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178 179Jasna Jakšić, Istanbul Biennale
What Keeps Mankind Alive?
Jasna Jakšić
¶ At the end of recession-hit 2009, the Istanbul Biennale,
signed by the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom (WHW),
opened the question: What Keeps Mankind Alive? This is a quotation
from The Threepenny Opera1 by Brecht written in 1928, the last
years of the Weimar Republic when Nazi rule was approaching on a
road paved with economic crisis. The English translation of
Brecht’s verse: ‘What Keeps Mankind Alive?’ was the title of the
11th Biennale, which was thematically focused on politics and the
economy or, more precisely, political and economic human rights in
times of crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. Twenty years after the
fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the communist system in
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, liberal democracy has not
triumphantly made the world a commu nity of happy and competitive
consumers. ¶ Brecht’s verses (as well as his figure as an
artist/activist who transformed theatre into a place of political
debate on the formal dividing line between avant-garde and public
theatre) are the thematic and, above all, methodological point of
reference of this exhi-
1 In Marko Fortez’s translation: ‘Who Rules the World?’ Brecht,
Bertolt; The Threepenny Opera; Zora, Zagreb, 1964
11th International Istanbul Biennale
fotografije photographs by
decolonizing.ps (Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman),
Installation ‘Returns’
bition. It is an exhibition that despite the form of a biennale
– according to the statements of curators Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević,
Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović – does not have the intention of
talking about global issues through a local prism or the ma-tizing
the charisma of Istanbul and its multi layered history in the warm
embrace of cultural tourism. Istanbul is a starting point for
posing questions which the biennale tackles in the region between
the former socialist republics and democracies of the Near East:
between geostrategic areas where the political and economic future
of the world is negotiated. ¶ The openly ambitious political
programme could not get away without criti-cism, which was directed
at the curatorial project by the Left with the slogan ‘socialism or
barbarianism’: there was the ob-jection related to the
reactualization of the figure of Brecht in the biennale which, as a
form, cannot evade the label of an ‘emi-nent neoliberal event’ on
the one hand, and additional contro-ver sies emerged because of the
identity of the financier2.
2 It is, namely, the Koç Concern, one of the largest groups in
Turkey, and their activities spread throughout the world of big
business can be related to not so humanitarian flows of goods and
money.
Jasna Jakšić, Bijenale Istanbul
Od čega čovjek živi?
napisalawritten by
¶ Na izmaku recesijske 2009. Bijenale u Istanbulu, koje
pot-pisuje kustoski kolektiv ‘Što, kako i za koga’ (WHW) otvara
pitanje: ‘Od čega čovjek živi?’ Citat je to iz Brechtove ‘Opere za
tri groša’1, napisane 1928., na zalasku Weimarske republike kojoj
se na putu popločenom ekonomskom krizom približavao nacizam.
