Page 161 - Únete. Join us (Bienal de Venecia, 57 edición)

with the issue of citizenry was: “Can we inhabit a stage set?”6 In his own words: “there’s a certain meaning of the term stage scenery as a provisional architecture that is portable, of open-use, capable of being interacted with. My characters act within the city in that sense”.7 This is no merely formal approach, but an ethical statement: “When architecture is aligned with a form of encroaching power, one must act as the architect of one’s life”.8 Colomer’s focus on the condition of viewers as actors within the exhibition space, and the theatrical potential arising from the blurring of the boundaries between reality and representation, are the most salient features of his current work. Through the use of video as a medium, Colomer explores a twofold space where the actions of characters and viewers run parallel to one another. Besides this, the screening of the videos within the exhibition space is systematically juxtaposed with the filmed actions themselves, as they unfold in specific contexts, within another stage set.
6 Conversation between Marta Gili and Jordi Colomer
in fuegogratis. Le Point du Jour, París: Jeu de Paume, 2008.
7 Interviewed by Bea Espejo for El Cultural (the culture supplement of Madrid newspaper El Mundo) on 18/9/2009.
8 Jordi Colomer in text presenting the piece Avenida Itxapaluca (Houses for Mexico), 2009.
ThE COMING CITIzENRY MANUEL SEGADE 161
In ¡Únete! Join Us!, the installation is arranged around a central
space with natural light that operates as entry and exit point and
as public square, somehow encapsulating the pavilion’s contents
and scenography. This access space – much in the same way as
a watercolour by Joseph Gandy at Sir John Soane’s Museum in
London depicts the architect’s work as just another version of
the representations inside his house9 – signals a willed entry
into the domain of representation: The stage scenery is real,
but it is also a narrative element that helps structure space (1818). and also features in the cinematic works contained therein.
Within this access hub serving as representational bridge, the main object is a clunky piece of hardware halfway between a mobile pavilion and a caravan. Its weirdness and singularity are matched by its familiarity: it is part a wagon, part border post, part moveable stage set, part street vending stall. Its language evokes temporary constructions, or the immediacy in the vocabulary of reforms and extensions. The fact that it is presided by a flag as a kind of geopolitical prosthesis is the first hint of the movement the public is being invited to join. Beyond a sort of self-referential mise-en-abyme, right from the start this pan-national or state-less pavilion within a State Pavilion signals the importance of issuing doppelgangers for what exists – something that is nearly identical, yet with a highly significant displacement. The clunky vehicle’s domestic scale
9 “Public and Private Buildings Executed by Sir John Soane between 1780 and 1815”