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people & arts Monday 28 May 2018
Real-world debates permeate Venice Biennale on architecture

By COLLEEN BARRY century, a conflict over
Associated Press who had the right to clean
VENICE, Italy (AP) — Real- a raised stone in the church
world debates permeate courtyard led to violence,
this year’s Venice Biennale said pavilion co-curator
on architecture, from com- Deborah Pinto Fdeda.
memorating spaces once “Tens of people died,” she
part of the U.S. slave trade said. “It is through the us-
to maintaining the delicate age of places over time
status quo at religious sites that these communities
in the Holy Land. gain or lose power.” Yet
The sprawling exhibition, even there the status quo
which opens Saturday for evolved: “Today the Lat-
a six-month run, reflects ins and Orthodox agree
not only on the political to clean it as if the other
implications of what gets doesn’t exist.”
built but also on the empty The U.S. pavilion comments
spaces in between. on the meaning of citizen-
“We have to be aware of ship as governments dic-
the political issues in order tate who belongs and who
to make buildings which doesn’t.
protect, in so far as we can, Amanda Williams and An-
the status of the human dres Hernandez created, In this photo taken on Wednesday, May 23, 2018, a man visits the installation by architect Javier
being in the world,’” said in collaboration with Shani Corvalan at the Vatican pavilion, at the Biennale International Architecture exhibition, in Venice,
Shelley McNamara, co-cu- Crowe, “a pocket of re- Italy.
rator with Yvonne Farrell of treat” in the courtyard be- Associated Press
the main exhibition, “Free hind a protective veil of
Space.” “’We are acutely black braids. The refuge is
aware of the things that built on a rail, symbolizing
are threatening the quality the underground railroad
of life of human beings.’” that helped bring slaves
The Israeli Pavilion, subtitled to freedom. It projects up-
“structures of negotiation,” ward, toward a better fu-
outlines the consequences ture. “The piece tries to em-
of multiple claims on re- body that trajectory from
vered religious places and fighting and surviving for
how daily use defines mon- your citizenship to thriving,”
uments. It doesn’t com- Williams said.
ment on how the Trump Inside, a group called Stu-
administration’s recent de- dio Gang brought 800
cision to move the U.S. Em- stones from a 19th century
bassy to Jerusalem from Tel landing in Memphis linked
Aviv might impact the Mid- to the slave trade. Co-
dle East conflict. But the curator Ann Lui said the
curators agreed it is easy to project was about “taking
draw inferences. a moment to think about
“What we know is that these fraught sites” without
sometimes political events proposing, yet, how to re-
have a very heavy impact member them.
on the status quo of the Saudi Arabia is one of six
holy places and vice versa, countries participating for
and even if the equilibrium the first time in the architec-
of the status quo in the holy tural Biennale, with a proj-
places is for some reason ect that focuses on urban
violated it has an influence sprawl in the kingdom’s
on the political situation,” four major centers: politi-
said the pavilion’s co-cura- cal capital Riyadh, religious
tor Tania Coen Uzzielli. capital Mecca, the oil city
Take the Church of the of Dammam and the port
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusa- city of Jeddah.
lem, revered as the place “The sprawl is the result of
of Jesus’ crucifixion and the oil boom but the result
burial and one of the pavil- of the sprawl is actually so-
ion’s five case studies. The cial isolation,” said curator
exhibit features a color- Sumayah Al-Solaiman.
coded, three-dimensional Participation in the Bien-
model of the church made nale is yet another sign of
for an Ottoman-era pa- recent opening in Saudi
sha to make clear which Arabia, giving Saudis an
denomination controlled important chance to com-
which area. municate their experiences
In the early part of the last directly to the world.q