Engleski prijevod Brechtova stiha ‘What keeps man-kind alive’ naziv
je 11. izdanja bijenala i u tematski fokus stavlja politiku i
ekonomiju ili, preciznije, ljudska politička i eko noms-ka prava u
vremenu krize neoliberalnog kapitalizma. Dvadeset godina nakon pada
Berlinskog zida i kraha komunističkog sustava u Istočnoj Europi i
Sovjetskom Savezu liberalna demo-kracija nije pobjedonosno učinila
svijet zajednicom sretnih i kompetitivnih potrošača. ¶ Brechtovi
stihovi, kao njegova figura umjetnika/aktivista koji je teatar
pretvorio u mjesto političke debate na formalnom razboju između
avangardnog i pučkog kazališta, tematsko su i, nadasve, metodološko
upo-rište izložbe. Izložbe koja, prema izjavama kustosica Ivet
Ćurlin, Ane Dević, Nataše Ilić i Sabine Sabolović, unatoč formi
1 U prijevodu Marka Forteza ‘Tko svijetom vlada?’, Brecht,
Bertolt. Opera za tri groša. Zagreb: Zora, 1964.,
11. Istanbulski bijenale
bijenala nema namjeru kroz lokalnu prizmu govoriti o glo-balnim
problemima ni tematizirati karizmu Istabula i njegovu slojevitu
povijest u toplom zagrljaju kulturnog turizma. Is-tanbul je
polazište za postavljanje pitanja kojima se Bijenale bavi na
području bivših socijalističkih republika i bliskoistočnih
demokracija; među geostrateškim mjestima na kojima se do-govara
politička i ekonomska budućnost svijeta. ¶ Otvoreno ambiciozan
politički program nije mogao proći bez kritika, koje kustoskom
projektu čija je deviza ‘Socijalizam ili bar barst-vo’ upućuje
upravo ljevica: s jedne se strane zamjera reaktu-alizacija
Brechtove figure na Bijenalu koji, kao forma, ne može izbjeći
etiketi ‘eminentnog neoliberalnog događaja’, a dodatne su
kontroverze nastupile zbog sponzorstva Koç koncerna. Riječ je,
naime, o jednoj od najvećih grupacija u Turskoj, čije se razgranate
aktivnosti u svijetu krupnog kapitala mogu po-vezati sa ne
pretjerano humanitarnim tokovima roba i novca. Nadalje, ekonomska
kriza kojom se izložba bavi ugasila je brojna radna mjesta, a u
neoliberalnom društvu kultura živi u velikoj mjeri upravo od
korporativnih sponzora. No možda je od pozicije u sustavu
umjetnosti koji se u velikoj mjeri oslanja
decolonizing.ps (Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman),
Instalacija ‘Povratak’
Ljubaznošću umjetnika/ Courtesy of the artists
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180 181Jasna Jakšić, Istanbul Biennale
Furthermore, the economic crisis which the exhibition deals with
has resulted in the loss of numerous jobs, and in a neoliberal
society, it is precisely corporate sponsors from which culture
largely lives. Nevertheless, perhaps the position of speech is more
important than the position in the system of art which to great
extent relies on sponsorship and there was an attempt to observe
this from a number of angles, primarily in the essays in the
biennale reading book. Even though the money intended for marketing
and corporative communications was used for the dethronement of
capitalism. ¶ ‘All money is dirty, but all the money is ours,’ was
the laconic response by Mladen Stilinović to the doubts raised
about the financial construction of this international artistic
event. In the work Nobody Wants to See, Stilinović visualizes the
fact that three people in the world possess just as much as six
hundred million of the poorest: he writes the number 3 exactly that
many times, thus transforming it into almost an element of value.
If we pose the question again: ‘What Keeps Mankind Alive?’ the
refrain from the second stanza of the quoted number from Brecht’s
Opera says: ‘Since bread is scarce, all morals are a lie.’
Stilinović’s Works with Food (created from 1979 to 2009),
visual-verbal rebus-like constructions on coloured surfaces and
enamelled plates, words that refer to food and the pleasure of
food, are transformed into battlefields of
Mladen Stilinović, Works with Food,
1978-2009
Jumana Emil Abboud, video Pomegranate, 2005
more than merely semantic conflicts. In video works by
Jeru-salem-based artist Jumana Emil Abbound, food (or more
pre-cisely, lemons and pomegranates) is the object of personal
rituals and private subversions. The artists smuggles the entire
fruit of a lemon tree from her own Jerusalem garden, with all the
connotations which a form of fruit tree can have, and in the video
Taking Back the Pomegranate she records her own labo-rious placing
of juicy red arils back into the fruit’s shell. This difficult and
seemingly senseless activity, in its own simple and impossible
mission, prefigures painful processes of redemption and return
which still lie ahead. On the other hand, the collective
decolonizing.ps (Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, and Eyal Weiz-man)
propose the revitalization and conversion of Israeli colo-nial
structures in the West Bank region from military bases into
settlers’ houses. Naturally, the intention is not duplication of
the same procedures on the part of Palestinian structures; it is
the conversion of architecture which used to serve for con-quering
territory into a new purpose – the building of a demi-litarized,
open society. The installation Returns projects a poetic joke of
nature: the former military facilities serve as a refuge for birds
that migrate to warmer regions. The fairytale-like and mythical
dimension of the project (very fortunately set in a classroom in an
abandoned Greek School in the Feriköy district),
Mladen Stilinović, Geometry for the poor,
2009
oris, broj 60, godina 2008 oris, number 60, year 2008 Jasna
Jakšić, Bijenale Istanbul
na sponzorstva, što se, prvenstveno esejima u bijenalskoj
čitanci, nastojalo višestruko sagledati, važnija pozicija govora.
