The Venice Biennale is nearly upon us. In addition to serving as an excuse for a mind-numbing onslaught of parties, pop-up events, and invitation-only affairs in the picturesque Italian city's many palazzi, the Biennale also still serves a function as the World Series of curating. The main show — this year helmed by Massimiliano Gioni — is easily one of the most visible statements about contemporary art on the global stage. Meanwhile, the international pavilions see countries trot out their best to compete for the Biennale's Golden Lion award.
Two years ago, the United States tapped art duo Allora & Calzadilla to create a spectacular display with indistinctly political overtones, including a giant-sized tank parked upside-down in front of the pavilion which was used as a treadmill by an Olympic athlete. As if responding to grumblings over that installation's bombast, this year the U.S. tapped Sarah Sze, an artist known for her spidery, lyrical sculptural constructions made from everyday objects. The co-curators of the affair are Holly Block, head of the Bronx Museum — which also serves as the Pavilion's sponsoring institution — and Carey Lovelace, a freelance curator and critic. While Sze's exact plans for Venice remain a closely guarded secret, we recently talked to Lovelace about the demands of organzing this high-profile project.
Why propose Sarah Sze to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale in 2013?
My co-commissioner Holly Block and I had been following Sarah’s career and were very impressed with her development as an artist, in particular how she has met increasing challenges, making works that are more and more ambitious with a great deal of success. The U.S. Pavilion has a very specific kind of architecture, and there was a desire to find an artist who deals with scale in an interesting way, and Sarah does this.
You come from a critical background. Does the selection represent a critical stance on art? Is it a statement about art in the United States or art in general? Or more about the strength of just this artist’s work?
It’s more the strength of this artist’s work. When you start to get into global statements you tread in dangerous territory. In fact, in the end, it’s more about a curatorial statement than a critical one, in terms of choosing someone who could create a successful work in this kind of high-pressure, high-stimulus environment, and also respond in an innovative way to the very idiosycratic structure and Neo-Classical architecture of the Pavilion. Curatorially, that was really the reason, from my point of view, to choose Sarah.
Are there any challenges or sensitivities in proposing an event like this, since it's kind of a work of cultural diplomacy?
Definitely. You want to be sensitive to the environment; there’s a particular history of the United States in relation to its neighbors. One always has to be sensitive to that. That’s a tricky point. Personally I like art that seeks to adapt and get along with its neighbors.
In an earlier period, it was more in vogue for art to make a strong political, conceptual statement — and that was important. But we’re in a different time now. This Pavilion is really about the strength of Sarah’s work, and also about her intellectual acuity and grasp of what art-making is.
It’s funny that you mention being sensitive to your neighbors. That was actually one of the criticisms of the Allora & Calzadilla pavilion two years ago, that it was bombastic and hogged attention. Does your pavilion at all respond to those criticisms?
Not really. We were focusing more on the challenges of the context of the Pavilion and the Giardini. Holly has worked with Allora and Caldzadilla before, and they are friends.
Do you have any sense of what criteria the State Department uses to select you for the Biennale, or is that a black box?
They didn’t even tell us who the other people who applied were. But if I can sing my co-commissioner’s praises for a second, Holly has done a fantastic job with the Bronx Museum and she’s also done a lot of international programs. She just finished an initiative with the State Department where she set up artist residencies all over the world. She must have made a good impression because they again chose her to be part of a major project.
I know from passing comments that [officials working on the project] have a very high opinion of Sarah as well. A lot of factors go into peoples' selection.
What was the process of putting together the proposal? How did you come on board, and what’s your role as an outside curator working with an institution?
I think I may have been the initiating force, in terms of saying, at the outset, “Let’s do this.” I’ve known Holly for years; we’ve done many projects together. The two of us got together with Sarah and discussed the idea with her. In the end, we worked well as a team, putting together the proposal. We all had strengths that worked well together.
Obviously, something like this is very expensive. At the press conference in New York, Massimiliano Gioni remarked that the U.S. Pavilion has a larger budget than his entire show. What kind of fundraising is involved?
