World on Fire

By

Joshua Burke
Andrew Russeth a writer for Art News, visited Italian Pavilion, which is located in
Giardini,Venice. In the Italian Pavilion Okwui Enwezor holds his art show, All the worlds
future. Enwezor holds to the theme of the tolls of global capitalism. Revolving around the main
facts of, political, economical, war, heavy psychic, and economic damages.
Ebwezor had over 140 artists and groups help him focus and work on these topics for the
show. Russeth describes how when he and the other journalist approached the art building, it had
a strange assortment of black flags hanging just below a neon sign pronouncing, blues blood
bruises. As they walk through the black flags the visitors are met by a drawing of block letters
that says THE END and FINE. After the entrance, the flashing lights of a short film showing
a man vomiting blood against a wall. Andrew Russeth describes how the mood shifts to, dark
and uneasy. As the visitors continue the art show, it becomes more like a haunted house than an
art show. Weapons are everywhere, the artist Goncalo Madunch has welded together guns and
spent gun shells into a thrown. Monica Bonvicini has painted chainsaws with black polish and
hung them from the ceiling. Hiwa K, an Iraqi- born artists has melted down weapons and wastes
from his home country to make a bell. The visitors walk on to find short films of people
constructing tombstones, and men navigating a boat while on the open sea. The other side of the
wall shows a video of workers hands doing a variety of labor. Hands that were slicing apart
vehicles and performing surgery.
Russeth describes one of the films he sees as being, smart, funny, and gently creepy.
He then explains the projects would be commonplace in other exhibits, but even then it is hard
to know what the viewers are suppose to get out of them. Furthermore, he describes All the
Worlds Future exhibit as, tendentious if well - intentioned - instead lapses at intervals into
didactic and activist mode that can condescending pedantic, or just scattershot.

World on Fire
By

Joshua Burke
Critics have said Okwui Enwezor work is either hit or miss, however I would always
say his art is original. He finally concludes he would rather read an essay about the historical
events, even though they did show it is possible to create work that, engages and is aesthetically
pleasurable.

World on Fire
By

Joshua Burke

Bibliography

Russeth,A.(2015).World On Fire(25th ed.,ARTNews). New York:Seamkelly