Makar se novac usmjeren u marketing i korporativne komu-nikacije
koristio za detronizaciju kapitalizma. ¶ ‘Sav novac je prljav, ali
sav je novac naš’, lakonski je odgovorio Mladen Stili-nović na
dvojbe oko financijske konstrukcije međunarodne umjetničke
manifestacije. U radu Nobody Wants to See Stili-nović vizualizira
činjenicu da 3 osobe na svijetu posjeduju ono liko koliko posjeduje
šest stotina milijuna najsiromašnijih: brojku 3 ispisuje upravo
toliko puta pretvorivši je gotovo u vrijednosni element. Ponovimo
pitanje: ‘Od čega čovjek živi?’ ‘Jer nema hljeba, sav je moral
laž’, reći će refren iz druge strofe citiranog broja iz Brechtove
Opere. Stilinovićevi Radovi s hranom (nas tali od 1979. – 2009.),
vizualno-verbalne rebuso idne konst rukcije na obojenim plohama i
emajliranim tanju rima, riječi koje se odnose na hranu i njezino
uživanje trasformiraju u poprišta ne samo značenjskih sukoba. U
videoradovima jeru-zalemske umjetnice Jumane Emil Abbound hrana,
odnosno plodovi limuna i nara, predmeti su osobnih rituala i
privatnih subverzija. Umjetnica iz vlastita jeruzamlemskog vrta
šverca sve plodove drveta limuna, sa svim konotacijama koje oblik
voćke može imati, dok u videu ‘vraćanje nara’ snima vlasto-ručno
mukotrpno utiskivanje sočnih crvenih bobica u koru ploda. Teška i
naizgled besmislena djelatnost u svojoj jednos-tavnoj i nemogućoj
misiji prefigurira bolne procese iskupljenja i povratka, koji se
još uvijek iščekuju. S druge strane, kolektiv ‘Decolonizing.ps’
(Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Eyal Weizman) predlaže utopijsku
revitalizaciju i prenamjenu izraelskih kolo-nijalističkih
struktura, od vojnih baza do naseljeničkih kuća na području Zapadne
obale. Naravno, ne smjera se na dupli-ranje istih pos tu paka od
strane palestinskih struktura, već na prenamjenu arhitekture koja
je služila osvajanju teritorija u svrhu izgradnje
demilitariziranog, otvorenog društva. Insta-lacija Povratak
projicira poetsku šalu prirode kako nekadašnji vojni objekti
pružaju utočište pticama koje migriraju u toplije krajeve.
Bajkovitu i mitsku dimenziju projekta, vrlo sretno postavljenog u
jednoj od učionica napuštene grčke škole u četvrti Feriköy,
predavanje o tome kako ‘nastaniti kuću svoga neprijatelja’ za
odsutne učenike, naglašava i oblik Knjige povratka, savitljivih
metalnih korica sa pseudoheraldičkim znakom ptice selice.
Kraljevski grabežljivici ustupili su mjesto mig-rantima i nomadima.
¶ U napuštenoj školi, najnovijoj od tri bijenalske lokacije (druge
dvije, Anrepo i Tütun Deposu, koje se nalaze uz obalu već su
udomile izložbu u prethodna dva izdanja), svoj je priručnik za
poslijediplomsko obrazovanje predstavio i osobno prodavao Siniša
Labrović. Popraćen sjaj-nim ilustracijama Igora Hofbaeura,
Postdiplomsko obrazovanje
Mladen Stilinović, ‘Works with Food’,
1978.-2009.
