Venice Biennale's International Art Exhibition becomes celebration of female creative talent

Artist Lee Mire poses in front of her installation, "Endless House: Holes and Drips" (2022), on display at the Arsenale in Venice as part of the Venice Biennale's International Art Exhibition. Courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery

Female artists offer fresh perspectives on body, metamorphosis

By Park Han-sol

VENICE, Italy ― Artist Lee Mire's new kinetic sculpture, "Endless House: Holes and Drips," located in the middle of the International Art Exhibition at Venice's former shipyard and armory known as the Arsenale ― the highlight of the Venice Biennale ― commands immediate attention among visitors.

Its sheer size, along with the sounds of dripping liquid and whirling motors that pervade the entire room, make any passing viewer come to a stop and turn back. They then face what appear to be near-raw human organs twisting and turning on steel racks, while being basked in an endless cascade of blood.

"These porous objects are made of ceramics that underwent an initial stage of bisque firing, containing many openings that allow other substances to pass through freely. It's a way for me to imitate the human body and its functions, including metabolism and circulatory system, through sculptures," the 33-year-old artist told reporters at the exhibition during the Biennale's pre-opening last week.

The oozing, viscous liquid is, in fact, glaze that will continue to overlay the ceramic pieces throughout the months-long exhibition.

The grotesque, organ-like sculpture was born from Lee's fascination with the body and its deformation, which she witnessed most evidently in a string of anti-smoking ads.

"I wasn't trying to make any direct visual reference to such images. Rather, it was an idea that physical deformity or disability was being used as a mere tool of awareness and comparison to the able-bodied," she said. "I started thinking that the more disfigured one's body is, the more people start regarding it as an inanimate sculpture, not as a human form with a soul ― like something essential is missing."

Her animatronic installation aims to question and erase this long-held distinction between the hidden core or essence ("mind") and the peripheral surface ("body"), laying bare the organs, pores and flows of liquid that are usually hidden under the surface layers to offer an alternative way of being.

With no protective coat or layer that separates them from the world, everything is laid out in the open ― an obvious vulnerability that can be paradoxically seen as a point of strength in the eyes of the artist.

One of five smaller historic "capsule" shows within the International Art Exhibition, titled "The Witch's Cradle," brings forth female surrealists of the 20th century, including Leonora Carrington, Eileen Agar, Maya Deren and Meret Oppenheim. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Lee and her sculptural exploration are part of the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale's International Art Exhibition that made headlines months ahead of the opening by including a majority of women and gender non-conforming artists in its roster ― for the first time in its 127-year history.

Among 213 creators from 58 countries chosen for the central exhibition held at the Arsenale and Venice's parkland Giardini, nine out of 10 are women. And more than 180 of them have never had their work showcased at the Venice show until now. Cecilia Alemani, the director and chief curator of New York's High Line Art, is also the first Italian woman to helm the event.

The long overdue women-dominated Biennale is "a choice that reflects an international art scene full of creative ferment and a deliberate rethinking of men's centrality in the history of art and contemporary culture," the curator said in a statement.

Its title, "The Milk of Dreams," comes from British-born Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington's (1917-2011) bizarre children's storybook of the same name, aiming to take her "otherworldly creatures, along with other figures of transformation, as companions on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human," she added.

Seeking to challenge the Enlightenment and Renaissance's ideal, fixed notion of the Man of Reason, it turns its focus on three themes in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; and the connection between bodies and the Earth.

Katharina Fritsch's "Elephant" (1987) on view at the International Art Exhibition at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini / Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Participating artists, including Lee, portray the so-called "posthuman" condition in regards to their relationship with their own bodies, non-human lifeforms, technology and inanimate beings in a different medium ― a vision that has become timelier than ever during the pandemic. The exhibition also becomes a platform for the voices that have been stuck in crevices of art history's official canon.

"I felt that the show has been curated in a way that brings the peripheral ― femininity, monstrosity, queerness and witchlike beings ― under the spotlight. Its power not only comes from the statement itself, but also its execution in empowering and celebrating the figures on the margins," Lee said, adding that a large amount of works on display are concerned more with triggering audience's immediate senses, rather than requiring esoteric discourses.

Performance artist Jeong Geum-hyung's "Toy Prototype" (2021) on view at the Aresenale / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Jeong Geum-hyung is another Korean artist who has been invited to take part in the Biennale's central exhibition, with her "Toy Prototype."

Jeong, who is a choreographer and performance artist, highlights the uncanny ― almost otherworldly ― relationships that have formed between people and machines by using a set of animatronics she built and engineered. The eerie-looking prosthetic sculptures, or "toys," and their parts are placed on a worktop, each accompanied by a video showing them in clunky motion and in interaction with the artist.

Tetsumi Kudo's "Flowers from Garden of the Metamorphosis in the Space Capsule" (1968) / Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Other notable works on view include Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo's "Flowers," created in accordance with his concept of a "New Ecology," where humans, nature and technology become entangled.

The Golden Lion, given to best artist in the Biennale's central exhibition, was received by American artist Simone Leigh. She also represented this year's U.S. Pavilion for the first time as a Black woman. Her "Brick House," a 4.9-meter-tall bronze bust of a Black woman with an overpowering presence, which was installed initially along New York City's High Line in 2019, has been deemed a "powerfully persuasive monumental sculptural opening to the Arsenale."

Other recipients of the Golden Lion ― Sonia Boyce, who represented Britain's Pavilion, for the best national participation, and German artist Katharina Fritsch and Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuna for lifetime achievement ― were all women.

"Brick House" (2019), a centerpiece by American artist Simone Leigh, who has been awarded the Golden Lion for the best artist in this year's International Art Exhibition / Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia