[22. juni 2005]

Interview

Kristine Agergaard & Fritz Stolberg

51. Venice Biennale

To cover the 51.Venice Biennale kopenhagen.dk chose to send the two gonzo-journalists Fritz Stolberg (London) and Kristine Agergaard (Copenhagen). Well, let’s face it, your reporters for this year’s grandmother of art events, have little or nothing to do with being journalists. As a matter of fact we are both merely rats in the art-pack and went down to the deadly Venice to enjoy free champagne and mingle with the VIP’s of the art world. In return for our amazing adventures we are happy to offer kopenhagen.dk’s readers a visual journey through the maze of the seductive and intoxicating city of all cities embraced in hundreds of art works from around the globe. In order to let our readers fully embark on this journey we have left out all the boring interviews and instead packed our report with what the Biennale artists themselves have chosen to make of statements in our little black book.

WE HOPE YOU’LL ENJOY THE RIDE!!!

In tribute to all the international art lovers who will get the link to this report and due to the mutual language between your reporters the text will be in English. We hope this will not cause too much annoyance around kopenhagen.dk’s regular readers....

Fritz Stolberg (1972) is photograph, independent filmmaker and artist. Lives in London. Kristine Agergaard (1975) is a visual artist. Lives in Copenhagen.

Interview:Fritz Stolberg & Kristine Agergaard

Foto:Fritz Stolberg & Kristine Agergaard

Eva Koch, Joachim Koester, Peter Land, Ann Lislegaard, Gitte Villesen, a.o.

Venedig Biennalen

23. juni - 06. november 2005

First page in the little black book, to state the right of the owners

The Danes

As a gesture of thankfulness to our editor at kopenhagen.dk we first of all dedicated ourselves to the Danish Pavilion where especially the Danish half of our duo was happy to feel at home – as in any Friday opening with free booze...


Anders Kold and Anette Østerby while doing the opening ceremony at the Danish Pavilion		Peter Land’s installation Playground at the Danish Pavilion, where we witness the uncosy game between two bleak faced kids mechanically pushing a ball between one another...

Here we hunted down the representatives of our proud nation showing their work together under the headline “The Impossible Reality” curated by Jacob Fabricius and Sanne Kofoed. The artists are Peter Land, Ann Lislegaard, Eva Koch, Gitte Villesen and Joachim Koester. Koester unfortunately turned out to be out of our reach.


Peter Land (our favorite of the Danes) together with his mother as he contributes to the book		Peter Land’s mushroom drawing

Ann Lislegaard writes in the little black book


We think Ann Lislegaard must like the Venetian carnival better than the Biennale...		“Bellona”, still from Ann Lislegaard’s video installation at the Danish Pavilion. “Bellona” is the fictional city appearing in Samuel R. Delany’s science fiction cult classic “Dhal-gren” from 1974. An uncanny, psycho-spatial universe...

Eva Koch writes in the little black book


Before, now and forever - Eva gives us a wisdom of ungraspable time... Thank you – we love philosophy of the absurd		Still from Eva Koch’s video Approach at the Danish pavilion. A group of deaf people are performing a song for a choir with great intensity. Language and the issues of translation is put forward as it is accompanied with a voice over translating the lyrics which has its thematic starting point in Dante Alighieri´s famous epos “The Divine Comedy”

We met Gitte Villesen outside the Danish Pavilion but she didn’t feel like contributing to our book. She found it too superficial


I capture you. You capture me Double screen video installation by Gitte Villesen, which portrait herself in a conversation with her friend Helene Hermann. The piece becomes more of a portrait of her friend’s personal story		Gitte Villesen’s vetrine showing objects from the film

Joachim Koester’s film installation "Message from Andrée" shows a documentation of a North Pole exhibition in a hot air balloon which ended with the unfortunate crash of the balloon. The only remains were some film shots only discovered decades later. These have been shot again by Koester and what’s left is the “black snow” that appears on the film. Unfortunately we couldn’t get proper images of the film but the poetry of the piece might shine through the immateriality of our documentation...

Other Danes

We encountered loads of other Danes on our way through the champagne of the Danish Pavilion and we talked several into take part in our report. We thought this might be juicy stuff for our readers at kopenhagen.dk as this well esteemed magazine in its hey days used to give so great insider knowledge into the self acclaimed celebrities of the art world in the village of Copenhagen...


Kenneth Balfelt always being a flirt...		Balfelt is of course up for a political comment (we promised to write it was a comment to Tino Sehgal’s piece – this piece is documented later)

The Mr. France of Denmark, Monsieur Colonel, is of course present in the Biennale with his very own show!		Our favorite Danish museum inspector Morten Søndergaard happily joins our art project...

Unfortunately we missed out Colonels rolling suitcase competition		...but reveals he is perhaps a bit more into the party?


Rosan Bosch always on the ball...		...even giving us a signed art piece (for free) for our collection!

JOHN BOCK at the Arsenale show “Always a Little Further”

In order to head back on a bit more serious track we decided to make a proper feature story of The Biennale. With a bad hang over from the German party the previous night/morning we arrived Friday after sleeping a few hours at 5 pm at The Arsenale show... Here we were surprisingly refreshed by the performance of German artist John Bock and actor colleague Thomas Loibel.

