Pavilion of Switzerland at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

The Swiss Pavilion exhibition presents the sixth and seventh chapters of Guerreiro do Divino Amor’s monumental “Superfictional World Atlas” saga: The Miracle of Helvetia and Roma Talismano. The “Superfictional World Atlas” is a worldwide cartographic project, allegorical in nature and potentially infinite in scope, which the artist has been dedicated to for nearly two decades. Through his studies and research in experimental architecture, Guerreiro do Divino Amor’s artistic practice questions the relationship between urban space and collective imagination, between architecture and ideology, and between political propaganda and national identity.

In the Swiss Pavilion, Guerreiro aims at creating the most complex and ambitious installation of his career so far: a total, immersive work of art, littered with classical architectural elements — artificial symbols of an assumed Western racial superiority. Columns, fountains, and capitals, along with large surfaces of fake marble textures, suggest an imagery of power and supremacy and serve as the backdrop for the Pavilion’s two main installations.

The Miracle of Helvetia, a video that stages a grand allegory of Switzerland, represented as a miraculous and “super-fictional” paradise on earth, in which nature and technology, capitalism and democracy, rusticity and sophistication are in perfect and surreal balance. A long corridor connects The Miracle of Helvetia with the installation Roma Talismano, an allegorical entity and phantasmagorical twin of Roman civilization, as well as a symbol — through the centuries — of a supposed moral, political and cultural superiority. Brazilian artist and singer Ventura Profana embodies the Capitoline wolf, a symbolic and phantasmagorical animal, that sings a song narrating the exploits of three allegorical animals: the she-wolf, the ewe lamb and the eagle. By being mythical figures in the constitution of white identity and its imagined superiority, the wolf is the universal mother from whom the superior people descend; the eagle is the symbol of Roman war supremacy; and the lamb embodies, in Christian Rome, the very idea of purity and innocence.

“The Swiss Pavilion, as envisioned by the artist, plays with the national logic of celebratory self-representation through culture, which is at the very origin of the National Pavilions at the Giardini over a century ago,” says Andrea Bellini. “A curious documentarist with a baroque imagination and an extraordinary worlds builder, Guerreiro do Divino Amor invites us to laugh in a benevolent spirit at our chauvinism and at those clichés with which we represent the world and ourselves. The latter attitude seems to us of fundamental importance in a period of increasing polarisation of politics and radical oppositions such as the one we are currently experiencing.”

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Project team

For the Swiss Pavilion project, “Super Superior Civilizations”, artist Guerreiro do Divino Amor and curator Andrea Bellini worked together with executive producer Larisa Oancea, director assistant Diego Paulino, musical director Beà Ayoolà, scenography producer Giovanna Bellini, technical director Pedro Zaz, mechatronics director Klau’s Kellermann, sculptress Lyz Parayzo and costume designer Andy Roba, among many others. The cast includes Ventura Profana (the she-wolf), Adriana Carvalho (the eagle) and Amanda Seraphico (the ewe lamb).

The exhibition “Super Superior Civilizations” will be accompanied by a newspaper-format publication including a conversation between Guerreiro do Divino Amor and Andrea Bellini. 

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Supporters

The exhibition “Super Superior Civilizations” is made possible thanks to the generous support of Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (co-producer), Archivorum, Fluxum Foundation, Amis du Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Spada Partners, Burger Collection Hong Kong, Fondation Jan Michalski, the Republic and Canton of Geneva, the City of Geneva, Stiftung Temperatio, Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim-Stiftung, and Allianz. A special thanks goes to the co-producers Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain Lausanne and Embassy of Foreign Artists, to the Istituto Svizzero and to the media partner Il Giornale dell’Arte.

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Swiss contributions at the International Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia

The International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia takes place every two years and alternates annually with the International Architecture Exhibition. Switzerland has been participating in Biennale Arte since 1920 and in Biennale Architettura since 1991. Switzerland maintains its own pavilion in Giardini della Biennale and Pro Helvetia has been responsible for the Swiss Pavilion since 2012. Two juries, appointed by Pro Helvetia, recommend a nomination for the Swiss Pavilion both in Biennale Arte and Architettura. The Swiss Pavilion in Venice was designed by Swiss architect Bruno Giacometti and built in 1951/52. It is owned by the Swiss Confederation.

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