Jumana Emil Abboud, video ‘Nar’, 2005.
Mladen Stilinović, ‘Geometry for the
poor’, 2009.
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182 183Jasna Jakšić, Istanbul Biennale
a lecture on ‘How to settle in the house of your enemy’ for
absent students, is additionally stressed by the form of a Book of
Returns with flexible metal covers and a pseudo-heraldic sign of a
migratory bird. Royal birds of prey have ceded their place to
migrants and nomads. ¶ In the abandoned school, the newest of the
three Biennale locations (the other two, Anrepo and Tütun Deposu,
which are situated near the coast, have already hosted two previous
exhibitions), Siniša Labrović presented and was personally selling
his own manual for postgraduate edu cation. Accompanied by
excellent illustrations by Igor Hofbauer, Post
Yüksel Arslan, Das Kapital series, 1970-73
Yüksel Arslan, Das Kapital series,
1970-73
Canan Şenol, Examplary, 2009.
Siniša Labrović, Postgraduate Education (illustrations by Igor
Hofbauer), 2009
oris, broj 60, godina 2008 oris, number 60, year 2008 Jasna
Jakšić, Bijenale Istanbul
Yüksel Arslan, iz serije ‘Kapital’ 1970.-73.
Yüksel Arslan, iz serije ‘Kapital’ 1970.-73.
Canan Şenol, Examplary, 2009.
Siniša Labrović, Postdiplomslo obrazovanje (ilustracije Igor
Hofbauer), 2009.
korisnicima daje pouzdane infor macije i nekoliko trikova o tome
kako ostvariti res pek tabilnu i lagodnu karijeru ugledna
kriminalca: kako se snaći na granici i s one strane zakona. U
vrijeme kada se znanje tretira kao roba, oprostite, kapital, takav
vid ulaganja u razvoj vlastitih poten cijala mogao bi se pokazati
kao iznimno isplativ. ¶ Kapital, čija je prodaja, kako javljaju
mediji, unatrag godinu dana iznimno porasla, sedamdesetih je godina
ilustrirao turski umjetnik s
prebivalištem u Parizu Yüksel Arslan. Kroz postav izložbe
prov-lače se njegove ilustracije i crteži, čiji su minuciozni
detalji prožeti dubokom satirom. Fantazmagorične kreature i
insce-nacije bliske su nadrealističkoj poetici: doista, Arslan se u
svom višedesetljetnom samovoljnom pariškom egzilu družio, između
ostalih, i s Bretonom. No prije da je nadrealizam samo inkorporirao
u svoju arture, kako naziva vlastitu umjetničku praksu. Arslanu je
dan nakon inauguracija Bijenala otvorena prva retrospektiva u
Turskoj, u muzeju Santralistanbul, povo-dom koje se nakon 42 godine
vratio u domovinu. Njegova se
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184 185Jasna Jakšić, Istanbul Biennale
graduate Education provides reliable information and some tips
for users on how to achieve a respectable and comfortable career as
a reputable criminal: how to manage on the borderline and on the
wrong side of the law. In times when knowledge is treated as
merchandise, sorry, capital, this form of investment in one’s own
potential could prove exceptionally profitable. ¶ Das Kapital,
which has enjoyed significantly increased sales during the last
year, as the media report, was illustrated in the seventies by
Yüksel Arslan, a Turkish artist with a Parisian address. His
illustrations and drawings with meticulous details rich in
pro-found satire slip through the exhibition display. Phan tas
magoric creatures and scenes are close to Surrealist poetics:
indeed, Arslan was friends with Breton among others in his
self-willed Parisian exile of many decades. Nevertheless, more
likely he merely incorporated Surrealism into his ‘arture’, as he
has called his own artistic practice. One day after the opening of
the Biennale, Arslan’s first retrospective exhibition was open in
Turkey, in the Santralistanbul Museum, on which occasion he
returned to his homeland after 42 years. His ‘arture’ is partly
based on the tradition of illustration-making and this tradition is
either applied or directly taken over by the artist Canan Şenol in
some of her works. In her animated video Exemplary, she talks about
the position and figure of a woman in Turkey between traditional
and consumerist stereotypes through a profusely extended circular
narration and with black-humoured satirical sharpness. The
narration carried out according to the model of One Thousand and
One Nights talks about desire, arranged marriage, modernization,
religion and the closed circle of subor-dination of women whose
bodies, as in her second work Fountain, primarily serve for
reproductive purposes. ¶ What keeps mankind alive/who rules the
world? Bestiality, the art of not perceiving sufferings of others.
