The other venue is the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, a French-style "garden" forcibly built in Venice during the Napoleonic era in the 19th century. Here, visitors are greeted by Carl Gustav Jung's "Red Book," a bound book of Jung's colorful illustrations of his fantasies. It's filled with bizarre and surreal images, including snakes, dragons, and dancing humans. While the Arsenale displays images created by artists in relation to the external world, such as "nature," "religion," "body," and "technology," the Central Pavilion displays a mixture of images derived from the inner "subconscious" of various artists. Following Jung is French artist Rene Iche's "Mask of Breton (1950)," a death mask sculpture of poet André Breton. Breton, the father of surrealism, invites the viewer into the realm of the subconscious. Also on display are drawings by Rudolf Steiner from the 1920s and works by Augustin Lesage, the French artist who began creating religious paintings after receiving divine revelations. These works, which exist in the "gray area" between cult, philosophy, and obsession, are highlighted as being strongly connected to the human subconscious. The "collective unconscious" of various artists is scattered throughout the venue, creating a murky atmosphere. Also on display is a performance piece by British artist Tino Sehgal, winner of the Golden Lion, awarded to the most outstanding artist. Sehgal prefers not to document his performances through photography or video, and instead continues to create works that capitalize on the specificity of the "place." The fact that this formless performance piece won the Golden Lion likely reflects the recent trend toward acclaim for performance art.
Throughout the exhibition, by showcasing the various visual "images" born in our pursuit of knowledge, we are reminded that the act of sublimating our insatiable desire for knowledge is ultimately subjective. Furthermore, a consistent theme throughout both venues is the question of "who is the artist." A diverse range of niche works unrelated to the art market were collected, including many down-to-earth, raw pieces. Rather than focusing on beautiful or cutting-edge works, the exhibition highlights the fundamental essence of art: "humanity." In this way, the exhibition not only criticizes the art market's bias toward art, but also showcases the diverse methods of archiving "knowledge" and invites us to consider the future of archiving in the age of the web.
The curation, which was sensitive yet firmly rooted in a well-thought-out theme, felt like something closer to art itself, transcending curation.
