THE VENICE BIENNALE

JENNIE HIRSCH
VENICE INTENSIVE 2011

THE TOTAL WORK OF ART: OPERA AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The visual arts have long focused on the performing arts as the subject of their
focus. The dramatics and theatrics of ballet, theater, opera and even athletics are rich
territory that artists have mined for material. However, it has not always been true that
the structure of the artists has mimicked these forms as well. This is a much more recent
development, with some notable early examples being Robert Rauschenberg's
choreographed dance-on-skates "Pelican", John Cage's conceptual musical scores, or
Merz Cunningham's work that blurred distinctions of dance and visual arts. The
proliferation of these performative aspects are much more consistent in contemporary art,
blending the auditory with visual elements such as sculpture, video, or installation. At
the 54 Venice Biennale, multiple artists utilized this approach to depict a narrative or
temporal idea, to necessitate an audience's presence and interaction, or to question the
nature of disciplines and definition in the field of visual art. Specifically, these artists
referenced classical music or opera, emphasizing not only the performative aspects of the
work, but also the visual and auditory elements. These works are meant to challenge the
notions of "visual" art, create a work that is not fixed in its form or meaning, and attempt
to construct an "event" or "happening" that both references those seen throughout art
history such as in feminist or Fluxus art while simultaneously inventing a new form that
envelopes all aspects of the idea "multidisciplinary."
During a lecture at the Maryland Institute College of Art's BBOX theater this fall,
artist Matthew Day Jackson stated that he considers his exhibitions to be similar to
theater, in which all separate pieces play a specific role and reinforce each other in the
process. This is similar to the idea of art exhibitions imitating operas, not only literally
but conceptually as well. The difference between opera and theater is that the music is
integral to the movement of the plot in operatic works; all of the elements work in tandem
with each other, in opposition to sound being purely incidental or atmospheric. Part of the
definition of an opera, as stated by David Nicholls in his article "Virtual Opera, or Opera
Between the Ears", is that it is presented theatrically, primarily sung, and presupposes an
audience (103). The essential components of this are that the music is not subsidiary to
the drama and that an audience's presence is required. This is similar to contemporary
ideas of exhibitions in the wake of performance and installation art; though the works of
art may not themselves be performance or installations, they must functions as such
through their positioning in an exhibition. The artists who employ opera are not
presenting separate objects that deliver a narrative, but rather ones that work together
with music to embody an idea. The staging of these objects is the work of art, though the
elements may exist separately as a sort of monologue or printed script; a fragment of the
total thought. All the while the artists are aware of the heightened sense of drama that
music inherently creates, and they use this to their advantage.
The use of opera and classical music forms in contemporary art begs a particular
question: "Why would contemporary art borrow an antiquated form or idea? Why not use
popular music, or experimental music?" Nicholls states that "While opera is intrinsically
linked with the live performance of an extended or unified dramatic plot, popular music
exists mainly through recordings of short, self-referential and essentially static songs"
(104). The use of opera in the installation or creation of art works implies that the works
are meant to be seen as united in driving forward a singular idea or narrative. Opera also,
as mentioned above, is reliant upon an audience. In the article "Composing an Interactive
Virtual Opera: The 'Virtualis' Project", Alain Bonardi and Francis Rousseaux suggest that
an opera subjects the spectator to a continuous flow of sounds and visuals from the stage
which draw them in. The spectator goes back and forth between feeling themselves
immersed or absent from the stage; the spectacle pulls them in, while the singularities of
ambient noises or consciousness of their own body roots them in reality (315). The same
could be said of works of art in an exhibition. When an artist stages an exhibition, we
assume that this is the format in which the works are meant to be experienced. They can
be accessed through photographs, images on the Internet, or other second-hand sources,
but the real effects of the work are only experienced when encountering them "in the
flesh". The "continuous, composite flow" (315) can be said about visual art too, which is
meant to engage a viewer and draw them, making them alternatively aware and unaware
of their physicality and surroundings. Additionally, pop songs are, as mentioned, brief
and self-referential, which separates them from opera. Because of this, the works of art
that are reinforced by opera take on a grander scale, tackling mythological or theatrical
subjects of epic proportions. Also, though there are some operas that are self-referential
(Straus' "Ariadne auf Naxos", for one) they typically attempt to suspend disbelief and
throw the audience into the grandeur of the storytelling. In opposition to the post-
modernism trope of "art pieces which are about art pieces" (i.e. painting as a commentary
on painting), contemporary art that consciously mimics opera seeks to transcend its
forms.
The most explicit use of operatic forms in the 54 Venice Biennale was perhaps
that of the Hungarian Pavilion. Artist Hajnal Nemeth created the installation "CRASH -
Passive Interview", the skeleton of which is an experimental opera which chronicles a car
crash from the creation of the car to its final demise and the aftermath ("Hungarian
Pavilion"). The installation includes a video of the performance of the opera, in addition
to the crumpled car ruins dramatically bathed in violent red light, the librettos from the
opera, and photographs. Most obviously, Nemeth uses the form of the opera to illustrate
the drama of the event. "The opera is intended to convey...tension" according to the
Pavilion's website; the dramatic tension is central to the overall mood. Nemeth's use of
music is not supplementary or complimentary, but purely essential. In his article
"Anatomy of a Point," written specifically for Nemeth's work at the Biennale, author Ivar
Founberg expands upon this idea:
In the works of Nmeth we experience music transcending its own role as music
and becoming visualized as an integrated part of the expression. Music becomes a
referent to a particular field of experience. In the works of Hajnal Nmeth the
music is not always silent, but on the other hand we are not meant to listen to it as
music. It becomes a signifier of something beyond the category. (1)
The opera in Nemeth's work is central. The music is not "laid over" the works to keep
the tempo of the performance, but instead gives form to the material of the installation.
Though not performed live, it is incorporated into a set of works in operatic fashion, as a
video/installation element that becomes part of the whole with the photographs and
sculptural elements to create a complete exhibition. The music of the opera fills the
space, the librettos are included as a part of the installation, the stage is the factory where
the totaled car was created; all parts feed each other back and forth and allow for a
dialogue that viewers are invited to be the audience for.
The Dutch Pavilion used the idea of an opera as the basis for their exhibition this
year. Rather than actually use music or stage an opera, the curator Guus Beumer
assembled a group of multidisciplinary artists to create a piece that was reinforced by its
separate parts (Opera Aperta/ Loose Work). The group included visual artists Johannes
Schwartz, Joke Robaard and Barbara Visser, the graphic designer Maureen Mooren and
architects Herman Verkerk and Paul Kuipers. The conceptual statement for the piece
states that opera, with its succession of different components over a period of time,
presented a "conflicting and seductive" point of departure for blending the works of these
multidisciplinary artists. The final installation in the pavilion was a sort of multi-level
stage that visitors were permitted to walk on and around. This work was meant to
address ideas of infrastructure and the artist' role in society. The opening of the Dutch
Pavilion was accompanied by a performance in which the artist Alexander van Slobbe
directly appropriated another concept of the operatic production; costuming. The artist
created costumes in the style of Rembrandts painting "Night Watch" for 18 different
woman with significant positions in cultural institutions in the Netherlands, which was
meant to also be a commentary on the public infrastructure and cultural community of the
Netherlands (Opera Aperta/ Loose Work). The Dutch Pavilion adapts the idea of
separate components working together to reinforce ideas of national and global
community. Ideas such as costumes and stages are directly adapted to specifically
reference this idea of the opera as the ideal version of this community of disciplines,
ideas, and efforts. Additionally, the title of the piece, "Opera Aperta," refers to an article
written by theorist Umberto Eco in 1962. The "opera aperta," (literally, "open work")
according to Eco, refers to a work that is subject to change based on the different
utterances of it. In an analysis of Eco's article entitled "The Poetics of the Open Form:
(Umberto Eco's Notion of 'Opera Aperta')", author Guy De Mallac states that the "open
work" is one that allows for a number of successive interpretations, and not only this but
encourage them. So an artwork, which may seem to be a static recording, can instead be
understood as a work that lends itself to multiple different interpretations, though it gives
form to a specific set of material or information. The ambiguity of the work is the
constant in works of art for Eco (33). Bonnardi and Rosseaux interpret Eco's definition
of the opera aperta to describe musical pieces that "vary by the instrumentalist playing
them" (317). The artwork, in this sense, is again related to the idea of the live
performance. Artists must ask if the artworks perform, if they interact with the audience,
if they make allotments for laughter, silence, coughing or ambient noise, if the material
that they give form to changes with each interpretation and if the work can encourage this
change.
A third example of music at the Biennale arises not in the form of opera, but in
classical music. Michael Parekowhai's exhibition, "On First Looking Into Chapman's
Homer," at the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore, music is an essential element. In this
case, the live performance is the key component, rather than a recording or artifact of the
opera. "...The real meaning of the work will come through the music," Parehowkai says
in the pavilion's literature, "Jut as my work 'Ten Guitars' was not about the instruments
themselves but about the way they brought people together, performance is central to
understanding...music fills a space like no object can" ("On First Looking into Chapman's
'Homer'"). Parekowhai's installation includes two replicas of pianos with bulls on top, all
cast in bronze. The central piece of the exhibition is a functional piano with ornate
carving, which during exhibition hours always has a piano player present. This creates
for a much different atmosphere than if Parekowhai decided to pipe in music from
speakers in the gallery. The performance is a focal point in the exhibition. The live
performer invites an audience, and indeed a group of people can be seen gathered around
the piano player more than they can any of the other works of art in the exhibition. This,
like the Hungarian or Dutch Pavilion, uses the idea of a music, staging, and performance
in addition to visual elements to address ideas of time, linearity, and creates for an "open
work", one which shifts based on the performance and the performer.
Though these themes were prevalent especially this summer in Venice, they can
be observed beyond the edges of the 54 Biennale. Matthew Barney's most recent show at
Barbara Gladstone's 21st Street gallery in New York is a prime example of this. The
show "DJED" is an installation of sculptural works that were made during and around an
opera performance that Barney staged in Detroit. Barney's work is characterized by
narrative sculpture that is generated during performative acts, and Barney uses the live
opera as a dramatic and ephemeral means to creating a monumental object (Gladstone).
The sculptures and performance are directly related, as Barney stated in an interview with
Matthew Bepler at Interview Magazine website. "...My interest in dance has to do with
the basic drama of an object in space, interacting with gravity, and the potential for the
object to fall over or to fail. The fundamental stuff of sculpture..." Barney said (Barney).
Barney admits that his work is more akin to dance than opera or theater, but that there are
intersections and it tends to meet in the middle when working with choreographers or
composers. Barney raises an interesting question with this statement and the
consideration of his work; does it perform, or is it a recording? Is the work fixed, or is the
potential for failure or excellence in every iteration? These questions are not answered
by his work, but created.
The importance of identifying these types of works is to pinpoint both their
significance in the contemporary art world and the place they may assume within a larger
art-historical context. Founberg states that Nemeth "displays a preoccupation with
transcending the borders of visual arts and music, as is evident with a number of artists
her age" (1). The artists of the Dutch Pavilion, Nemeth, Barney, Parekowhai are just a
few of the "visual" artists who are creating work in this manner today. Along with
Trenton Doyle Hancock's ballets, Laylah Ali's choreographed dances, and William
Kentridge's operas, the amount of works that appropriate forms of performance, theater,
opera, concert and ballet are numerous and point to a new direction of contemporary art.
Visual artists have not been restricted by definitions of medium for decades now, and
these new groups of work demonstrate that they no longer feel tied down to one
"discipline". This creates the chance for a body of work that is interactive, participatory,
viewable, non-fixed and, in the end, vastly more interesting and accessible to viewers.
These "looser works" are defining the newest genres in contemporary art.
Works Cited
Barney, Matthew. "Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler." Interview Magazine.
Interview Magazine. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/matthew-barney-and-jonathan-bepler>.
Bonardi, Alain, and Francis Rousseaux. "Composing an Interactive Virtual Opera: The
"Virtualis" Project." Leonardo 35.3 (2002): 315-18. JSTOR. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1577124 .>.
De Mallac, Guy. "The Poetics of the Open Form: (Umberto Eco's Notion of "Opera
Aperta")." Books Abroad Winter 45.1 (1971): 31-36. JSTOR. Web. 24 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/40125003 .>.
Founberg, Ivar. "Anatomy of a Point." Hajnal Nmeth: CRASH | Passive Interview.
CRASH: Passive Interview. Web. 5 Sept. 2011. <http://www.crash-
passiveinterview.c3.hu/text1.html>.
Gladstone Gallery. Press Release: Matthew Barney at 21st Street. Gladstone Gallery.
Gladstone Gallery. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.gladstonegallery.com/release_barney_2011.htm>.
"Hungarian Pavilion." Hajnal Nmeth: CRASH | Passive Interview. CRASH: Passive
Interview. Web. 5 Sept. 2011. <http://www.crash-passiveinterview.c3.hu/>.
Nicholls, D. "Virtual Opera, or Opera between the Ears." Journal of the Royal Musical
Association 129.1 (2004): 100-42. JSTOR. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3557490>.
"On First Looking into Chapman's 'Homer'" Home | New Zealand at the Venice Biennale
2011. New Zealand Pavilion. Web. 24 Sept. 2011.
<http://www.nzatvenice.com/>.
"Opera Aperta/Loose Work." Dutch Pavilion - 54th International Art ExhibitionLa
Biennale Di Venezia. Dutch Pavilion. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.
<http://www.venicebiennale.nl/>.


