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Germany pavilion wins Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale
The Jury of the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale says it's "intense, committed, and possesses a strong personal vision." The 2011 Germany pavilion was supposed to be designed by the late artist Christoph Schlingensief, who died of lung cancer in August 2010. Instead, the pavilion serves as an homage to his works which spanned genres.
The Venice Biennale is one of the world's preeminent contemporary art events, held every two years (in the odd years) in the historic city of Venice. Its companions, the Venice Film Festival and Venice Biennale of Architecture, are held in the even years.
30 permanent national pavilions are showcased at the Giardini public gardens, as well as a large exhibition hall featuring a major exhibit curated by the Biennale's director. This year's Biennale national pavilions include the addition of India. Other relatively recent additions were China (2005), the African Pavilion and Mexico (2007) and the United Arab Emirates (2009).
Each national pavilion manages its own exhibition, an opportunity to showcase its contemporary artists and cultural life. The German exhibition was commissioned by the Federal Foreign Ministry and is realized in cooperation with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations. It's curated by Susanne Gaensheimer, who's also director of the MMK Museum for Moderne Kunst Frankfurt.
Work unfinished
The pavilion's concept, which features existing works of Schlingensief, was developed in cooperation with the artist's wife Aino Laberenz and his closest artistic collaborators. Profiling his theatrical productions and films, the main hall includes a stage installation of A Church of Fear vs. the Alien Within, a work developed for the 2008 Ruhrtriennal where Schlingensief examines the themes of life and death through his own experiences of battling cancer and serving as a young altar boy.
Gaensheimer invited Schlingensief to begin designs for the German pavilion back in 2010, which he did until his death. His sketches up to that point were not used in preparation of the pavilion, however, out of respect for the artist's creative process.
"Almost a year before the Biennial was due to open a number of questions were of course not yet answered, and anyone who ever experienced Schlingensief's way of working will tell you that up until opening day there would have been countless changes," said Gaensheimer in a press statement. "Christoph Schlingensief's tragic death has in no way affected my conviction that the decision to invite him was the right one."
Spanning genres, crossing continents
Schlingensief's work spanned and transcended genres from film to political action, theater, art projects and even opera. It was often collaborative, drawing in many of Germany's leading contemporary artists. Because his work has thus far not been available in translation, the German pavilion makes it accessible to a global audience for the first time.
In addition to being representative of German contemporary art, Schlingensief was internationally active in art education. His project Opera Village in Burkino Fasso launched in January 2010 with the support of the Goethe-Institut, which remains committed to its development. Designed with the country's own artists and educators, it's to include a school with music and film classes, workshops, living spaces, a football pitch, agricultural land, a theatrical stage with festival hall, rehearsal spaces and much more.
The pavilion's vision was explained by Schlingensief himself in his comments on being invited to the Venice Biennale in May 2010, "The task of using the German Pavilion, which very much looks like a representative building, not for the purpose of representation but for art, simply fits the bill – a heavy burden, yet art makes light what would otherwise be heavy. And yet perhaps it is precisely what makes it so positive. I, for my part, love those cracks and opposites, and over the coming months I intend to seek out the most productive opposites for Venice, the German Pavilion, and Burkina Faso."
Author: Angela Boskovitch, Young Germany
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE GERMAN PAVILION 2011
| - GERMAN PAVILION GALLERY - Installation views of the 2011 German Pavilion |
| - INTERVIEW WITH CURATOR SUSANNE GAENSHEIMER - DW-World, 3.6.2011 |
| - DEATH IN VENICE - Resurrecting Schlingensief at the Biennale, SPIEGEL 22/2011 |
| - BEST NATIONAL PARTICIPATION FOR THE GERMAN PAVILION - artdaily.org |
| - GERMAN PAVILION WINS GOLDEN LION - Young Germany, 6.6.2011 |
 DW ARTS.21 - DW-TV Arts.21 from 4.6.2011 (26 MB) |
| DEUTSCHER PAVILLON - BiennaleChannel, 4.6.2011 (21 MB) |
- DER LÖWE FÜR DEN LÖWEN - Frankfurter Rundschau vom 5.6.2011 |
| - SCHLINGENSIEFS SAKRALE KULISSE - Berliner Morgenpost, 1.6.2011 |
| - REQUIEM FÜR SCHLINGENSIEF - RP Online, 4.6.2011 |
| - SUSANNE GAENSHEIMER IM INTERVIEW - art Magazine, 1.6.2011 |
| - "ES WAR DIE ERSCHÜTTERNDSTE ARBEIT" - Der Standard, 6.6.2011 |
 ERINNERUNGEN VON WEGGEFÄHRTEN - Besprechung des Begleit-Buches |
| MAUSOLEUM ODER MONUMENT? - Deutschlandfunk Kultur heute, 2.6.2011 |
| VERNISSAGE TV - Christoph Schlingensief. German Pavilion (28 MB) |
| 3SAT KULTURZEIT - 3sat Kulturzeit, 6.6.2011 (40 MB) |
| ZDF HEUTE JOURNAL - ZDF Heute Journal, 4.6.2011 (29 MB) |
| DEUTSCHE WELLE TV - Deutsche Welle TV, 4.6.2011 (5 MB) |
| ZDF NACHTSTUDIO - ZDF Nachstudio zur Biennale, 6.6.2011 (95 MB) |
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