Over three days in late August and early September, the Japanese and Korean pavilions will also collaborate on special performances of a 20-minute participatory opera. That’s the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nature of many performances at the Biennale.
Some performance artists invited by their national pavilions simply declined to provide live elements, like Bugarin + Castle, the duo representing Scotland. Instead of their usual performances, the artists have created an installation, “Shame Parade,” which is inspired by carnivalesque processions through history. Watching it, I longed to see the artists, both drag performers, in live action.
That could have happened as part of Venice’s Theater or Dance Biennales, two events under the same umbrella as the contemporary art juggernaut — but there seems to be limited appetite for programming crossovers. Indeed, I also wondered how some works in the Dance Biennale, which concluded on Aug. 1, would have looked in exhibition spaces, like Molissa Fenley’s graphic, minimalist “Bardo,” a potent Keith Haring tribute performed by the 71-year-old Fenley herself.
What cannot satisfyingly replace human presence, however, is a digital stand-in. This year, alongside the Biennale, Abramovic is being honored in a major exhibition at Venice’s venerable Gallerie dell’Accademia, a museum dedicated to pre-19th-century Venetian paintings. Yet her show, “Transforming Energy,” features no regular live performance: Abramovic appears instead as a digital avatar, described in publicity materials as “enabling a performative presence.”
The reality was baffling. In a recent series known as “Transitory Objects,” Abramovic has turned to crystals as a source of inspiration, building interactive structures — arches, beds — embedded with the stones. At the Gallerie dell’Accademia, she appeared on screens to explain to visitors how to partake in the experience. In one video, her avatar, dressed in a blue-gray jumpsuit, glided under a crystal arch, opening her palms outward as if to welcome invisible energy, then glided off, expressionless.
