A Break From Art: With Fangs

The Extended Pavilion

Being an art enthusiast has historically been respected in societies around the world, with art exhibitions being considered high-brow cultural events. Regarding the world's most prominent art events, the Venice Biennale is in a league of its own. My life revolves around the arts, and these days I exist entirely consumed in its realm. As I sit in Hildigunnur Birgisdottir's pavilion, I realise I have swallowed its meaning whole. In the majority of pavilions, interns are tucked into the corners avoiding any disruption to their country´s display, but Birgisdóttir has put us in the middle of her spectacle where we cannot be overlooked.

The exhibition title is That's a Very Large Number, an installation of works concerning our culture of consumption, and the relationship between people and items that are mass-produced for us as consumers. In Birgisdóttir's practice, she works with found objects, her show at the Biennale being no exception. Enlarged packaging, a recycled floor panel imprinted with logos, learning tools for children made from plastic, and Barbie toys adorn the walls. With each increasing moment I spend gazing upon her works, the more I discover about them. I have projected my own opinion onto them, simultaneously creating my own meaning. The longer I am situated at the pavilion, the more I feel as if her show carries a parallel conceptual meaning beyond what one perceives at first glance. Birigirsdóttir´s show has evolved into a critique of the politics surrounding art exhibitions. 

The artist has removed a wall covering a window of the pavilion, previously put there by the Biennale. Over the canal facing the window, Hildigunnur has placed a live screen video work, visible only by looking out of the previous “white cube space”. By doing so she has extended the exhibition throughout the window, and over the canal. The video work is titled Approx. 7% (2024) and is a livestream from an advertisement billboard on a street in Reykjavík, Iceland. She has not only extended the exhibition through the window, but also back to Iceland from Venice, only to show the audience advertisements.

The exhibition has extended itself into the depths of my head. Because of Birgisdóttir's works, my perception has changed of everyday items such as advertisements. I´ve begun speculating about marketing and the use of everyday items. Why are they here? What is their target audience? Is it art? When your existence revolves around art, art becomes your existence. At the pavilion I have greeted countless sweaty exhibition visitors. Arsenale is large, and the visitors come in at the end of their visit proclaiming they cannot possibly ingest more art. My reply is more often than not: I know, it's such a marathon! and every visitor nods their head. And after a long run, one needs rest.

I need my oasis in this desert of art and my interest in The Vampire Diaries serves as my escape; my way of turning the off button in my brain after a day of overthinking and overconsuming art.

The Rise of Internet Culture

I am a part of the generation of the internet. Cyberspace and social media have always served me as an escape. When I was an adolescent, there was nothing else that could calm me as well as my online playground. My peers and I spent our childhood in cyberspace until it became routine to meet your friends in chat rooms instead of the outside world to play. 

The Vampire Diaries aired its first episode while I was in primary school, fifteen years ago. The show is a teenage soap opera about brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore as they return to the town Mystic Falls, Virginia after a doppelganger of an ex-girlfriend of theirs is discovered. The brothers are two-hundred-year-old vampires being followed by a string of supernatural beings such as witches, werewolves, ghouls, and all sorts of hybrids of the previously mentioned creatures. 

The show is far from being considered high-brow culturally, rather lowbrow at best. The dialogue is simple, each character dies and comes back to life and the storyline becomes increasingly more surreal with every episode. It is as if the writers ran out of ideas as the show gained popularity. The notorious vampire book and movie series Twilight, which premiered around the same time fifteen years ago shares a similar plot. 

As a byproduct of the ironic nature of internet culture, Twilight has experienced a momentum of renaissance in the last few years. On social media platforms such as TikTok one can see young people elevate the book and movie series by buying merchandise and tattooing quotes to their bodies. Fans have been ruminating over philosophical theories and dissecting the series as they would high-brow literature and artworks. The same thing can be said about The Vampire Diaries, even though the show hasn't quite yet achieved the same level of “fandemonium” as its vampire counterpart. Therefore the show has not become the cultural icon that it deserves to be.  

One theory about this vampire renaissance; amongst others, is that vampire series have become so „tacky“ that they've become cool again. Notions of nostalgia for simpler times of the internet generation have also contributed to its revival. This explains why the Salvatore brothers have won my attention while my physical existence is in an art exhibition. 

Foreigners Everywhere, Everywhere

The theme of this year's La Biennale is Foreigners Everywhere. The title is subtracted from an artwork by Italian-British artist duo Claire Fontaine (founded in 2004 in Paris), consisting of artists Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill. The artwork Foreigners Everywhere (2005-2024) uses a phrase by a group of protesters in the Italian city of Turin at the beginning of the 21st century, who graffitied the phrase on the city's walls as a response to rising xenophobia. 

