Circa 114: Article
Venice
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| Peter Richards: camera obscura Installation shot Piazza San Marco, Venice 2005; courtesy the artist |
When I first heard there would be an exhibition of northern artists at this year's Venice Biennale, my immediate response was one of ambivalence, and the initial doubts remain.
I was delighted that the decision would provide an additional platform for artists in Ireland, especially for those who might otherwise have been neglected as a result of their geographical location - so delighted, in fact, that I submitted, with a colleague, an application to curate the show.
Hugh Mullholland made his selection with the intelligence and foresight we've come to expect and (having myself missed the opportunity to see the show and going by reports from trusted friends) the resultant show has proved to be a big success.
Such a move, however, is inevitably going to produce a political impact. Even in what is for the most part a self-consciously apolitical Irish art world, the question of the border arises from time to time and if there was any surprise at the response to the announcement of the northern show, it was at the comparative silence regarding the partitionist result of the decision.
Perhaps the south would prefer to retain its 32-county remit, but for the northern show to include the work of an artist outside the six northern counties is highly unlikely. This in turn complicates matters for the south. Such is the nature of the island's partition - separatist activity in the north forces southern bodies to rethink their all-Ireland mindsets. And this at a time when we should be expecting Agreement-inspired cross-border cooperation. As the questions in Declan Sheehan's survey show, the complications go beyond this. Which exhibition shows an artist from the north but living in the south, and vice versa? And what of the border towns whereby, for example, a "Derry artist" might live ten minutes' drive from his or her city centre-studio, crossing the border during the journey? Will artists and curators who don't recognise the border be forced to exclude themselves, because of their political beliefs?
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| Mary McIntyre: The Italian room, 2005 lightjet print 74 x 89cm; courtesy the artist |
Similar questions arose for me in 2000, at Manifesta 3 in Ljubljana. It came about in relation to those artists "representing Northern Ireland", when it was realised that of the four selected, three were English and one Scottish. The issue snowballed throughout the show, with artists and the exhibition's four curators questioning the notion of representation. The show included work by artists from eastern Europe who were displaced from their countries of origin, artists who had shifted location for political reasons, for economic reasons, for artistic reasons and, I guess, just because they wanted to. The confusion was ironic, considering that the theme of the itinerant biennale that year was the paradoxical confirmation and blurring of national boundaries in relation to the globalisation of economies and cultural practice. While this was a conceptual determinant in the selection procedure, the practical outcomes of that procedure only became apparent when the artists arrived in Ljubljana en masse.
So, not only were the four "Northern Ireland representatives" not indigenous Irish (but in the end, of course, deemed to be OK because we were UK citizens), the selection was based on the concept that work which raised questions about the north/south border necessitated only representation from its northern side. In this way, then, an exhibition that aimed at revealing the dissolution of borders resulted in a ratification of Ireland's partition.
Hence my ambivalence regarding the northern exhibition in Venice. A modest proposal: a five-way show, with the involvement of both arts councils, consisting of work by artists from Dublin and each of the four provinces. This would scatter representation across the island and create whole new arguments which at least sidestep the border issue and give opportunities to artists who might otherwise have been overlooked.
Colin Darke is an artist.
