STARA - 01.09.2015, Blaðsíða 41

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Ten days after the opening, the municipal au-
thorities in Venice decided to close down the pa-
vilion, and from that time it has not been open
to the public. The Icelandic organizers of the pa-
vilion have criticized the reasons for the closure
and have repeatedly tried to find ways to open
the pavilion up again.
Büchel’s work at the Biennale is clear and sim-
ple in its conception. It is based on the mod-
ern tradition of assembly, where alien elements
are introduced into a more local situation in
order to create an emphatic effect. Its basis is
the transformation of a building that was obvi-
ously originally a catholic church into a Muslim
mosque. Büchel has done his research into the
prevailing traditions pertaining to the organiza-
tion of western mosques, something he follows
up extensively. The result is a mosque that is a
compelling supplement to the original church,
including the prayer carpets pointing towards
Mecca, the facilities for washing the hands and
feet before prayer, the office of the imam, a large
and bright chandelier made with hand-blown
glass, an educational area, and a shop where you
can buy religious merchandize. It even includes
a photograph of the president of Iceland, Ólafur
Ragnar Grímsson, as the head of the state that
runs the mosque. All in all, the installation is
professionally made and credible as a mosque. It
makes for an interesting contrast with the origi-
nal building, one that represents the catholic
state of Venice. The attention to detail is admira-
ble and the piece as a whole is quite effective and
works well in relation to its artistic precedents.
Islamic culture and the Venice Biennale
In recent years there have been a number of cas-
es at the Venice Biennale where the organizers of
individual pavilions, exhibition curators, or the
local government have been accused of interfer-
ing with artists’ freedom of expression. This is
especially interesting when in most of these in-
cidents, the content or context of the works in
question has been connected to Islamic or Ara-
bic culture. The works involved are very diverse
and the situation relating to their supposed cen-
sorship. These precedents therefore function as
to provide insight into the possible reasons un-
derlying the closure of the Icelandic pavilion.
The German artist Gregor Schneider was invited
to participate in the main exhibition of the bi-
ennale in 2005, where he submitted a work that
was intended to be situated in the centre of the
St. Mark’s Square in Venice. It was to be a cubical
form, an aluminium frame covered with black
cloth. Its dimensions were to be roughly the same
as the Kaaba in Mecca, one of the holiest shrines
of the Muslim faith. According to Schneider, the
Venetian authorities did not give any official ex-
planation as to why permission was not granted
for placing the work on St. Mark’s Square. The
organizers of the Biennale and the city authori-
ties issued contradictory claims about the rea-
son for the denial. David Croff, the president of
the Biennale, originally said the authorities had
denied permission for security reasons. Later he
acknowledged, in an e-mail he sent Schneider,
that the decision had been politically motivated.
Alessandra Santerini, the official representative
for the Biennale at the time, announced official-
ly that the permission for the work had been de-
nied based on two premises, the first being that
it would have disrupted the view of the square
and the cathedral, the second being that the lo-
cal authorities were afraid of offending the Mus-
lim community in Venice.
In 2008, the Palestinian artist Emily Jacir pre-
pared a work for the first Palestinian pavilion
in Venice. The planned work was to supplement
the signs for the Vaporetto water bus stops on
line 1 in Venice with their names written in Ara-
bic characters. The public transport authorities
were enthusiastic about the installation of the
work, and even offered to participate in its in-
stallation. The curators also obtained official
support from the city officials for the undertak-
ing. Three months before the opening of the Bi-
ennale, when work had already commenced on
making the new signs, the authorities suddenly,
and without providing any explanation, decided
to retract their support. Unofficially they said
it was due to security concerns, after hostilities
had oscillated in Palestine.