alfredo jaar: chile pavilion at the venice art biennale 2013

alfredo jaar: chile pavilion at venice art biennale 2013image © designboom

alfredo jaar: chile pavilion at the venice art biennale 2013

every 3 minutes from the water emerges a perfect replica of the giardini with the 28 national pavilions. visitors entering the arsenale space encounter a pool filled with lagoon water and only see the water’s reflections on the walls. for a long time nothing happens and some impatient spectators just walk by and do not even realize that soon something will happen. those who stay will be rewarded!

the history of the venice art biennale dates back more than 100 years, with the first edition held in 1895. originally conceived as a national art exhibition held within the city of water’s giardini, it saw the construction of the first foreign pavilion, belgium, in 1907. today, the biennale’s main venue is home to 28 permanent national pavilions; in which the work of all other participants of the represented countries can be viewed at offsite locations across venice. as chile’s 2013 selected artist, alfredo jaar focuses directly on the international art exhibition’s unintentional hierarchical and exclusive model; one that has continued to be practiced and unchanged for years as a result of its early issues.

alfredo jaar on his contribution to the 2013 venice art biennale

‘venezia, venezia’ sees jaar reproducing the entirety of the giardini venue and the architecture of the site as it stands today, in the form of a 1:60 scale model. in constructing the replica of the pavilions and their surrounding nature, the artist has intended to create a utopia, in which we see the archetype being submerged into a pool of murky, green water, and then re-emerging, like a ghost from history.

some visitors might ask: ‘where is chile in this immersive site-specific installation?’

taking more than a year to realize, the choice to present a physical model is a metaphor for artists’s use of three-dimensional representations as a means of analyzing and thinking about the world. in this case, jaar proposes an adaptation of the biennale so that it becomes something less nationalistic, encouraging instead a broader cultural discourse. ‘venezia, venezia’ stands as an allegorical interpretation of the impact that artists can make in effecting our global culture… and in addition, it could also mean that there is an emerging art scene in chile.

the national pavilions slowly drown into a pool of green, murky waterimage © designboom