The best pavilion at the Venice Biennale? Your house! Word of Luca Rossi

On the occasion of the Venice Biennale 2024, Luca Rossi, artist, critic, blogger, and hybrid figure in the art system, has imagined what could be the best “pavilion” at the Venice Biennale, and the answer might surprise you: in fact, according to Luca Rossi, the best pavilion at the Venice Biennale is... home.

Luca Rossi has therefore initiated the Home Pavilion project with which he aims to interrupt the classic narrative of National Pavilions, inside and outside the Giardini area of the Biennale, by opposing a unique choice and perspective: the “best pavilion” is and must be our home. In a historical phase characterized by international instability and profound geopolitical upheavals, the only political space left for the individual citizen is represented, Luca Rossi argues, by his own private dimension. “A choice in this dimension,” the artist explains, “can be worth ten or twenty times the choice of a Head of State. After the constraints imposed by globalization, the policies of modern states have no room for maneuver. Governments, both domestically and internationally, can only implement policies of buoyancy, designed to deal with yet another emergency, but never real policies of change. The sovereignist movements themselves seem to be seeking a phony radicalization solely aimed at differentiating themselves and demanding electoral consensus by appealing to the fear of citizens.”

How then? Over the past two decades, the “Venice Biennale” has turned, says Luca Rossi, more and more into a “Luna Park” for adults whose result, after thousands of works to be seen in a short time and in a small space, can only be the viewer’s dizziness. Before “going to the Biennale,” the artist therefore suggests that the viewer stop on the doorstep, turn around and consider that the “best pavilion to visit.” What do we look for when we enter an art exhibition? What do we ask of the works? Entertainment, fun, deep reflection? All of this is already present in our homes, it is already all before our eyes, but we are not seeing it.

The Home Pavilion project, with a 5 euro ticket, provides access to a video tutorial demonstrating how 26 of the best modern and contemporary artists are already in our homes, before our eyes, but we are not seeing them. Beuys, Koons, Abramovic, Eliasson, Warhol, Cattelan and many others.

At the same time, in order to organize, set up and visit the Venice Biennale, enormous pollution is produced, which is combined with thousands of air trips by artists, insiders and spectators from all over the world. Lately the Biennale is the bearer of decolonial, feminist, gender fluid and post-anthropocentric values. But all this becomes, according to Luca Rossi, yet another “exotic stall” for mass tourism: a great contradiction in which these values seem only posthumous labels to hastily attach to the works. Works to be viewed in total chaos, tired and dazed. From these reflections comes the most natural thing: to shun all this. Do not spend money to go to Venice, do not waste time, do not contribute (even minimally) to the chaos and pollution. “Stay home,” says Luca Rossi. “Precisely because the best pavilion is your home. In fact, it has to be your home. Because then the Biennale ends but your life doesn’t.” As is the case with all of Luca Rossi’s independent projects, the project will be promoted heavily on the city of Venice through communication campaigns and starting April 14, 2024. All interested journalists can access the video tutorial for free in order to learn about the project in the most in-depth way.

“Today outside and inside fairs and biennials we experience a huge pollution of works, content and information of which each of us is both creator and victim,” says Luca Rossi. "As Byung Chul Han also argues, this leads to a form of addiction and anesthetization. We cannot see anything, we are completely blind. We experience great emptiness masquerading as fullness; this is the feeling of dizziness and disappointment we experience after visiting contemporary art fairs and biennials. We do not need to express ourselves, we do it far too much, the forces of repression today do not prevent people from expressing themselves, but incite them to do so. Having to produce and process dozens and dozens of information every day forces us not to think. We cannot have a revolution because they do not make us think. For several years now, modern states, in the post-globalization stage, can only carry out buoyant policies. The only political space left is our private dimension. If we really want change, but this is all to be tested, a choice we make in this dimension is worth 10-20 times the choice of a head of state. Home Pav ilion interrupts and reverses the classic juxtaposition in the narrative of national pavilions at the Venice Biennale. While the Biennale pollutes enormously Home Pavilion is made with minimal resources and emissions, virtually none. Home Pav ilion represents a form of resistance with respect to the degeneration of our time, and allows us to reclaim our time. Feriae, the Time of the Gods. In the society of performance, even the lunch break, even what we think of as free time, becomes functional to performance. Home Pavilion, through access to a video tutorial, allows us to recover a ritual, a series of gestures and actions that will bring us together-in our home-26 of the best modern and contemporary artists. These artists are already in our home but we are not seeing them. According to Byung Chul Han, only the recovery of rituals, and thus something aimed at no specific purpose, can help us recover our time and resist the degeneration of contemporaneity. Training new eyes becomes an extraordinary form of ecology that allows us to redefine the idea of museum, artist and artwork."

The best pavilion at the Venice Biennale? Your house! Word of Luca Rossi

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.