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Published: January 21st 2010
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In the summer of 2009 I went to Venice for the first time to see the biennale. I had no specific return-date and therefore plenty of time. After a few days I went to an exhibition, which I will here describe.
Like the previous days I decided what to see while having breakfast. I planned a route around the city with a handful of exhibitions that I hadn't already seen. That day I would go to a small area near the city-center. There were a high concentration of exhibitions, and small stickers everywhere, which pointed in the direction of an art show.
After having visited a few places I came to a building with both an exhibition from Iran on the first floor and an exhibition from Cyprus on 2nd floor. The door to the exhibition from Iran, called "HOPE FOR THE FUTURE" was to my disappointment locked. A note was put on the door saying: "TORNOS SUBITO - I'LL Be BACK SOON" which I guess mean roughly the same in Italian and English (see the last photo). I continued up the stairs and saw the exhibition from Cyprus, which took about ten minutes.
When I came back
to the Iranian exhibition the door was still closed. I sat down on the stairs and waited. I thought it could only take a moment now, since quite some time had already passed - and it said "soon" on the note.
I sad there for five minutes without anything happened and I began to get impatient. I was thinking that if you close an exhibition for more than fifteen minutes, it would be more thoughtful to write a specific time rather than "soon". On the other hand I was still sure that someone would come very soon. There was no way that a person would leave a note like this on the door and not come back, I thought.
Another five minutes passed. Meanwhile, an elderly couple had joined me and was waiting as well. I told them that nothing had happened for twenty minutes.
Once again five minutes went by. Almost half an hour had passed, and in my opinion that could not be covered by the word "soon". Either something had happened that prevented the person from getting back or the note was lying – maybe someone had put on the door as a joke.
After
half an hour I chose to leave.
On my way to the next exhibition I thought about what had just happened. In Venice, there was one exhibition after another, and always a person to look after it. Here there was no one, the door was locked and furthermore I was misinformed about when it would open up again. While I was waiting, I had a clear expectation that something would happen in just a moment. Slowly my distrust and impatience grew. For half an hour my expectation and believe was strongest, but then the mistrust and impatience took over.
Just before I reached the next exhibition, I came to think of the title: "HOPE FOR THE FUTURE". The thought hit me that what I had witnessed was the exhibition itself.
I remembered that the media had shown images from Tehran, where there were heavy demonstrations on the streets because of Ahmadinejad's re-election, and accusations of electoral fraud. I suddenly saw a strong connection between the exhibition's title, the note on the door, my feeling on the stairs and the situation in Iran.
When I came back to the hostel the same day, I checked up on the election and could see that it had taken place on 12. June. It was about a week after the biennale had begun (and barely two months before my trip to Venice). Therefore it could not have been planned beforehand and there had to be an exhibition behind the door. To see weather it was worth going back to the next day, I tried to find a description on the Internet. I managed to find a page that said the following (link: diary.euro-festival.org / venice-biennale-2009 - if you click on the fifth photo):
"
The Iran pavilion (in the city of Venice at the Palazzo Malipiero on the first floor; on the second floor was Cyprus) is populated by only a few sculptures and paintings. These however are visually beautiful - especially the sculptures. The title of the exhibition is ‘hope for the future’. Most likely the exhibition was conceptualized prior to the June election events and the demonstrations that followed. Like the young people protesting on Teheran streets in June and July, they speak for hope in a future that is different - in art, love and politics."
After having read this, I again began to speculate whether it could be a work of art I had seen. I thought it might be possible that the artists had made the artworks in the hope for a future that didn't come. Perhaps they felt that the exhibition was not current anymore, and therefore had decided to put the note on the door.
Next day I went back to the place and found that the note was still there and the door was locked. I went up to the exhibition from Cyprus and asked the man who looked after it, whether he knew anything about the exhibition below. He said he had seen it, but they recently had problems finding someone to look after it. He knew nothing about the note on the door.
I didn't get any closer to finding out who wrote the note and why. When I walked pass it the last time I once again thought of a person passing by and putting the note up. Maybe as a joke, maybe as an impulsive artistic gesture or maybe as a thoughtful work of art. And actually it didn't really matter anymore – for quite some time already it had been an artwork to me.
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