Bronze trees with rope-like branches, drawings of skulls in Indian ink and a reggae reworking of Robert Burns’s poetry will represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale arts festival.
The artist Graham Fagen yesterday revealed what work he would display as part of Europe’s premier contemporary arts exhibition, which opens in May.
It will be the Glaswegian artist’s first solo exhibition at the biennale and the music and film will be a striking departure from his previous work. Fagen joked that he had always wanted to represent Scotland on the football pitch but would “settle” for the biennale. He said: “It’s a fantastic chance to represent Scotland on the world stage. It’s interesting that Scotland is classified as a ‘collateral event’ — it says a lot about the politics of the biennale and how it recognises countries.”
Fagen, who teaches art at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, is inspired by social, cultural and political issues.
Although nationalism and independence will not be “upfront” in his work, they will be there in strong undercurrents, he said. He had always had a “political mind”, he added, and has considered himself an anarchist since the protests and marches he took part in as a young man.
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Fagen will use a 16th-century Venetian palace as an exhibition space. The Palazzo Fontana is made up of four rooms and overlooks the Grand Canal. On the first floor, a bronze sculpture of a tree that appears to be made out of rope will be planted in a long, light room, next to a room containing 19 drawings of the artist’s skull, which will represent the idea of consciousness.
Upstairs, a third room will exhibit sculptures made of steel and ceramic. Music, which will have been playing throughout the building, will become more recognisable and will be revealed in the fourth room to be a reggae version of The Slave’s Lament by Burns, playing on five screens.
Fagen, who went to school in Irvine, became interested in reworking the Scottish folk tradition into a reggae style as a way to bridge the two cultures.
He said: “Jamaican reggae was the cultural opposite to the Scottish traditions but one that meant more to me than that of my own cultural heritage.
“I realised that Burns had obtained a pass to go and live in Jamaica and work on a plantation and I wondered why we were never taught that at school.
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“That became a cultural bridge and I began to wonder whether I could explore Scotland’s connection with the slave trade by working The Slave’s Lament into a reggae style or whether it would be too much of a culture clash.”
The result, which was composed by Sally Beamish and performed with a cello, double bass and violin alongside reggae vocals, will be performed for the first time in Venice.