That comment did not go over very well with us, nor was it accurate. Our budget from the State Department is very modest. We have had to do a lot of outside fundraising — just as the Biennale itself has done and is doing starting from its own relatively small starting point.
As for our resources, Holly’s done such an amazing job with the Bronx Museum in terms of putting it on stronger footing financially. In addition, she’s developed all these amazing initiatives, including a free admission policy. For anyone, a Venice Pavilion is a deeply ambitious project. For us, we’re bringing an artist from the United States to Italy, plus her crew, materials, and equipment for a very complex site-specific work. A lot has gone into the piece.
But the Bronx Museum does assume the funding responsibility?
Yes. We get an initial grant through the United States State Department. The Bronx Museum is the commissioning institution. So fundraising has gone on through auspices of the museum. [Editor's note: The Ford Foundation is the lead sponsor of the U.S. Pavilion.]
Why, then, would a museum want to do this?
One asks oneself that question every day [laughs]. Obviously, it’s a huge honor. For the Bronx Museum, it’s the largest thing it has ever taken on.
In addition, Sergio Bessa, Programs Director at the museum, has been dealing with public programming. Together with partners in Italy, we’ve created this amazing initiative that, for one thing, brings together kids in the Bronx and kids in Venice. There’s been this real exchange of consciousness, about the Bronx in among young Venetians and vice versa. Many of the students are from an area of Venice called Mestre — it’s not exactly equivalent to the Bronx, but it is a working-class community in Venice. It’s been amazing to connect these kids with one another. They’re going to do an exhibition together, of work they’ve created through this program. Part of the involvement of the Bronx in this is that it can act as a diplomat, and that’s very important to the mandate of the museum.
Is that kind of initiative a part of the initial proposal, or built on top of it?
It was part of the proposal. We talked about public programming, including a series of workshops with the local university. The Bronx Museum has a Teen Exchange program, so this is an elaboration of that. All that was very much a part of the proposal, as was a Web component that will extend the relationship between Sarah’s work to a larger, more global audience.
The specifics of the pavilion are secret until it debuts. Is there anything in general you can say about what’s being planned?
Each gallery in the U.S. Pavilion is going to be a separate environment. It’s a series of linked experiences which will have a connection to one another — a loose connection. It’s going to continue out into the exterior of the space… and that’s all I can say.
What’s been Sarah’s process of planning “Triple Point”?
She’s very detailed. She’s probably the most organized person I’ve ever met. So she began, as soon as we heard we were selected, to plan, sketch, and to build models. She was able to work on this for a while, thinking and evolving her ideas. It’s been moving to watch the piece develop. The level of thought that has gone into it is amazing.
Her work is sometimes very delicate. Has making a project for an event that draws such crowds changed the way she approaches the work?
No, I think it’ll be pretty consistent with the way she’s worked in the past in terms of approach.
What does the title “Triple Point” mean?
She did a piece at the Whitney called “Triple Point of Water.” [Triple point] is the temperature and pressure at when a substance like water exists in three states, in a kind of precarious but stable equilibrium — liquid, frozen, and steam.
As an interesting aside: There were also three people involved, two curators and the artist. So the theme of tripling just happened to run through the piece.
How important is the competitive aspect to the Biennale?
I don’t think you can think about that at all, because when you do, it really can only make you unhappy. I think you just have to concentrate on doing the best you can.
In that case, how will you define the project as having been a success?
If it’s a really powerful work of art, I think it’s a success. I’d rather have it be a powerful work of art whether it wins something or not than have it be so-so and win a prize. I’m a big fan of Sarah’s and it’s been amazing to watch her work. I’ve learned a lot in this process about making art and staying focused. It’s been an amazing experience — not just in terms of the final artwork, but in terms of what the process has been.
Is there anything else you’d want to add?
Another fun fact is that nearly all the principle figures involved are female, though not by design: the two curators and the artist; the able person at the Peggy Guggenheim collection who manages the pavilion; the fabricator; all the writers in the catalogue. That’s just a sign of how the world is changing, which is great.