KakayDisclosure
Published 04/25/2024 00:00
Leaving the Venice Biennale heading to Paris, there is always the illusion that art will overcome horror, mediocrity and war. Although we know it’s not true, dreaming is what sustains us. Perhaps the strongest act of artistic symbolism, among so much beauty, was that of Israeli artists choosing to keep the Israel pavilion closed in a protest against war, against death and against genocide. They will only open when the ceasefire is effectively decreed and all hostages are released. As the Biennale will last until November 24th, we can still maintain hope. It was touching to hear the eloquent silence of a people and see an option for peace. Art and culture do not match the oppression of war.
There were moments of high artistic inquiry, such as an act by a US indigenous group with a strange dance, which looked more like what was left of the American aborigines, slaughtered by the Yankee cavalry in a pajelança that reminded the Indians of an amusement park. As everything can be art, we observe, embarrassed, almost sad. But it is a real representation of a country that scares the world with the return of Trump.
Without understanding anything about art, just observing freely, it was beautiful to see the strength of popular culture. A great space for non-academic representational art. That, perhaps, is a necessary expression that can present a feeling of what art means for a given period of humanity.
The great artists, classics, managed, as a rule, to capture the essence, the soul, of moments in history. Sometimes far beyond the moment. They created. They traveled. They told stories not yet written. The story, it doesn’t matter if it’s true, of Michelangelo in front of David’s sculpture – the most stunning in the world – says it all. Asked how he did it, he reportedly said: I sat in front of the marble block for months on end. I was imagining David. One day I decided I had to create it: so I took the material to carve and just removed the excess. When I finished, all that was left was David.
Therefore, I believe in art as a power of transformation. Tarcísio’s killer police, Bolsonaro’s racist sentiment and Zema’s atavistic ignorance will not be able to silence the revolutionary atmosphere of an exhibition like the Biennale. There, in the midst of so much creativity, we have the impression that the world exists, breathes and pulsates beyond the emasculating mediocrity. Fool of those who, like me, cannot see just the liberating power of art. Which is always stuck in political polarity. After all, art really exists to free us.
As Nietzsche reminded us:
