Professor Snežana Arnautović Stjepanović was part of the performance, which caused people to wait in long lines in front of the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. These are her impressions
Center of attention Venice Biennale, and before it was opened to the public (May 9), it is unmistakably the setting of the Austrian Pavilion. Provocative performance by Florentine Holzinger - Sea World Venice the main topic in the professional and media public, and visitors wait in extremely long lines to see it.
What do the critics say?
For example, "Guardian" art critic Andy Frankel says that he was particularly impressed by the Austrian Pavilion. It describes it as a "brutally obscene and disturbing sewage-soaked performance" and states that in one scene, a woman swims in a tank connected to portable toilets, while visitors' processed urine is returned to the pool. Frankel believes that the work speaks of a climate disaster and a world that is "inches away from collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes."
The organizers of the exhibition specify that Florentine Holzinger's performance is a critique of man's relationship to the seas, oceans and the Venetian lagoon.
The author of the performance is his part.
It hangs above a large tank full of liquid in a huge bronze bell. Her naked body is a pendulum with which she hits the edges of the bell, in order to warn the world about the coming floods and ecological disasters that threaten humanity.
The sound that spreads through Venice
Professor Snežana Arnautović Stjepanović, multimedia artist, vice-dean of the Institute for Artistic Play of the University "Beopolis" took part in Florentine Holzinger's performance.
She tells "Vreme" that "it's not just a sound, it's a high-frequency resonance that spreads throughout Venice, consciously and intentionally sounding the alarm to save the planet. That sound becomes a magnetic force that leads the audience to wait in kilometer-long queues for hours in order to become part of this cruel, radical, but cathartic ceremony."
She says that she became a participant in the performance "completely organically, at the moment of entering the Austrian Pavilion. Florentina and her team recognized me through the energy of being that I carry. They told me that I fit perfectly into the archetype of their mythical being - a figure that possesses the power to 'fix the fault' and contribute to the salvation of the world. I accepted the invitation right away."
Although she has been engaged in performance art for more than two decades, Snežana Arnautović Stjepanović's previous work was not primarily radical in this sense.
"I found myself in a water tank facing heavy metal constructions for the purification of dangerous waters. The scene carried a strong visual and conceptual charge: in the festive green silk dress I was wearing at the opening of our pavilion, I entered that merciless battle. The contrast between the softness, nobility of silk and the harshness, coldness of the metal machines became a metaphor for the very struggle for survival. Strong jets of 'dangerous' water gushing over us, the space fills up, and we crawl, fall and fight with machines. Those ten minutes were a condition that is difficult to describe in words - a raw, physical struggle in which clothes lose their function of aesthetics and become part of battle armor."
The body as an instrument of rebellion
Snežana Arnautović explains that during this time, in the second tank, the naked performer is completely exposed to dangerous water, while in the center of the third segment of this work, above black water and mud, levitates a kind of totem made of women's bodies. "What is key to understanding this work is the treatment of the body: although it is naked and pushed to the limits of endurance, it is never sexualized. It is here stripped to its primary, biological and functional truth. The body is shown as a working body, as a machine, as an instrument of rebellion and a being that suffers, struggles and survives, freed from any voyeuristic or commercial context."
As a professor who teaches performance and installation, this collaboration means a lot to her. He explains that "Florentina Holzinger sees things equally performatively and choreographically, and her performers, as trained dancers, possess incredible endurance for such extreme tasks."
"The experience from Venice confirms that education in the field of performance at our Institute is in line with the most relevant trends in the world, where the body is used as the primary medium for the transmission of the most complex social and existential messages. As the bell rings through Venice, we are aware that art can no longer just observe - it must participate in improving the world," assesses Snežana Arnautović Stjepanović.
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