Harsh controversy over Namibia Pavilion at the Biennale. "It does not represent the country."

Controversy is erupting in Namibia over the African country’s debut at the Venice Biennale. It all revolves around the representation of the country that would be given in the Namibian Pavilion, which will open onCertosa Island. What will the public see in the pavilion, titled A Bridge to the Desert? There will be, explained curator Marco Furio Ferrario, a Land Art project entitled The Lone Stone Men of the Desert, the work of a collective of artists who refuse all identification, connotation and reference and prefer to introduce themselves under the pseudonym RENN. The work is intended to be a reflection on the human condition as told by a series of sculptures that appeared a few years ago in the Kunene region of the Namib Desert, the oldest in the world.

The sculptures, made of desert stones and iron rods, have stylized human features and the authors chose not to sign them originally, identifying them only with a phrase and a number: in fact, they want to represent the different cultures, distant, but seeking an encounter to find together the place of humankind in nature, depicted by the desert itself, which is not only the context of a site-specific work, but an integral part of the work itself. “This union of work and natural context,” the organizers explain in a note, “has in itself another key fundamental interpretation, considering that only two types of observers can relate to the work: the Himba - among the last human tribes to still live in a pre-technological state - and the few, lucky and brave travelers who venture out to explore the desert - mostly belonging to social groups opposite to the Himba, with highly technologized and urbanized lifestyles.” So here the works are intended to become a bridge over the desert as per the pavilion’s title, and this bridge is meant to represent the cultural distance between the world’s peoples, but also the critical situation reached in the relationship between humanity as a whole and the Earth as a biological niche.

The pavilion will also include a documentary photographic exhibition, set up at the old Dusthouse of Certosa, thanks to the collaboration with Vento di Venezia, the company that manages the island’s regeneration program, which will present to the public a selection of photographs depicting the sculptures featured in the project, which also wants to pose as an initiator of a movement called desert art: “the possible beginning of such a new current, which takes elements from street-art, land-art and pop-art,” the note further reads, “is argued in the curatorship and the exhibition.” Finally, the Pavilion is also developed through a path of immersive installations distributed in the Certosa park, inviting visitors to a hunt for the work on the island, similar to how it is done in the desert.

Why did the controversy arise? A group of Namibian art personalities, united under the name “Concerned Artists Namibia” (“Concerned Artists Namibia”) launched a petition on Change.org in early March to argue that RENN and Ferrario’s project is not representative of Namibia’s contemporary arts, with harsh criticism. Indeed, the vision offered by the pavilion, according to the petitioners, is “inappropriate, outdated and problematic.” Three, in particular, are the problems: first are the sculptures themselves, which depict Namibia’s indigenous peoples as closer to nature, and this idea would be “historically racist,” and used in the past “to justify the oppression of indigenous peoples by labeling them as naive and subhuman.” Criticism is also levelled at the presentation of the works: the fact that they can only be seen in the desert by the Himba and travelers represents, according to critics, a “prejudiced and colonial dichotomy of the uncivilized versus the civilized.” Again, the fact that travelers are referred to as “brave” would evoke the perception of the desert and its inhabitants as elements to be explored only by those with the skills to do so through “high-tech lifestyles: as discussed by many historians and academics, this is the same ideological basis that underpinned colonial expansion and occupation of territories like Namibia and the exploitation of its people and natural resources.”

The second problem lies in the fact that, according to the critics, limiting the pavilion to only the sculptures of RENN (who, the petition notes, although he is an artist officially without an identity can be traced back to someone active in thetourism industry, moreover white and male) does not take into account the vitality of Namibia’s cultural scene. In addition, the artist’s own choice is criticized: “no acclaimed critical writings on his work could be found, he has never exhibited in either solo or group shows at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, and to our knowledge he is not in any international collection. These are often the basic criteria for measuring the caliber of artists who are brought to the Venice Biennale; that is, they have achieved both local and international recognition on legitimate cultural and critical platforms.”

Finally, the third criticism, concerns the “lack of professionalism, curatorial experience, and knowledge in the field of contemporary art from Namibia,” as the critics write about the organizers: “it seems to us that a group of Italian individuals with no curatorial experience at a relevant level to date (let alone significant involvement with art from Namibia) have undertaken the concept described to ’represent’ Namibia in Venice. Almost no information is available on the experience or credentials of these individuals, or any connection to the Namibian art world that could perhaps justify their initiative as representatives of Namibia in an event of this prestige and scale.” Also according to the critics, the organizers would not even be “aware of the sensitivities related to decolonial and intersectional issues, especially in a particularly heartfelt post-apartheid era during which efforts to correct past injustices are paramount when engaging in a project of this nature.” Curator Ferrario, born in 1984, actually has no experience in the art world, having come from the world of travel: the Namibian national pavilion represents his first such experience.

In conclusion, critics hope that the Namibian government will withdraw its approval for the national pavilion. This would mean that Ferrario and his team would no longer be able to participate in the Venice Biennale under the auspices of the African country: they would have to present themselves as an independent or collateral exhibition. The controversy has already unleashed its effects: the project’s main patron, Monica Cembrola, who had also declared before the criticism that she had decided to support the pavilion “because its originality proves to be in line with the projects that The MCFAF Foundation has been supporting for years and whose aim is to develop the talent and skills of African artists,” resigned a few days before the opening of the biennale, and the exhibition’s main sponsor, Abercrombie and Kent, withdrew its support. Namibia’s debut at the Venice Biennale is really not off to the best start.

Pictured: the work Far gone by RENN.

Harsh controversy over Namibia Pavilion at the Biennale. "It does not represent the country."

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