Titled “Open for Maintenance“, we curated the German Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023 together with Büro Juliane Greb and ARCH+. Instead of bringing a representative exhibition from Germany to Venice,we wanted to work actively on site: maintaining, repairing and caring. For six months, we transformed the German Pavilion into a productive infrastructure with a craft workshop and a large materials store. Collected material from the last Art Biennale 2022 formed the material basis for our contribution. We got it from over 40 pavilions. And carried most of it by hand, including these black felt rolls from the Uruguayan pavilion by artist Gerardo Goldwasser.
We also collected a lot of material on the Arsenale site. It had to be transported by boat to the German Pavilion in the Giardini. We often hired a boat ourselves, as we did here to transport the material we collected from the Italian Pavilion. You can drive a boat up to 15 hp in Venice without a licence (a challenging test drive being required by the boat rental company beforehand…). The foggy weather in November didn’t really help us to keep an overview on the water.
This was a particularly nice ‘donation‘ to us. A ‘head‘ from the installation ‘The Concert‘ by Latifa Echakhch, the contribution to the Swiss Pavilion at the 2022 Art Biennale. The ‘Rebiennale / R3B‘ team, who have been collecting material at the Biennale since 2008 and reusing it to build new exhibition contributions, helped us transport it to the German Pavilion (they were our great role models in Venice and many things would not have been possible without them!) The head didn’t fit through the pillars. We first cut it in half, then in quarters. Eventually it did go through the door, which seemed surprisingly narrow for such a large pavilion.
We were surprised by how many drywall partitions are built and then torn down after just six months at every Biennale. The gypsum boards cannot be reused and are treated as hazardous waste. We chose the best aluminium profiles that were not yet bent or creased. Like all the material we collected, we stored them in the main room of the German Pavilion.
We collected in the Giardini, in the Arsenale grounds, but also at many external exhibition venues in the city. From the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto we got these very good woods – and carpet. Carpet, carpet, carpet, everywhere in the pavilions. Perhaps because it is so easy to install and disappears again without a trace – wherever it goes. We also found mineral wool insulation! As a material for art. We later used it again as a building material.
We contacted almost all the pavilions of the Art Biennale, which was still running in summer 2022, and asked whether we could get any leftover material from them. In November and December 2022 was the moment when decisions were made – either the things would be disposed of or we would collect them directly. A big bazaar. We weren’t very picky and took what was offered to us.