The Loop / Roman Ondak

A garden of pavilions, a country per a pavilion, a garden housing architectural projections of other states…the presence of these pavilions cannot help but over-emphasize the connections between physical boarders and nationhood, an emphasis at odds with the cross-national development and funding of artwork at this level, the nomadic practice of artists, the country-hopping attendance of audiences, the market that buys and invest in this work not to mention the globalization of finance and language at large. This complexity was addressed (although not a sole motivation of curator Nicolaus Schafhausen) in Germany’s decision to present London / New York based artist Liam Gillick within their pavilion. However Roman Ondak’s work, The Loop directly challenged this division of the Giardini, through the laying of a path from one part of the garden to another via the Slovak Pavilion.Gravel and plant-life was installed to create an ambiguity between outside and in; momentarily disrupting my perception of my environment, like looking at the ground and seeing clouds while the ground’s above you. The constructed nature of this simulacrum was evident against the architecture of the building itself and a sprinkler system installed to sustain the plants. Despite the playful absurdism, it’s particularly appropriate that this work is by a Slovakian artist, from a country that only acquired sovereignty in the late 1980s; historically land-locked, threatened and marched through by militaristically dominant armies. A garden of pavilions, a country per a pavilion, a garden housing architectural projections of other states…