| Gae Savannah: Can you talk about the “Waterways” project that you organized at the Venice Biennial in 2005? Renée Vara: The “Waterways” project was a public collective action—a nostalgic and utopian intervention that literally functioned as a social sculpture, and which cut the physical space of the Venetian landscape by moving through the canals. The installation site was that of a public vaporetto (ferry) that typically provides free public transport to Venetians. We installed a 48-hour show on one of the boats, which operated on the Numero 1 Linea, running between the Arsanale (the main entrance to the Venice Biennale) and the Piazza San Marco (the main square in the city center). |
 |
The Waterways Project at the Venice Bienniale – Gae Savannah
Gae Savannah: Can you talk about the “Waterways” project that you organized at the Venice Biennial in 2005?
Renée Vara: The “Waterways” project was a public collective action—a nostalgic and utopian intervention that literally functioned as a social sculpture, and which cut the physical space of the Venetian landscape by moving through the canals. The installation site was that of a public vaporetto (ferry) that typically provides free public transport to Venetians. We installed a 48-hour show on one of the boats, which operated on the Numero 1 Linea, running between the Arsanale (the main entrance to the Venice Biennale) and the Piazza San Marco (the main square in the city center). It was performed during the opening weekend of the biennale, and it ended up becoming a global collaboration of over 35 artists, collectors, curators, museums, scholars and sponsors.
GS: From where did your idea of curating on boats originate?
RV: It started at Miami Art Basel. I met several artists there who, like me, were bored and under-whelmed by the current art fair scene. I myself, in particular, was feeling boxed in by all the containers, hotel rooms and convention halls that were being used to show art. Along with these other artists, I noticed that our experience with art has become one that is predictable, and codified by the language of academic critique and display. I wanted to add some chaos into my curatorial practice and to look at the false ideal of control with regard to public art. When I returned to New York, I continued this dialogue with my community of colleagues. I thought it would be interesting to explore the very unfashionable notion of didactic political art, which was obviously absent from the whitewashed Miami Art Basel experience. The Venice Biennale was coming up, and after I studied the landscape of the area and thought about what the fabric of Venice really is, I realized it was water. Water is the heart and veins of Venice, as well as a vital but problematic natural resource that sits inside of the current global warming debate. As water is the medium of Venice, I wanted to curate this rather than objects. The result was a collaborative effort that addressed current issues dealing with water and its role in environmentalism.
GS: What environmental issues were you addressing?
RV: We were very clear about being utopian—about doing art not for art’s sake. It was not necessarily formulated as a critique, as we all operated within the system of the art world. We wanted to suggest that the current international fight for global resources needs further collaboration and cooperation. Global warming is happening largely due to the lack of international cooperation. By all expert accounts, America and China are the biggest contributors to global warming, yet they both refuse to participate in international efforts such as the Kyoto Treaty. When we created “Waterways” in 2005, the dialogue about the environment was very different from what it is today, this was before An Inconvenient Truth had educated the public. I wanted to use the project as an emblem of the types of communal activities that are required to deal with the legitimate concerns of scientists today. It was a global collaboration between the art world, the private business sector and environmental scientists. We need this kind of cooperation among the world’s countries in order to combat global warming. We need free market encouragement among the public, government and private business sectors, all of which should be sanctioned by scientists.
GS: How did the premise of your Istanbul Biennial project differ from that of the one in Venice?
RV: The “Waterways” project was originally conceived of as a series of social statements that could be reenacted within different countries and cultures, all with a focus on water. The point was that the shape of each action in each location would be contingent upon its context—as landscapes and their people vary in their relationship to water. For instance, in Istanbul, our Vapur rode between Asia and Europe on the Bosphorus waterway. Thus, we named the show “Between Two Continents” to comment on that particular environment. Another difference was that it became an “Official Project of the Biennial” and was sanctioned by the art world. One would think that this approval would make it easier, but the fundraising, installation and organization were done on a tight schedule, and solely by my New York office and the artSummer program. Furthermore, the official status of the project burdened it with a new element: expectation. Many people involved lost their idealism, viewing the show as a career-making opportunity and, therefore, they did not engage in the unorthodox process of showing art through a voluntary and communal method. Venice was very utopian in that everyone was involved in the process and experience. With Istanbul, the roles, which had been expanded outside of tradition, somehow returned to their norm. In a way, the Istanbul project became very emblematic for the larger challenge, with idealistic environmentalism, since it struggled with the concept of sustainability.
GS: Did you have any personal intentions within the project?
RV: My personal intention for the project was to expand it further into the realm of performance. I also wanted to push against what I call “the limits of conceivability.” More importantly, the shows were specifically public art projects and were designed to explore the role of pluralism and accessibility in the typically elite practice of curating. I believe that, if modernism was a utopian project that failed because art did not change the world, we are currently suffering from another type of failure: nihilism. Generally, artists in New York accept that, in this post-post-modern moment, any attempt to change the world through art is impossible. But this has created homeostasis: we all just accept the market and its role, remaining in the comfortable modern paradigm of nihilism vs. idealism. Perhaps the most recent failure is our acceptance to never attempt any change or influence on the real world. This perspective is completely at odds with the public’s perception of the role of culture and art in today’s society. They believe it has some civic value. I wanted to see if I could bridge this cataclysmic gulf between the art world and the public’s expectations surrounding public art. The question I was formulating for myself: “Is there any escape from this modern dialectic?” Furthermore, the “Waterways” project played with the intentionality of art in its attempt to change the hierarchy of the roles associated with the art scene, making it more elastic. This flexibility and freedom is common of course with artists, but very rare with curators. I wanted to explore all these problems of curatorial practice.
GS: I would consider your guerilla brand of creative curating as verging on the terrain of performance. Are you consciously bringing performance into the curating arena?
RV: Yes, again, that was my intention, in the sense that this project welcomed constant change and a lack of predictability in a setting where art was displayed. And for me, this decision was exciting as it allowed me to do something that worked against the common role of the curator as only a facilitator, fundraiser and thinker, by releasing control and embracing disorder. Many people gawk at this notion of a curator’s abandoning the idea of quality—but that was actually purposeful. While many artists are allowed the freedom to move from one act to the other because they carry the license of creativity, I find that curators are chained to their proscribed space as an organizer or manager. But so many curators could have, like me, easily had another identity. All the mission and curatorial statements made it clear that this project was attempting political action through new perspectives. I collected and motivated different people, resources, skills, voices and lines of transportation rather than art objects. I wanted to challenge myself to move outside the controllable space of the gallery, and away from the materialistic objectives of consumption. Not everyone embraced this concept. One very prestigious non-profit (which I can’t name) loved the “Waterways” idea, but said they couldn’t support it because it wasn’t controllable. On the other hand, Cydney Payton, at MCA in Denver, embraced and supported it, as she has a specific mandate regarding public art—one that is exactly what I was aiming for—to explore the boundaries, which artists, curators and institutions make for themselves. The question asked is: “What makes them move from the modern homeostasis?” And, in asking this, I held up a mirror to the struggle of our moment: the reluctance to accept that nature, with all its possibilities, cannot be controlled.
