In the documentary film: La Hora de Los Hornos(1968) by Fernando Solanas, celebrated author Manuel Mujica Lainez is having a book launch of his novel Royal Chronicles. In the cocktail party, held in the Pepsi Cola Salon, surrounded by the Argentinian culture elite, he claims that he is a “man of European formation”. He says, that he “rather lived in Venice”. I sense in these words the colonial idea of Europe being the center and the Buenos Aires the periphery. Today the old colonial “eurocentrism” might have lost a bit of it’s grip, but here we are, once again in Venice.
In the current exhibition: May You Live in Interesting Times curated by Ralph Rugoff, out of 82 artists, 16 were based in New York, 12 in Berlin, 8 in Los Angeles, 6 in Paris and 4 in London. Out of all artists, curated in the exhibition, almost everyone are coming from the “Global Cities”, or cities that are lesser of their size, but are still networked in a similar way, excluding one or two. The networked power of the global cities might not be identical to that of the neo-colonialism in every respect, but there are some similarities, not least the shared historical constitution. The global cities are centers, that drag in both material as well as cognitive capital, creating connections between one another, excluding peripheries, that are slowly vanishing.
Today Buenos Aires is considered a “global city”, and there was one curated artist, who came from there as well. Venice is not found from the Global City Report, yet its social fabric is quite global, especially if you regard the tourists as part of the city, and plenty of this is thanks to the Art Biennials. Retreating from the center towards peripheries, one comes across with less and less connected towns, with shrinking circulation of the cultural diversity. At some point one might come across with the town called Pieksämäki, a small rural town in the South-East of Finland, which is struggling with the shrinking population and aging of those, that remain. While Pieksämäki is still relatively well connected (it grew up as the interchange of various railway lines), in relation to Venice, one might regard it a periphery.
Last summer the enterpreneurs of Pieksämäki decided to collaborate with local artists in order to organize an art exhibition by using the façade windows of empty estates in the center of the town. This year the curatorial team of artists arranged a public call for artists to of the exhibition to be realized in these very same facades. The theme of the call was “New Berlin” (“Uusi Perliini”). “New Berlin” is the idiom for “artists meccah”. It suggests cheap living, plenty of low priced studio spaces, vivid cultural scene, connectivity etc. Local entepreneurs might dream of tourist flows, arrival of hipsters, accumulation of the immaterial modes of productions and so on. Could Venice be the version of that dream? From the artists point of view, curators that represent the central institutions of art, are unlikely visiting Pieksämäki. Artist might become interested in Pieksämäki in a certain, conceptual framework. In order to get support for the idea, the discource should be recognized. Those ideas that are recognizable, deal with the ideas, that are common rather than specific. Even if the cultural fabric of metropoles is more heterogenous than that of the small towns, there is more common in the cities, since there is more of those sharing the common in the metropoles. A great common is the city-space itself, which is common for all of it’s citizens. Even if the access to the city varies according to one’s social status, there are some of those points that must be shareable, otherwise the city would not function as one.
In the present, the center of Pieksämäki is colonized with the over-sized supermarkets, hardware stores and gas stations that belong to the very few business-chains, that are found from every Finnish town. Like in every towns, villages and cities, these commercial spaces are the common experience. The other experiential common in the rural towns like Pieksämäki is that what is called “forest”. I don’t regard Pieksämäki as beautiful, or any way exceptional, but I am thinking of it, since that is where my grandparents used to live. It is the town of my mother’s childhood. Without asking my permission, this place became part of my life and identity. My body connects both Venice and Pieksämäki. It contains experiences of both places. Such a connection does not produce any productive link. Yet it silently asks, why are our artistic – or research activities realized in Venice.
Source: ATKearney: Global City Report 2018: see: https://www.atkearney.com/documents/20152/1136372/2018+Global+Cities+Report.pdf/21839da3-223b-8cec-a8d2-408285d4bb7c(27th of March 2019).
May You Live in Interesting Times curated by Ralph Rugoff, see:
(https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019/artists, 27thof March in 2019)
"In the current exhibition: May You Live in Interesting Times out of more than 80 artists, 16 were based in New York, 12 in Berlin, 8 in Los Angeles, 6 in Paris, 4 in London, 3 in Mexico City, 2 in Seoul. With one or two exepctions, almost all artists, curated in the exhibition are coming from the “Global Cities”, or cities that are lesser of their size, but are still networked in a similar way, excluding one or two. Could Pieksämäki become the next Venice? Like Pieksämäki, also the historic center of Venice suffers from the decline of population. Currently the population of the historic center is aboce 55 000. Some days the amount of tourists surpasses the amount of citizens."