Letter from the Editor: Scale | Berlin Art Link

"In recent years, biennials have had a tendency to downplay themselves, opting for curatorial themes that emphasize slowing down, practicing care, attuning to the microbial or microcosmic, to the local and communal. As world politics and climate devastation feel beyond our control, it makes sense that we would gravitate to these kinds of "minor practices." Yet in their execution, mega-shows like the Biennale tell a different story: hundreds of artists' works are crammed into a central exhibition with no breathing room, thousands of visitors descend upon a city that is already reeling from over-tourism and its ecological effects."

""In Minor Keys" purports to listen to the quiet notes, privileging works that speak of tender moments and pockets of intimacy and rest, with a focus on "enchantment, seeding, commoning and generative practices that invite collectivities." While some works in the vast exhibition achieve this, the scale and spectacle of the Biennale itself evinces the possibility of their legibility within any kind of "minor" logic."

"Florentina Holzinger's highly anticipated, standout commission for the Austrian Pavilion, 'Seaworld Venice,' at first appears as the antithesis to the Biennale's stated curatorial theme. As Louise Trueheart writes of her forthcoming review as part of this topic, Holzinger's medium, more than performance even, is scale. "She is a jock of a choreographer...she is primarily interested in how to scale up the body, how to push and train and win. So a lot of dramaturgical choices come out of that core largeness/largesse.""

"Trueheart argues that only with her relationship to scale clearly established is it possible to critique Holzinger's work or politics: "she needs the small things to make the big things seem big, but""

Recent biennial programming emphasizes slowing down, care, and microcosmic attention as responses to uncontrollable world politics and climate devastation. Despite these themes, mega-shows like the Venice Biennale concentrate hundreds of artists’ works into a central exhibition and bring thousands of visitors to a city already affected by over-tourism and ecological strain. “In Minor Keys” claims to privilege quiet notes, intimacy, rest, and generative commoning practices, yet the event’s scale and spectacle challenge whether such minor logics can be legible. Florentina Holzinger’s “Seaworld Venice” in the Austrian Pavilion initially seems opposed to the curatorial theme, but its medium is scale, making scale itself central to how the work can be critiqued.

Read at Berlin Art Link