The installation Territory 1995 by Marko Peljhan makes a
forensically precise record of troop movements around Srebrenica in
July 1995 with the help of documents and recorded radio signals in
their terrifying pre-paration of the massacre. Fortunately, the
majority of visitors did not understand the language in which the
pre para tions for the atrocity developed: in spite of the fact
that one can feel an extraordinary consideration for the victims in
the setting, liste-ning and reading authentic recordings in an
understandable, original language provokes a certain quantity of
shame which quickly transforms into sickness. The exhibited
military docu-mentation, gathered primarily as a result of the
artist’s personal efforts and from publicly issued documents,
paradoxically, is unavailable for observation and reading: it is
exhibited in the manner of supremely concealed evidence. ¶ On the
other hand, the performance/lecture by Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué
in the
Vyacheslav Akhunov, Leniniana, 1977-82
Vyacheslav Akhunov, Leniniana, 1977-82
Hamlet Hovsepian, Yawning, 1975
oris, broj 60, godina 2008 oris, number 60, year 2008 Jasna
Jakšić, Bijenale Istanbul
arture dijelom zasniva i na ilustratorskoj tradiciji koju u
nekim svojim radovima primjenjuje ili izravno preuzima umjetnica
Canal Senan. U animiranom videu Exemplary kroz raskošno razvedenu
cirkularnu naraciju govori o položaju i figuri žene u Turskoj
između tradicionalnog i konzumerističkog kalupa, sa crnohumornom
satiričkom oštricom. Naracija izvođena prema modelu Tisuću i jedne
noći govori o žudnji, dogovore-nom braku, modernizaciji, religiji i
zatvorenom krugu podči-njavanja žena, čije tijelo, kao u njezinom
drugom radu Fontana, služi prije svega reproduktivnoj svrsi. ¶ Od
čega čovjek živi / što vlada svijetom tim? Od bestijalnosti, od
umijeća da ne vidi tuđe patnje. Instalacija Marka Peljhana
forenzički precizno pomoću dokumenta i snim ljenih radiosignala
prenosi kretanje vojnih trupa na područ ju Srebrenice u srpnju
1995., u jezivo tehničkoj pripremi pokolja. Srećom, većina
posjetitelja ipak ne razumije jezik na kojemu su se odvijale
pripreme za zločin: unatoč tome što se u postavu osjeća izniman
obzir prema žrtvama, slušanje i čitanje autentičnih zapisa na
razumljivom, izvornom jeziku izaziva količinu srama koja se brzo
pretvara u mučninu. Izlože na vojna dokumentacija, sakupljena prije
svega osobnim naporima umjetnika i iz javno objavljenih dokumenta,
para doksalno, nedostupna je pogledu i čitanju: izložena je u
maniri najbolje skrivenih dokaza. ¶ S druge strane, performans/pre
davanje libanonskog umjetnika Rabiha Mrouéa u formi vizu alne i
ikonološke analize prikaza mučenika u Libanonu svjedoči o
manipulaciji vizualnim informacijama o žrtvama – muče nicima i
mučenicama čija lica na propagandnim plakatima svjedoče vlastitu
žrtvu. U beskrajnom umnožavanju iste matrice i prilagodbi
martirijskoj ikonografiji lice se gubi, ono je ispražnjeno od
osobnosti i postaje prazni označitelj s
Vyacheslav Akhunov, ‘Leniniana’, 1977.-82.
Vyacheslav Akhunov, ‘Leniniana’, 1977.-82.
Hamlet Hovsepian, Zijevanje, 1975.
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186 187Jasna Jakšić, Istanbul Biennale
Trevor Paglen, Strange Astronomy, 2009
dedicated application of the rules (with a question mark here
and there) is more subversive than negation itself. Only
occasional, almost artificial optimism evades a well mea sured
dramaturgy: is it not buried in the very outline, as much with
verses as with the happy ending of The Threepenny Opera? Certainly,
it would be marketing suicide to make a conclusion in pessimistic
mode, therefore let us direct our glance towards the work that,
tentatively, opens the exhi bition (and this is Celestial Objects
by American artist Trevor Paglen) and towards the magic glittering
constellations in the sky above Istanbul. The light objects in the
photographs with the starry sky are created by movements of the
American spy satellites above the Bosphorus, recorded in the form
of stripes made of light by long exposures. It is like a draft of a
utopian artistic intervention which has ascended to the sky from
the galleries, public spaces. Nevertheless, it is also a
frightening poetic emanation of a system which is, like the
universe, conti nuously expanding.
form of visual and iconological analysis of the presentation of
a martyr in Lebanon is evidence of manipulation of visual
infor-mation about victims – martyrs and martyresses whose faces on
advertising posters are evidence of their own victims. In endless
multiplication of the same matrix and adaptation to the martyr’s
iconography, the face is fading: it is emptied of personal features
and becomes an empty determiner from posters on Beirut avenues. ¶
Just a listing of all the exceptionally interesting works would
surpass the limitations of this review. Nevertheless, the early
film opus of Armenian artist Hamlet Hovsepian will probably be
included among contributions for redefinition of the Western point
of view of the history of art in the twentieth century, along with
Arslan and Akhunov. His opus, according to the words of George
Schöllhamer, has a lot in common with New York underground film.
However, as history of art teaches us as well as history of
exhibitions and economic regularities, the positions and
accordingly the potentials of exporters and importers greatly
differ: this was vividly and very educationally presented to a
Croatian audience a couple of years ago by Goran Đorđević in his
project ‘American Museum of Modern Art’, which was a convincing
staging of an exhibition of contempo-rary Ame rican art that
travelled throughout Europe during the fifties as a herald of
freedom-loving, abstract art in opposition to the monumental
figurative chains of socialist realism. ¶ A prominent place in the
catalogue was taken by an analysis of the age, birth, economic and
national structure of the invited female and male artists as well
as what was spent from the budget: before the presentation, a clear
and precise report was created in a humo rous and communicative
design solution – the in-tentions are transparent as well as the
structure itself, and the rules of the game are clearly announced.
The choice and setting of the works follow the same principle of
coherence and are easily observable: from the impressive ‘biennale’
Anrepod labyrinth to the more ambient and warmer former tobacco
warehouse (Tütün Deposu) with a workshop and classroom, to the aban
doned Greek School still filled with Atatürk’s paintings and noble
didactic intentions. Brecht’s artistic method, observed from
several points of view in the handbook and applied in several works
(most directly in the video works by the Chto Delat collective and
the artist Jesse Jones), is expectedly the principle of biennale
conceptualization as a field of political agitation and
emancipatory ambitions of female authors. By replacing professional
actresses who read the text at the ope ning ceremony, which was
staged by Oliver Frljić, they them selves expressed more than
direct awareness of the role which was to be played. The works by
Vyahceslav Akhunov which were visible in all parts of the
exhibition are evidence that sometimes
oris, broj 60, godina 2008 oris, number 60, year 2008 Jasna
Jakšić, Bijenale Istanbul
Trevor Paglen, ‘Strange Astronomy’, 2009.
