Venezuelan artist's 'disrespectful' work banned by government
The Miami Herald, Posted on Wed, Jun. 18, 2003 BY ELISA TURNER elisaturn@aol.com
When prizes were handed out at this year's sweltering Venice Biennale, the world's famed showcase for modern and contemporary art, art lovers wilting in unseasonable heat were stunned to learn that one winner was an exhibit from Luxembourg: Air-Conditioned.
Not only was it notable for an unusually apt title, but the show also marked the first time a national exhibit had won a prize while located outside the Giardini, a leafy park at the city's eastern edge and the Biennale's main venue.
But the real heat was provided by Venezuela, which has had a coveted pavilion at the park since 1954, yet wasn't even in the running for an award this year. In May, the Venezuelan government censored the art chosen for its own exhibit, an interactive digital work, CityRooms, by Pedro Morales.
Stirring controversy were the work's caricature images of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and scenes showing the country degenerating into a ramshackle mass of shanties.
So during the Biennale's gala invitation-only opening on June 12, the pavilion for Venezuela was locked up tight. (Only two Latin American countries, Venezuela and Brazil, are represented among the 26 nations at the Biennale.)
There was no art inside the low-slung, modernist structure designed by renowned Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa. A cart of construction trash blocked the entrance, next to piles of dead leaves. A few days later limp bunting, colored like the Venezuelan flag, also blocked the entrance in protest.
`SEX, HUMOR'
And standing outside the pavilion on opening day, next to the debris and dead leaves, was Morales, the man who had put up the bunting. He watched forlornly as influential flocks of curators, collectors, and critics rushed in and out of the nearby Danish pavilion.
Brushing away rivulets of sweat, he offered to speak about his work -- displayed on a small video camera -- to anyone who would listen.
Two weeks ago, Morales said he received a statement from the Venezuelan government claiming that his art ''was disrespectful of the images in my country. I think the real thing is that they don't understand my proposal,'' he said. ``They say my work has a political view only, but that's not true. There's sex, humor, and violence. It's an extensive work of interactive art.''
''It's unacceptable that a country censors art,'' said Irma Arestizábal, an Argentine curator of Latin American art at the Biennale. ``It's a sin for Venezuela, because every country in the world wants a pavilion [here].''
The cultural attaché for the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., Carolina Márquez, could not be reached for comment.
In the Giardini, Morales' situation also drew the sympathy of a Venezuelan curator who was touring the Biennale with fellow trustees from New York's Museum of Modern Art. ''No, I am not surprised by what is going on in my country. They should be ashamed,'' she said, asking that her name not be used in order to protect family members in Venezuela.
OTHER CONTROVERSY
Morales is not the first Venezuelan artist to be sucked into controversy swirling around his country's representation in Venice. On March 3, artist Javier Téllez, also chosen to exhibit in the Venezuelan pavilion, circulated an open letter to his country's ministry of culture announcing his decision to withdraw his participation, condemning the government's ``corruption and struggle for power that are choking the country.''
Last Friday, Biennale president Franco Bernabé said his organization was trying to find a way for Morales to exhibit as an individual; the Biennale ends in November. Information about Morales' CityRooms project for Venice can be seen on his website at www.pedromorales.com.