Difficult themes
In one week in May, both the opening of the Venice Biennale and the Eurovision Song Contest took place. Two very different festivities in which - in addition to the art form displayed - it is about national pride and national representation. The Song Contest originated in 1956, so near the end of our colonial period. The Venice Biennale first took place in 1895, still in the midst of the colonial period and not so long after the Berlin Conferences (1884 and 1885) in which the continent of Africa was divided among the colonial powers by 15 European countries plus the United States.
In the early days of the Venice Biennale, national pride was represented and propagated by colonial powers. Art from the colonies was used at most to contrast it with Western art in order to underscore developmental thinking.
Of the country pavilions at the Giardini in Venice, the Belgian pavilion was completed first, in 1907. The Netherlands completed the Rietveld Pavilion in 1954 (it had been using the originally Swedish pavilion, built and designed by the Biennale itself, since 1914). The number of national pavilions in the Giardini would eventually grow to 29. Beyond that, more country pavilions followed, including those of former colonies (Africa was represented as a continent for the first time in the official program in 2007) scattered across many locations in the city. These are freely accessible - unlike the pavilions in the Giardini and the Arsenale.
With Cineme Olanda Wendelien van Oldenborgh raises hidden histories that are intertwined with a colonial past (of the Netherlands in this case) in this year's Dutch Pavilion. Van Oldenborgh is not the first to address this theme. In 2015, for example, the Belgian Pavilion focused on their colonial history in an exhibition curated by visual artist Vincent Meessen and curator Katerina Gregos.
At a time when the art world is also globalizing and there is more room in that world for formerly colonized and/or marginalized countries, it is good that hidden (colonial) histories are given attention and brought to the surface. In whatever way possible. Slowly a new national pride comes into view that says: look at us acknowledge and process the black pages of our history. Where better to do this than at a biennial that was once designed around national pride, which in turn was built on prosperity that was largely acquired in the colonies?
Art is a sanctuary for this difficult theme (and all other themes) and the Venice Biennale is a suitable place to address it through visual art and to stimulate discussion from there.
Let's look forward to new difficult themes around our colonial past in all its forms, so that in the end we don't have to hide from our past anymore and development thinking actually gives way to equality thinking. At the Venice Biennale, visitors are now getting used to this new national pride and know how to interpret it, or not.
Now for the Eurovision Song Contest.
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