitting in my living room to type, overcast had passed and returned. The events of that day are past and another day has passed and I’m still there at the end of the event. So I begin with where the end started to make sense.

Trust.

This, I think was the final line. The really difficult question. Do the organisations responsible for Wales participation in the Venice Biennale genuinely trust in the talent pool within Wales? Does the event work to let the best artists, curators, designers, projects managers, who live and work on welsh soil, shine on an international Stage? The evidence is complex, but it cannot be ignored that roughly half of all the exhibiting artists who have represented Wales at the Venice biennale, at the time of their exhibition, did not live nor work in the country. The temptation is there to derive that the organisations responsible maybe favour artists further afield; looking for the safety of (London) art-world validated artists with the right kind of birth certificate. Artists who will provide eye catching press releases, broadsheet journalists, bums on seats, footfall, big-boy status. The artists at home being overlooked not because they lack talent but precisely because they are at home. Precisely because they haven’t left for London, New York, Berlin... to get those validating lines on their CV. Trust?

Are artists really selected in this way? Things are never so simple.

The original question concerning trust I think can be viewed the other way round. The overwhelming feeling I get from many of my conversations , softly spoken, under gallery invites, or in cigarette circles outside the (art-haunt post-exhibition) pub, is not just, that the organisations responsible for the Venice project do not trust in the talent in Wales; but the just as serious problem that the art community in Wales does not trust those very same organisations.

Whatever decisions they make will be viewed with hints of suspicion and doubt until this is better balanced.

I don’t have the time to open up a further question but it is very important. ‘Are the things we find valuable here in Wales the same as what London and the wider art world would validate? Is there a lack of confidence in our (Welsh) understanding and cultural interaction with Art?’

I hope not.

Know why you are in Venice! (The Scottish lesson.)

The key point that I had taken from the words generously delivered by our friend (Amanda Catto, Head of Visual Arts, the Scottish Arts Council) from the ‘Scotland in Venice’ project follows:

Know why you [Wales] are in Venice!

Unknown. Unknowable?

‘The objectives of Wales taking part in the Venice Biennale are... ‘

The Model.

‘The Model’ was the how people referred to the way in which work was commissioned to represent Wales and how the project is managed and marketed. Next year, last year and past projects were all discussed. There was much less of a consensus on the issue of the model than on any other subject. People want different things.

I don’t have the required knowledge inside-out of the teams and the models to which they worked on past projects so I’m not placed to pass judgement. I heard many conflicting opinions over roughly three main issues.

First: The recent structural change from working with a selected curator to the current system of an open call for curatorial submissions. How that call was made. The time frames and pressures on the artists. Accountability for different elements of the project.

Second: How experience and knowledge was (or was not) being retained/developed within the team responsible for delivering the project.

Third: The development and appreciation of talent and expertise for the future. Possibly taking place through artist residencies and making the most of the (emerging artist/recent graduate) invigilators.

And...

And the event allowed voices to be heard and recorded (recordings of the event are soon to be available at http://www.culturecolony.com). And it allowed a certain amount of accountability to be more apparent. And I think the event should take place again after the next manifestation of the Wales Pavilion in 2011. And I felt amongst people there, a serious demand for answers and change. And there was powerful optimism between the battles.

I edit according to my personal bias, this article does not display every way that things were at that symposium. A stop for Joe’s ice cream with nuts and chocolate flakes... A bright late sun emerged at 6:30pm with a pint of Speckled Hen by the window of a Swansea watering hole, discussion was vibrant and unafraid. The platform of the symposium had thrown some things together that beer (eternal catalyst) was freeing up. I eventually set off back to Cardiff at dark, leaving the day, half wishing for the last slithers of naivety that I had arrived with... exposed bitter edges... unrest... the words that describe my optimism (and I have optimism!) after this event are not forthcoming... elude... refuse... slip... Things will not sit still to be grappled and with shifts and updates always in process there is still huge scope and possibility for the near and distant future.