John Bock Installation view

We got so excited that we just had to get into it with all our flesh and bones, throwing ourselves with fan-like admiration into the very real adventure orchestrated by the devils themselves playing out a fantasy of Kaspar Hauser, the child that was locked away from birth till the age of 17, an experiment on human behavior initiated once upon a time by a German king...

Kaspar Hauser is the ultimate outsider: without speech, reason, memory, and without human contact since childhood. Initially treated as a curiosity and a freak, he is gradually educated in the ways of Western civilization, but his invitation into the mysteries of language, logic, and religion only drives him to despair.

To keep up the good spirits we decided not to loose the energetic spasms of the experience. This is why, dear readers, you will have to enjoy this report in its pure raw form: Notes and photographs have been taken on site - no manipulation or editing has been made...


Thomas Loibel after the performance whiping his face off from grease, flour, food, etc.		Thomas Loibel’s greeting to all of us at kopenhagen.dk

John Bock after the performance while contributing to our little black book		John Bockdecides to make a self portrait as seen after the performance...

Other artists in the book

Venice Biennale is after all a conglomeration of Nations of the World. We will not get too much into the issues of World Politics at this stage but will merely enjoy and dwell in the romantic deception of all the Nations coming together in a beautiful art exchange. For the first time ever The People’s Republic of China had selected its own artists (where it before happened through Chinese representatives in the US). So as we fell over some wonderful flying saucers, convinced that some UFO had found its way to the art navel of the world, we were astounded to find some Chinese farmers behind the wonder and who were outside China for the first time!


Du Wenda Chinese farmers and friends at the 51.Venice Biennale. The translator revealed to us it was a big experience for them to be here		Through great support from a translator we talked the leader of the Chinese pack into be the first contributor to our collection of statements...

We don’t quite know what it says but it seems exotic...		The farmers had build these flying objects but as the translator explained, even the creators of these machines were wondering if it would ever fly... nevertheless they were going to give it a go!

Another high light on our trip around the Biennale was the Pavilion from Belgium where we found the artist Honoré d’O being very excited to give us material for this report:


Wondering around Honoré d’O mad installation that seemed like the inside of a giant autonomous computer, Honoré d’O makes a kind of action drawing...		...being the first artist to use a double page!...

...not quite different from his artistic method


South African born Berlin based artist Candice Breitz was another of our favorites. She took part in the curated show at the Italian pavilion, "The Experience of Art”		Candice makes a great reference to her double video installation “mother” and “father”

: ...where cut out Hollywood actors through cliché frases investigate the idea of motherhood and fatherhood in contemporary mass culture,


German artist Thomas Scheibitz’ striped painting might have something to do with...		...this lady in front of the German pavilion

Quite a different approach from the German representative, Tino Sehgal, where people wearing the uniform of the Biennale staff involve the visitor in their actions by the use of movement and language...		This is not a statement from the artist but from one of his employees of the performance, whose main concern was that we wouldn’t take a photo of the work

Your reporters can’t help but love real performative flesh why we had to stop by some locals making up a window display – in apology to our readers we must confess that this has nothing to do with the Biennale...


Exhibitionists outside the exhibition		...and their amorous greeting

...as well as good advice to all the art lovers

Very intriguing and inspiring indeed was the meeting with the French international acclaimed sound and performance artist Valerie Vivancos who joined the Danish show Contemplation Room in 2002


Also Valerie Vicancos found the time to contribute to the little black book...		...giving a sophisticated lingual gesture to our readers...

...and showing us her latest sound compilation album from vibrofiles.com (music freaks: check it out – but please mind that the black beauty in the background is not part of the package)

And all the rest

For the more curious readers who’ll miss out this year’s Biennale we’ll give a final potpourri of our favorite pieces:


Barbara Kruger on facade of Italian pavilion as entrance part of the show “The Experience of Art”		Amazing Spanish photographer Cristina Garcia Rodero

Real action at Dan Graham’s Glass Pavilion		Ed Ruscha with fantastic and stylised painting representing the Empire of United States

We can’t help but love them old faggots, Gilbert & George – doing the same for 30 years and still with a fresh mind – just like doing yoga		Jorge Macchi disco ball that instead of light sheds bullet holes

The visitor gets electrodes on their head when they enter the virtual reality of Mariko Mori’s space ship		Poetic video animation with kids playing on fictive toys drawn with chalk on the ground by Robin Rhode

A journey to the paradise of the new world by Argentine artist Sergio Vega		Cinematopgarphic alchemy and magical poetry by South African artist William Kentridge

The opening of the Venice Biennale is an overload of art but had it not been for the great parties who would care to go for the time of the opening? ‘Cause as important as the art is the fantastic adventures of social interaction between art lovers from around the world...


Hang out at the alternative art space Mars Pavilion just next to the legendary Giardini where the national pavilions are located		Art in progress at the Mars Pavilion

Kraftwerk dj’ing till dawn at the German party...		...while the babes are swinging on stage...

...and an after party shot of the beaten track... art holidays are tough – but we love it! Chiao Italy – see you in 2 years time!

LOVE AND HARMONY FROM FRITZ & KRISTINE – ENJOY THE SUMMER!