pla kata na bejrutskim avenijama. ¶ Samo nabrajanje svih
iz-nimno zanimljivih radova prešlo bi okvire ovog osvrta, no
vjerojatno će se prilozima za redefiniciju zapadnog gledišta na
povijest umjetnosti 20. stoljeća uz Arslana i Akhunova naći i rani
filmski opus armenskog umjetnika Hamleta Hovsepiana, koji, prema
riječima Georga Schöllhamera, može ići uz njujorš-ki undergroud
film. No, kako nas uči povijest umjetnosti ali i povijest izložbi
te ekonomske zakonitosti, pozicije i, sukladno tome, potencijali
izvoznika i uvoznika uvelike se razlikuju: zorno je to i vrlo
poučno predstavio hrvatskoj publici prije nekoliko godina pokazan
projekt Gorana Đorđevića American Museum of Modern Art, u
uvjerljivoj inscenaciji izložbe suvre-mene američke umjetnosti koja
je 50-ih godina putovala Euro-pom kao glasnik slobodarske,
apstraktne umjetnosti na sup rot monumentalnim figurativnim okovima
socrealizma. ¶ Istak-nuto mjesto u katalogu imala je analiza dobne,
rodne, eko-nomske i nacionalne strukture pozvanih umjetnica i
umjet-nika, kao i utrošenih budžetskih sredstava; prije izlaga nja
do lazi jasno i precizno izvješće u duhovitom i komunikativ-nom di
zajnerskom rješenju: namjere su transparente, kao i sama struktura,
pravila igre su jasno obznanjena. Izbor i pos-tav radova slijede
isti princip kohe rencije i preg lednosti: od impre sivnog
‘bijenalnog’ labirinta Anrepoda, do ugođajnijeg i top lijeg
nekadašnjeg skladišta duhana (Tütün Deposu) sa uči-onicom i klasnim
prostorom (engl. classroom), do napuš tene grčke škole još uvijek
prepune Atatürkovih slika i ple menitih didaktičkih namjera.
Brechtova umjetnička metoda, sagleda-na iz nekoliko rakursa u
čitanci i primijenjena u nekoliko rado-va (najizravnije u
videoradovima grupe ‘Chto delat’ i radu umjetnice Jesse Jones)
očekivano je princip konceptualizacije Bijenala kao polja poli
tičke agitacije i emancipatorskih ambicija autorica. Same su,
zamijenivši se u režiji Olivera Frljića sa profesionalnim glumi
cama koje su na otvorenju čitale tekst, više nego izravno iska zale
svijest o ulozi koju je trebalo od-igrati. Ponekad je, kao što kroz
izložbu provučeni radovi Vyah-ces lava Akhunova svje doče, predana
primjena pravila (uz po-koji upitnik) sub ver zivnija od same
negacije. Jedino pov remeni, gotovo usiljeni optimizam izmiče dobro
od mjere noj dra ma-turgiji: ta nije li već u samom predlošku
pokopan, kako sti-hovima tako i sret nim završetkom ‘Opere za tri
groša’? Dakako, marketinško bi samoubojstvo bilo zaključiti u pesi
mističnom tonu, zato us mjerimo pogled ka radu koji, uvjetno
rečeno, otvara izložbu, Nebeskim objek tima američkog um jetnika
Trevora Paglena i čarobnim svjetlu cavim kons tela ci jama neba nad
Istanbulom. Svjetlosne oblike na fotografija ma zvjezdanog neba
tvore kre tanja američkih špijunskih satelita iznad Bos-pora, du
gotraj nom ekspozicijom zabilježena u formi svjet-
losnih traka, poput skice kakve utopističke umjetničke
inter-vencije koja je iz galerija, iz javnih prostora uzašla na
samo nebo. No zastra šujuća je to i poetska emanacija sustava koji
je, poput Svemira, u stalnoj ekspanziji.