RESEARCH:
(dutch pavilion website)
-hungarian pavilion website

Michael Parekowhai sums up: While the objects inOn First Looking into
Chapmans Homer are important, the real meaning of the work will come
through the music. Just as my work Ten Guitarswas not about the
instruments themselves but about the way they brought people together,
performance is central to understanding On first looking into Chapmans
Homer because music fills a space like no object can.

new harvard dictionary- western opera
a drama that is primarily sung, accompanied by instruments, and presented
theatrically. that opera is primarily sung distinguishes it from dramatic pieces in
which music is incidental or clearly subsidiary to the drama. that it is presented
theatrically distinguishes it from oratorio, which has similar musical components, as
a staged dramatic work opera presupposes an audience
for while operais intrinsicallylinkedwith the live performanceof an extended and unified
dramaticplot, popular music exists mainly through recordingsof short,self-referentialnd
essentiallystaticsongs.
a hybrid,in which the most typicalcharacteristicosf its progenitorscome togetherto createa
distinctiveartisticformwhosewhole is greaterthanthe sum of its parts
hybridity and plurality
-nicholls

During opera performances, the spectator is subjected to a continuous composite flow [6] from the stage and the
hall:
sounds coming from the orchestra, the choir and the singers but reflected onto the walls before reaching his/her
ears, im- ages and lights coming from the stage, overhead subtitles, etc. Facing this flow, the spectator is absent
from the stage, but feels drawn in from time to time when sudden consciousness of some fact, which we could
term a singularity,bursts into his or her perception. Let us note
that these singularities, as soon as they
are detected, are no longer singularities; they are rather somehow added onto the
representation of the knowledge repre- sentation of the ongoing opera. the irruption of singularities triggers
various expressions, such as coughs, excessive silence, movements, etc., which are, in feedback, globally
interpreted by musicians and singers, who modify their play accordingly.
OPEN FORMS- works that can e varied by the instrumentalists playing them

-bonardi and rosseaux

notion of opera aperta, or open work of art,
The term "opera"- the work of art- is defined by Eco as
... an object endowed with structural properties that render possible a num-
ber of successive

