Out of Hours Exhibition

State of the Union — sticking out of belly buttons, The home nations at the bottoms, or vaginas. She 56th Venice Biennale tells us she put them there La Biennale di Venezia, for titillation, mostly. I think Giardini and Arsenale venues, Venice I would agree, and this is 9 May 2015 — 22 Nov 2015 a YBA after all, even if she www.labiennale.org has turned 50, because this is what we have come In the middle of the vernissage for the Venice to expect isn’t it? They are Biennale I received an email from my sister: distracting and irreverent ‘I saw the BBC article about the British as ever but they catch pavilion which sounded like it was just going your attention and hold for shock value, but what was it really like?’ it, adding a light-hearted It’s not hard to see where these opinions edge to what in places is about the Sarah Lucas show come from. As an exhibition about female you walk along the main boulevard of the empowerment. Giardini and approach the pavilion you are In ‘… The Rest is Smoke,’ confronted at the top of the steps by Gold photographer Helen Sear’s Cup Maradona reclining leisurely with a 20ft collateral event for Wales, phallus in bright yellow. All the walls are she returns to a small painted in the same colour and in each room beech wood near her home naked, plaster figures cast from the waist over the course of a year. down (literally topless) recline on tables, or Photographs and moving in one case, on a chest freezer, with single images are combined cigarettes poking out of whichever orifice to form her central video Sarah Lucas, Gold Cup Maradona, British Pavilion 2015. Photo by piece Company of Trees. is on show. All very ‘shocking’ but, as ever, Cristiano Corte © British Council. Sarah Lucas’ British Council there is more to the show than meets the The trees are branded with commission is at la Biennale di Venezia from 9 May until 22 November eye. forester’s numbers and 2015. www.britishcouncil.org/visualarts. Lucas came to prominence in the early these flash up at you as a 1990s as one of the Young British Artists little red riding hood figure wanders around appalling hurt of the displaced, trafficked, (YBAs), good friends with Tracey Emin, they the forest while the seasons quickly change and enslaved. Fagen has created an haunting were renowned as much for their hard before your eyes. You feel transported from interpretation of the poem with Priest’s living as their art. Her art at the time was Venice into a very British fairytale setting. In soulful voice and the classical musicians irreverent and challenged male stereotypes. another video piece Altar, a black and white emphasising its sadness. Each musician was In Two Fried Eggs and a Kebab (1992), she vignette shows blue tits feeding on an altar- filmed individually and they are shown on represented a naked woman lying on a table like block of seeds, flying in and out until separate screens, side by side in the front by placing two fried eggs and a kebab on an nothing is left. We are voyeurs of this event, room of the exhibition. It is a mesmerising old table. the behaviour of the birds the same as it has piece, echoing around the peaceful palazzo, The Biennale, in its 120th year, is as big always been through the passage of time, resonating down the centuries the pain and as ever with 89 countries displaying national and will be long after we have died. suffering of the slaves then and now. pavilions, 44 collateral events, and two large One of the joys of the Biennale is exploring So how was the state of the Union during curated shows by the Nigerian curator Okwui the palazzi not normally open to the public. a hot election week in Venice? Away from the Enwezor. So, what about these headline One such space is the Palazzo Fontana, with political and media chaos back home you grabbing, topless nudes? Lucas calls them fading frescoes on the wall and a stunning will be relieved to hear it was in a healthy her ‘Muses’, and they are casts of her closest view over the Grand Canal. This is not condition with just the right amount of sex, female friends, including her gallerist, Sadie necessarily where you would expect to hear nature, and slavery to make waves in the Coles. a Robert Burns poem sung by reggae singer lagoon. Each cast is unique and full of blemishes Ghetto Priest, accompanied by classical La Biennale continues all over Venice until from the process, with protruding seams musicians from the Scottish Ensemble, 22 November, there is no better excuse for a where the different bits of bandage join. They but this is exactly what Graham Fagen has long weekend in the Lagoon. seem provocative, but as you study them you done. The haunting film forms the central notice their casual poses, not in the throes piece in his show Scotland + Venice. For Will Norman, GP Partner & Trainer, The Avenue Surgery, of sex, but sitting on a chair as if chatting, or Fagen, growing up in the west of Scotland, Cirencester. reclining on the table. Slowly you realise they it was hard not to be aware of Burns and he E-mail: [email protected] are very gentle, affectionate portraits of her came across his poem The Slaves Lament friends. And then there are the cigarettes written in 1792, a work emphasising the DOI: 10.3399/bjgp15X686353

424 British Journal of General Practice, August 2015