The review was originally published in the 2015 summer issue of The Brussels Times Magazine

The world is changing and changing fast. Today’s world political structure, founded on the legacy of the Westphalian Peace Treaty from 1648, is evidently  out of date. The global geopolitical map that followed after the end of World War II does not represent the actual political weights between today’s global powers. Futurologists speak of Europe as a ‘global pension house’ in 20-30 years’ time, as the median age in Europe will increase to 45 years by then.

We, as mankind, don’t live in ‘the world’ in the singular sense anymore. Just like before Columbus, we inhabit ‘the worlds’. They are interconnected and close to each other, thanks to technology. But it is quite obvious that the solidity of ‘the world’ as a neoliberal, democracy-driven ‘train’, with the United States as its engine, doesn’t exist any longer. The train has lost its steam, speed and the conductor got confused. Europe is one of the leading ‘wagons’ of this train and the actual ‘designer’ of the whole train in the first place. It is confused and lost:
although it denounced its past colonialist approach in order to maintain its conceptual world primacy, it still didn’t manage to come up with an alternative vision for its place in the new world. Europe is at a point of strategic reconfiguration of its self-esteem. Like a person in a mid-life crisis, it needs to take decisions that will affect its development for decades to come.

Venice is probably the most inconvenient city in the world for staging massive art shows. But that fact, on the other hand, makes it a perfect poetic space for
exhibiting contemporary art. The Venice Biennale established the format of the international art exhibition in 1895, which since then has become a benchmark:
there are more than a hundred biennales around the world at the moment. The Biennale in Venice remains the most prestigious of all. It is, in a way, the fair of fairs and the show of the shows. Every two years, one of the most prominent curators in the world takes over the planning of this magnificent, multidimensional event.

The event is colossal: 2 main exhibitions, around 100 ‘national pavilions’ and 50 ‘collateral’ events is just the official program of the Biennale. Each pavilion and
collateral event is basically an exhibition on it’s own. The two main exhibitions are so big, that you would need at least a day to just walk one through without too much haste. The whole experience of the Biennale is uniquely impactful: each day makes you feel like you have read hundreds of books.

In this year’s edition, the curator is Okwui Enwezor, the director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, the first chief curator of Venice Biennale with an African origin (he was born in Nigeria). The central theme of the mega-exhibition this year is at the height of what it means to be ‘political’ - ‘All the World’s Futures’. Enwezor’s
message is very timely - he invited hundreds of curators from all around the world to reflect on the subject of possible futures. The universality of the Western-led model of liberal democracy and capitalism is questioned. The world has already become multipolar, even though the leading ‘superpower’, the United States, will still occupy a special place on the world map for some time to come. The other global players - China, India, Brazil, the EU and Russia - seem to have the ambition to work out alternative visions of the world.

The point of departure and central text in the exhibition is Marx’s ‘Das Kapital’. I’m afraid that this is the biggest conceptual disappointment of the curatorial concept. Speaking about the future with the 19th century text of Karl Marx sounds to me rather outdated. I am not saying that this text is unimportant now - quite the opposite. The actuality of Marx’s legacy is the very essence of ultra-capitalism: the reduction of life to materialism explains why
his book is the most re-printed edition in human history after the Bible. But I would argue that it is much more important to look at the possible futures
with contemporary philosophical and conceptual perspectives. The works of John Rawls, Thomas Piketty, Gilles Deleuze are ‘fresher’ and more relevant
to current events.

Enwezor’s Biennale is definitely worth a mindful visit. Both main exhibitions, one in Giardini (the gardens, that were the first location for the exhibition more than 100 years ago) and the other in Arsenale (the former military arsenal of Venice - makes one recall that Venice was a mighty state once) provide plenty
of food for thought. The pavilions are still presented by countries, making Biennale look like a world fair (which is also staged in Italy, in Milan, by the way - just a few hours of train travel from Venice).

The ‘Olympics of Contemporary Art’ comes to mind, especially as one learns about the ‘Golden Lion’ awards that are presented by a committee for ‘best
artists’ and ‘best pavilions’.

The Canadian pavilion, which was playfully renamed to ‘Canadassimo’, is my personal favourite. You enter a fake regular small shop, the kind of which you find at gas stations in Canada, the US or elsewhere. It is full of junky stuff, but most of them are strangely blurred. The reference to our ever speeding consumer culture is evident: we don’t focus on precious items anymore. The abundance of logos, boxes of every kind and the crazy colour palette of the shelves makes us feel dizzy. You go further in the second room and find yourself in a ‘factory’, where copies and imitations are produced. Templates, paint cans, brushes, tools and everything else that is necessary to copy, paste, imitate and massively produce. Finally, you go upstairs to a constructed external balcony where you are invited to put a couple of euros into a meta-slot machine: and then observe how the coin will pass through the bouncing mechanisms and end up stuck somewhere in the transparent wall of the pavilion. The whole pavilion reads as a playful introduction to the market economy. The pavilion of the Nordic countries (Norway, Finland, Sweden) presents an amazing installation named ‘Rupture’ by Camille Norment with broken windows and sound pieces. It is produced by very unusual musical instruments.

The Belgian pavilion, directed by Vincent Meesen and curator Katerina Gregos, unpacks a post-colonial outlook from a group of artists covering history and present. The Netherlands pavilion treats Herman de Vries’ multidimensional artistic research about the future. The Spanish pavilion looks at the future heritage of pop culture by referring to the past.

Apart of the main projects of the Biennale covering the topic of ‘All the World’s Futures’, numerous respectable art foundations and centers also stage their own exhibitions in different locations around the city. Fondazione Prada is an ‘absolute must’: the conceptual quality of the show is at the very top of the spectrum. During the Biennale, the show ‘Portable Classic’, co-curated by Salvatore Settis and Davide Gasparotto, explores the origins and functions of miniature reproductions of classical sculptures. It showcases more than 80 artworks. ‘The copy of the copy of the copy‘ exhibition illustrates how Renaissance artists employed small-scale copies to elaborate hypotheses on the missing portions of the classical originals.

When you plan your travel, keep in mind that the best time to visit the shows is when they are not overcrowded, for example in August. The downside of this period would be the extreme heat, up to +40 degrees. Another good moment would be end of November, which falls during the last days of the Biennale. Some of the events, for example ‘Eccoci!’ (‘Here we are!’), a performance piece by Brazilian artist Berna Reale (imagine an artist who is also a forensic investigator in Belem’s police force in Brazil), will be re-staged during the last three days of the Biennale.