Art being a manner of structuring a certain material (e.g., the very personality of
the artist, history, a language, a tradition, a specific theme, a formal hypothesis, or
an ideological context), Eco assertsthat art can only react to history and interpretit through its own
manner of informing its material- in the very strict philosophical
(scholastic) sense of the Latin informare, i.e., giving a form or shape to material or matter.In this
sense,the literarywork is a mode of informing its material,of endow- ing it with a form ("une maniere
d'informer"- Fr., p. 311).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/arts/music/28kentridge.html?pagewanted
=2&sq=Kentridge&st=cse&scp=1

Music is an ephemeral art form. It exists through active participation in the
listening process. The extent of the performance becomes reduced to a moment
of no duration when we recall it. In our memory music only exists reduced to
such a point.
5
Far too often music is treated as if it had no existence outside
time.
6
Music then tends to take on the role of confirmative practice. But by
returning to the point of the perceived music in our memory, we can expand our
experience with all possible challenges for our cognition. We can unfold the
anatomy of that point.
The works of Hajnal Nmeth display a preoccupation with transcending the
borders between visual arts and music, as is evident with a number of other
artists of her generation. Traditionally music is considered music for the ears and
not the eyes. With visuals and poly-mediality, both music and visual media often
retain their own paradigms: music for ballet accompanies the dance, music
created and listened to in accordance with musical paradigms, and dance being
performed and viewed within its own paradigms. Video artworks often have a
soundtrack. While they may challenge visual paradigms, the music is more or
less laid on as a cognitive facilitator.
7
In the works of Nmeth we experience
music transcending its own role as music and becoming visualized as an
integrated part of the expression. Music becomes a referent to a particular field
of experience.
8
In the works of Hajnal Nmeth the music is not always
silent,
9
but on the other hand we are not meant to listen to it as music. It
becomes a signifier of something beyond the category.

IN an elaboration of Ren Thoms catastrophe theory applied to the field of art,
Danish semiotician Peer K. Bundgrd discusses the stability of the artwork in
relation to its existence as a cognitive object. With Thom he concludes that it is
not possible to trace a specific work of art back to a fixed set of notions or a
stable and general structure. The artwork is in itself an elaboration of its own
essential notions.
10
We can also agree with Jacques Rancire that art is no
longer governed by its subject (as opposed, for example, to the realm of
politics
11
). Art defines itself by its very identity with non-art
12
as he puts it.

the space of Eros allows us to approach existential questions. It is here that the
notion of singing voices becomes important. In her directions for setting up the
installation, Hajnal Nmeth states that the dialogues should be sung as if it were
contemporary opera. The un-specificity of this instruction is important. Even if
there is a relation to the openness of John Cage, we should not confuse the two.
Cage wanted to de-subjectivize the music, free it from all influence of subjective
feelings.
16
I understand the instruction of Nmeth to be a de-referential issue:
that we do not associate to any specific reference of a particular piece of music,
but to the notion of singing itself.

anatomy of a point- ivar founberg

matthew barney:
In the same way that my visual language was coming from the
landscape and traditions of where the work was made, there was also
an abundance of soundboth ambient and traditional that came
along with each of these locations. It hadnt occurred to me to work
with a composer, partially because I didnt believe in it. In my mind,
soundtrack music belonged to the language of film (and Cremaster
did not), and was a layer of emotion that was applied, which didnt
interest me. It was inspiring to meet a composer who felt the same
way, and those first discussions with Jonathan led to the development
of Cremaster 5, which we did together in 1997. During the production
of C5, we established a way of working that involved writing the visual
narrative and the musical composition simultaneously. This opened
up a number of new possibilities.
ARNEY: I feel more connected to dance, as well. More so than to
theater or opera, for sure. Its interesting that we share that
although where we meet is closer to the language of opera. I think my
interest in dance has to do with the basic drama of an object in space,
interacting with gravity, and the potential for the object to fall over or
to fail. The fundamental stuff of sculptureand of physical comedy,
too. On the Detroit project I became more aware of your relationship
to drawing and mapping, and the way you choreograph the musicians
in a scene while you are writing the music for them. Can you talk
about your notation?