The art itself is a textwork with the phrase Foreigners Everywhere in multiple languages, for example in Italian: Stranieri Ovunque, and it is shown in two places at the exhibition site Arsenale. The title of La Biennale is therefore in both English and Italian. One part of this extensive work at Arsenale is located hanging over one of the piers. There one can see a display of colourful neon lights phrasing the words in over 20 languages.

An interesting collateral effect has formed in parallel with the work. In La Biennale's museum stores, visitors can purchase t-shirts and tote bags with the title of this year's main exhibition in both English and Italian. Because of this, the whole city is swarming with tourists and Italians alike strolling around squares, sitting down for an aperitivo, on their phones on the waterbus, everywhere, wearing the show's merchandise. The irony is obvious. They are foreigners/stranieri, and they are everywhere/ovunque. Yet the artwork's message is clear, the merchandise being everywhere elevates the original message. Xenophobia has no place anywhere because foreigners are everywhere, making you a foreigner as well. The message is distributed over a large area where all you see are foreigners. 

The Biennale continues to follow me everywhere. When I stand next to the bread stand at my local shop I look up to see Claire Fontaine's work hanging on the shoulder of a person trying to reach for the same bread as me. Being the theme, title, and one of the most important works of this year's Biennale, one can say that the tote bags and t-shirts are part of this high-brow culture. Is the merchandise an extension of the artwork itself? An argument in its favour can be made since it is a text work based upon graffiti made in civil disobedience. I wouldn't necessarily agree, but it does in fact highlight and elevate the message.

The constant reminder of the Biennale leads to my previously mentioned escape route to Mystic Falls. To sit in silence with my darling Salvatore brothers.

Say „Seychelles“

Other art works have managed to extend themselves outside of the Biennale's exhibition walls and into the minds of audiences. The National Pavilion of Seychelles at the exhibition site Arsenale is a group show with works by four artists. One of the works is titled Please Say (2024) by Australian-Seychellois artist Danielle Freakly (b. 1980).

The work is a new way of speaking. You get instructions about a game of communication revolving around dialogue between individuals who do not necessarily speak the same language through the use of the magic word Say. The goal is to manage to have interesting communication regardless of your language, for example with someone who does not know English. 

The people working in the pavilion hand visitors teal ribbons with further instructions on the game to pin onto themselves. The game then involves speaking to someone in this new way of communication when coming across another person wearing the ribbon. While I was talking to the artist herself, Freakly, she informed me that the national pavilion of Seychelles hosts whole dinner parties where all the communications are meant to follow the rules of the game. The work is a part of the artist´s ongoing exploration of “speech-theft” and de-authorship following colonisation and distorting conventional communication to expose the subtext of everyday life. 

Language and communication as an artwork. The Biennale has managed to insert itself in every corner of Venice as well as my life. It's not necessarily a bad thing, as it serves as a mindful practice and tool in seeing art and artistic opportunities in everyday life. After all, I am in Venice because of the art. However, I have noticed that I have less endurance for art after having stayed here for some time.  Eventually, I came across a person wearing the ribbon from the Seychellois pavilion. I had attached the ribbon to my bag without thinking of what would happen when coming across my counterpart. When the moment finally arrived outside the walls of La Biennale, I immediately wanted to escape that situation and quickly removed my ribbon.

Art is Not a Members Only Club

My stay here in Venice has blurred the boundaries of what is art and what's not. I´ve seen high-brow art in language, tote bags and deodorant advertisements, as a part of The Biennale but also outside of it. I´ve seen art in graffiti and oddly placed advertisements as a remembrance of previously mentioned artworks. How can it be that art can be found in these spaces but not in The Vampire Diaries which is considered lowbrow? 

The development of fine art becoming inaccessible to the average person is not necessarily positive. Accessible art that gives large groups of diverse individuals an impression is considered good. Some art needs dialogue and can be incomprehensible to a person who has not exercised their art literacy.  The point I am trying to make is not that conceptual art is any worse or better, but rather that it is a form of simplified, accessible art. There should be space for all kinds of art to flourish, simple entertainment as well as high brow, often considered more meaningful art. That would create opportunities for diverse groups of individuals to become art enthusiasts, making art accessible for all. Keeping both the entertainment aspect and the meditative practice in mind, I believe each practice should have its place within culture. And therefore, my darling vampire brothers as well.

This is the fourth article about the Venice Biennale where the main themes and ideas are explored, as well as the national pavilions, the uncertainty of current events and the main exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere which is curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Newly graduated artists from Iceland University of the Arts and art theorists from The University of Iceland, interns situated in Venice, are currently working on articles and reports of key ideas and themes of current exhibitions of La Biennale. 

Auður Mist, often known as Auja Mist, is a 23 year old artist from Reykjavík. Auja graduated from the fine arts department of IUA in 2023 and has since then worked as an artist based in Reykjavík.