Sorcha Dallas

Both original and striking, Scots art more than holds its own in the world of the 51st Venice Biennale

Ah, Venice. The canals, the art, the beautiful people, the blisters. Welcome to the art world’s biannual love-in. A festival so grandiose, so exhaustive and in many respects so fundamentally absurd that it could only happen in a city built on water.

Eighty countries, hundreds of artists, and that’s just the official programme. And there among them, in this the 51st Venice Biennale, for the second time only, we have an official Scottish pavilion. Well its not exactly a pavilion but a converted palazzo in the centre of town and somewhere less grand than our last temporary home. But it is official. So put aside issues of whether or not the world might have outgrown this sort of high-culture Eurovision (yes, there are prizes) and whether the actual notion of a national Scottish art remains at all valid. What’s important right now is whether the Scottish entry measures up to the international standard.

It’s been a tall order to live up to last time’s runaway success, two of whose artists are currently shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize, but first impressions suggest that the curators have pulled it off.

The Biennale is gallery-going re-defined as an endurance sport. There’s a well-defined etiquette to biennalism. Here’s how it works. You fly in amid a gaggle of art world people, from the Scottish National Galleries director Timothy Clifford in seersucker suit, panama and docksiders to London’s finest, who appear to have stepped straight out of a Vogue photoshoot. Everyone discusses their hotels and makers rash predictions for the best pavilions. Then it’s party time.

It was generally agreed two years ago that the Scots had given the best bash. Not to be outdone, the organisers this year hired a bowling alley and installed two of Glasgow’s hottest young bands, the Mitford Girls and Franz Ferdinand sound-alikes F*** -Off Machete. In fact, there was a distinct flavour of Glasgow about the entire event, provoking at least one seasoned critic to start muttering things like ‘hijack’ and ‘bigger picture’.

There was no denying, through, that the evening was a runaway success. The bands played blistering sets, the booze flowed and the predominantly Scottish art world crowd was gradually supplanted by a genuinely international throng of curators, critics and entrepreneurs.

Sadly, clashing as it did with the opening of the Lucien Freud show at the Museo Correr and White Cube’s blue-chip V Biennale party, it was inevitable that Scotland’s hoolie would not boast the really big players. But as a statement of intent there was no doubting its success. Unfortunately, it also led to the second ritual of Biennale going: the hangover.

Having been decidedly under-whelmed by the Scottish launch of our Biennale project, I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised by the work. Cathy Wilkes has filled one of the rooms with a beautifully arranged and orchestrated pile of household junk, from a baby’s pushchair to two functionalist TVs and a pair of shredded trainers. In the centre of the room, from a stark white washbasin, a single human hair dangles down into a metal tray. Two other similar trays contain other objects: fruit, a mobile phone, empty make-up jars, all of them covered in subtly corrosive petrol. On the walls abstract paintings have had fused to their surfaces small ceramic plates which appear to have been thrown at them with some force. The overall effect is a moving paean to the plight of abused domestic goddesses everywhere; a bitter cry from the heart that places Wilkes at the forefront of contemporary art in Scotland.

Next door, Alex Pollard’s installation is equally impressive. On one wall he shows a brilliantly conceived relief sculpture under glass in which a stick man made from an old wooden ruler is supported on a ground whose perspective is created by nothing more than cut-out brown card. Its subtle echoes of Dada and De Chirico are reprised in two beautifully made sculptures full of wry wit and ironic references to the cult of the found object.

The third room is less successful. For all their existing international plaudits, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan’s attempt to play on ideas of the common language of primitive sculpture falls flat and, as is often the case in Biennale group shows, it is sadly a question of less would unquestionably have been more.

There are 31 pavilions of varying vintage built in the course of the festival’s 110-year history. Chances are that, even if you wanted to, you will not visit every one. Start with British (no, not English) pavilion and the ineffable Gilbert & George. In my opinion it displays a welcome maturity. Hugely impressive triptychs and diptychs define the difficult space of the pavilion, and if you want my tip for the top among the official exhibits, this is it. It was also the one pavilion in which Cate Blanchett, arriving with four heavies, clearly wanted to be photographed – even if she was upstaged by dear old Grayson Perry in his outrageous milkmaid’s outfit.

Annettee Messager from France is genuinely intriguing if over-visceral, while the Germans seem for once determined to let us know that they have a sense of humour. Here, surrounded by some highly questionable paintings, four convincing performance artists take on the personae of museum wardens and chant in unison: ‘Oh…this is so contemporary’ in a way which had the pundits falling around in hysterics of selfrecognition.

So what then is there to praise? One success is certainly Serbia’s Natalija Vujosevic, whose harrowing video In case I never meet you again is deeply moving. The nearby Hungarian pavilion is also of a high standard, with the eerily disturbing masked dummies of Balazs Kicsiny. While I was taken by the ironic wood sculptures of Australia’s Ricky Swallow, I wonder how many visitors missed the tiny window at the back of the Italian national pavilion, which with its view into a cobweb-strewn 18th century interior must be the festival’s greatest secret as well as one of the best pieces – though I’m still unaware of its creator’s identity.

An interesting indicator of the growing status of the Scottish gallery world is the number of familiar faces there are here who have also enjoyed shows in Scotland in recent years, from Ed Ruscha’s peerless road signs at the American pavilion to Iceland’s Gabriela Fridriksdottir and, in the vast Italian exhibition pavilion, Miroslav Balka. This last venue is one of the real highlights of the year. With pieces ranging from rarely seen Francis Bacons to Whiteread’s staircase, a room of Guston, another of Schutte and superb works by other major players including Marlene Dumas, Mark Wallinger, Thomas Ruff, Nauman, Munoz, Agnes Martin, Kruger, Kentridge and Jenny Holtzer, it alone makes the trip to Venice worthwhile.

It’s important to remember that throughout Venice there are other, independent showes. Perhaps the best of these this year is God is Great, a wonderful joint effort between Britian’s own Anish Kapoor, Dougls Gordan and John Latham. Kapoor’s seductively vertiginous ambient abstracts are perfectly complemented by Gordan’s succinct, questioning texts and a huge smashed glass floor piece by Latham in which the holy books of three world religions assert an end to sectarianism and religious bigotry. And if by this time you’re in need of refreshment, try the so-called Manchester pavilion, actually the best bar in town.

By this time I’m persuaded that you really will have had your fill of the contemporary cutting edge. What better antidote than the Correr’s magnificent tribute to Freud? With all those paintings spanning the entire career of England’s greatest contemporary painter, it is certainly among my front-runner for the year’s finest exhibition, in or out of Venice. And don’t forget, if you still need any visual culture, there are a few churches in town. In fact, one of the great benefits of staging this extravaganza in Venice is this enduring benchmark. It’s always astonishing just how easily a quick hit of Titian and Tintoretto can provide a reality check on what claim to be valid works of art.

If ever there was a year to visit the Biennale, then this surely is it. It is more intelligent and more representative than I can remember seeing it and, for all its failings, as genuine a marker of the spirit of our times as you are likely to find.

On a more specific note, there is no doubt in my mind that the Scottish pavilion more than holds its own and that it will surely fulfil its aim of announcing to the thousands who will visit it the fact that the art currently originating in Scotland is among the most original, vibrant and engaging being made anywhere in the world.