Berlin Biennale 2010 & Naked People On Screens
It is always a pleasure to know that a train ride from Prague lays the city of Berlin, especially when your trip falls right in the midst must-see art happenings… and a couple of parties too.
The weekend was over and the hangovers were fought with the usually concoction of triple lattes, vegan fry-ups and a guilty Nurofen Express. We were ready to embark on a journey around the city, tracing the numerous venues hosting the 6th edition of the Berlin Biennale.
Squeezing 8 venues into two days appeared to be a traitorous marathon of cigarette breaks, toilet hunting and bear cruising. Nevertheless, we kept the best for the end: the abandoned multi-storey building on Oranienplatz 17, in Kreuzberg, my favorite neighborhood. Fortunately, the space was virtually left for us as only a few other visitors were present. I say fortunately because multi-storey is synonymous with multi-artist, implying one needs to be able to focus a little in order to digest the work of nearly 40 artists.
The Biennale was strongly criticized by the locals, public funders and international reviews, mainly because of some the location choices. Five out of eight venues were based in Kreuzberg which by night is crammed with queer nights and other shenanigans, but is for the rest of the time a poor area of the capital. The curator, Kathrin Rhomberg, was vilified for aggravating the gentrification of the neighborhood but to my knowledge, Kreuzberg has already gone past the stage of gentrification for quite a while.
Throughout the ascension of the Oranienplatz location, which held the majority of exhibited artists in the Biennale, one could not help but notice that the greater part of the content were video works. Some moaned about this statistic, but I was rather reassured. Not to undermine any other medium, I merely believe that a Biennale should be representative of current art practices. To work along a curatorial theme such as What Is Waiting Out There and its emphasis on reality and truth in the modern techno-global world, film seems like a legitimate medium to focus on.
Past the sight of demonstrating French youth and reminiscing East European middle age women, a half naked man in what seemed to be a public toilet caught my eye, naturally. I was instantly absorbed by the piece as the artists were crudely pushing sexual boundaries of Israeli men and women in random club lavatories. In their series of videos Beyond Guilt, Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir were not merely asking lesbian couples to make out in front of the camera in exchange of cash, they were also displaying underlying issues of Israeli society. Through a game of power relations based on the rules of sexual roles and gender identity, the two female artists bring their subjects to reveal themselves through their intimate secrets, their political views and anecdotes about their time in the military service.
Sela and Maayan’s series of video interviews are unique in the sense that they are on the verge of being unethical (especially because cash buys them information) but this very borderline position allows them to get much deeper and much closer to their interviewees. Most importantly their work sheds a light on how intricately local politics, sex, gender identity and the military system are entangled.
Excerpt from Beyond Guilt 1:
http://www.digitalartlab.org.il/ArchiveVideo.asp?id=354
Excerpt from Beyond Guilt 2:
http://www.digitalartlab.org.il/ArchiveVideo.asp?id=355
Excerpt from Beyond Guilt 3:
