Metropolis M, 06.2026

The 2026 Venice Biennale is a pool of conflict. Months before its opening, the world’s biggest art event was already subject to controversy and debate. The Russian pavilion has re-opened after two skipped editions, and while their pavilion is under construction, the Biennale board has offered Israel a temporary space, dismissing enduring protests under the flag of neutrality. The prize jury resigned, Pussy Riot organized a protest, 27 pavilions participated in a strike. The evident ease with which the Venice Biennale has perpetuated a status quo of global power systems is under severe stress, like a bowel about to burst.

Live bodies

Three major pavilions at the Giardini find performance art infiltrating the definitions, frameworks and infrastructures of visual arts. Miet Warlop takes over the Belgian pavilion with It Never Ssst, a series of subsequent solo and group performances following the beat of a production flow, forming a choreography of attempts and re-attempts, of breaking and making anew. During the performance, hundreds of plaster tablets showing words in several languages are randomly passed on by chanting and percussion-playing performers, and organized on the step of a tribune that fills up the space. In-between, more tablets, which inevitably break in the performance process, are continuously created in two separate rooms of the pavilion.

The soundtrack, present in the space even when the performance remains silent, goes ‘go-go-go-go’ -‘yes-yes-yes’ – ‘stop-stop-stop-stop’. It never stays silent, it never stops. The title can be interpreted in several ways. One of them is: ‘we will never be silent, we will raise our voices.’ Another interpretation could be in relation to the rat race that is the art world, in which it feels mandatory to be ever-present at the right place at the right time in the right company. In which the largest chunk or artists and art workers never stop – they work and work more, they attend openings, talks, lectures and parties, to see everything, and be seen by everyone.

The central piece in Florentina Holzinger’s Austrian pavilion is a huge fish tank, where a live performer spends hours under water, standing, sitting, sleeping. The water in which she floats is provided by two symmetrically positioned mobile toilets, where visitors are invited to take a leak (but “no shitting!”). In a parallel glass container, machines filter and clean the urine to fill the tank. The inside part of the pavilion is organized as a kind of theme park, where on the one side, time passes by in the form of a gigantic weather vane with partly sculpted and partly live performers hanging on to it. On top of the building, the weather vane’s arrow points towards “a new wind”. At the bottom, an endearing sight: an older woman sits on a chair knitting, her wool hanging in a plastic bag above the water, while staring back at the audience with a bored (perhaps defiant) look. On the other side, we find a water basin with a jetski, which, every once in a while, will be mounted by a performer, only to circle around on the machine, until the basin turns into a violently splashing maelstrom. There is no turning away from the almost cynical showcasing of the stupidity with which water is used and oil is wasted for the sake of luxurious entertainment.

There is something twisted about trying to infiltrate the infrastructure and conditions of visual arts with performance art. The audience is not at all attuned. All the VIPs attending the Biennale’s opening week are accustomed to their status as ‘the first on the scene’, as the first ones to send out their impressions into the world. They are used to recording art which is passive, inanimate and doesn’t need consent. This audience, which has been waiting in line so dedicatedly for hours, feels entitled to neglect the sign that asks not to film or photograph the performers (who, as in every piece by Holzinger, are naked). Dozens of phones are raised, documenting their every move from every angle, zoomed in, zoomed out. Holzinger’s work is incentivized by a feminist reclaiming of the passively exhibited woman’s body, often using art historical references. But from the painted or sculpted woman’s body, exhibited primarily for the male gaze, it seems we have now moved on to the living womxn’s body exposed for the gaze of our phones’ cameras. A painting hangs, a sculpture stands, a video plays, but the functioning of the work would never be affected by a camera in its face. This is where Holzinger’s penchant for spectacle works against her: people desperately need to prove to others that they did stand in line for hours and that they did see it all. The performers just have to deal with it. This is not for them. This is not about them. Of course, it is easy to deduct a reference to the history of Austrian performance art. One of the absolute pioneers of Wiener Aktion just passed – Valie Export was among the first artists to use her body as medium to discuss the violence political systems practice onto women’s bodies.

Perhaps contrary to expectations, Holzinger’s performance is not the most radical one at this Venice Biennale. On the other side of the river, the queue to enter the Dutch pavilion is shorter. Multidisciplinary artist Dries Verhoeven contradicts all the hopes of the pavilion’s designer Gerrit Rietveld by installing automatic shutters on every window. He understands the pavilion, known for its light, as a symbol of the times it was built in, a progressive look on the world and on art: post-war, avant-garde and hopeful. Today, the world is very different.

Verhoeven works with a group of thirteen vocal performers. As soon as the audience has entered the pavilion and the door is locked, one person starts grunting and walking around the room. While this person looks at us and screams the plea to ‘engage’ in what could be understood as a primal cry, everyone watches in total silence, doing nothing. Some laugh awkwardly. After a small half hour, the performer lies down on the floor as more shutters send us into total darkness. ‘Enjoy!’ was the last word they grunted, and a word we continuously repeat to all the superficial contacts we encounter in Venice this week.

Verhoeven is a white man, showing work in a pavilion by a state with a prominent history of imperial colonialism. This simple but poignant work can only be understood as a struggle to look in the mirror, to tear away at the veil of privilege and still say something meaningful. It inevitably leads to a darkness, but the artist does not offer a way out of this depression. It also leads to a kind of cynical finger-pointing to the visitor, who cannot just ‘enjoy’ all of this without reflecting on our own positions.

The words ‘rage’ and ‘engage’ melt into each other as the audience’s silence becomes crushingly painful – like a bowed head of a punished child. The performer pushes one of the books caught in a glass brick towards me and in a reflex movement, I push it back. Not because I don’t want it. It’s not a pushing away, it’s an acceptance of the invitation to do something with this object. A ball caught and thrown back means the game has started and we are in it together.

In an interview, Verhoeven points to the presence of living bodies in this Biennale as ‘immune to the visual arts economy’. Bodies are not sellable commodities… This statement, of course, is simply untrue. Our bodies are always subject to regulations and power, from stigmatization of weight, over the glorification of smooth skin and fit looks, to the shame imposed by religious morals. Our bodies are also always part of an economy – paying to be taking care of, counted as a visitor of exhibitions and protests alike, producing, consuming.What I assume he means is that real-life bodies manage to wake us from the slumber of indifference induced by scrolling through myriad images on screens. Have the image and object lost their emotional efficacy, whereas real flesh still moves the senses? The masses of people hyped by the promise of spectacle, charging towards the steps to the pavilions’ gates, would certainly have us think so. They are soon enough forced into organized lines (the one leading to the Austrian pavilion will become probably one of the most filmed items in the Giardini). Bodies in line, bodies frustrated, and once inside: bodies cramped and crawling to see everything. Everyone wants a piece of each other’s bodies. When living bodies are on show at a visual arts biennale, apparently, we cannot wait to devour them, hungering for the reality of the flesh, the almost-connection of skin, the scent of sweat, to move us.

SSSTOP!

In an unpredictable parallel with Warlop’s presentation, the very first word the performer in Verhoeven’s pavilion grunts is ‘STOP’. ‘It’ might never stop, but we better stop and take a moment.  For the first time in the history of the Venice Biennale, 27 pavilions, including the Belgian, Dutch and Austrian ones, were closed for a strike organized by Art Not Genocide Alliance, Sale Docks, Morion, Biennalocene and Taring Padi on Friday 8 May. Thousands of artists and art workers shift their exercised presence to raise awareness about how this art bubble is not separate from the world around it.

Even when we stop, we continue – with debates about the position and morality of art, with fights for better working conditions, with manifestations against right-wing and populist ideologies. And when we stop that, we are tired. That is why terzospazio in the heart of Venice chose the time of the Biennale’s preview week to transform their small independent art space into a place of rest and reflection (on the art world’s working conditions). They offer croissants and coffee in the morning and a curated selection of magazines and publications on the subjects of art, solidarity, care, and conditions of labour in general. The installation of artist collective Malomodo Studio consists of a table / seating element where people can exchange experiences and a QR-code where art workers can upload their CV, as an active contribution to visualize the amassment of expertise and activity in the sector.

What does it mean to strike? Stop producing and consuming for a moment, stop the routine, stop and face some issues directly. In this case also: stop normal activities to raise awareness in a protest march. It is quite complicated that many participants in this march are also participants in the Biennale itself – using their body to protest a system that for 200 other days, they are a part of. Still, the protesters’ bodies found themselves in quite a severe clash with the Venetian police upon trying to (peacefully) enter the Arsenale. Meanwhile, Israel’s proxy-pavilion at Arsenale remains as good as empty, its entrance just lying there, gaping like a dark cave, severely guarded as visitors walk past it, perhaps glad to have a reason to skip one exhibition in this overwhelming abundance.

Our bodies are political. Our bodies are objects of labour and wars, unmissable cogs in the machineries of capitalism and colonial imperialism. The global world order has always been about bodies. Rich, white bodies controlling darker skinned bodies they did not understand. Bodies with dicks claiming power over bodies with wombs, because the political and historical frameworks somehow continue to convince them that they can. Bodies perceived as weak or imperfect – from female to disable – have violently been perceived as lesser bodies. Yet all of them put to work. When we work, we are tired. When we are stressed out, because even though we work hard, we cannot make ends meet, we are tired. When we are tired, we cannot resist. And still, oppressed bodies, from time to time, find the immense strength and determination to fight back.

The toiling of my body – my running everywhere, my looking at everything, my tireless typing on this very same laptop which I carry everywhere – actually obstructs my thinking. And ironically, I find myself writing this just as my body shouts, grunts, screams “SSSTOP!!”, it shuts down in tears and guttural sounds I didn’t know I had in me and – temporarily but very alarmingly – it becomes physically impossible for me to even move enough to continue typing. Several weeks and a shitload of sleep and vitamins will pass before I am able to pick up work again.

Mourning in presence

A few weeks before the Biennale opening, I spoke to Gabrielle Goliath about her exhibition Elegy, as I already considered it one of the most important events in Venice this year. Goliath was selected by an independent jury to represent her home country South Africa at the Biennale, with an ongoing project paying homage to victims of femicide and violence against LGBTQI+-persons. For each of these people, several performers hold one single note, each one picking up as soon as another’s voice gets tired. The video series therefore testifies not only of grief, but also of solidarity.

The newest addition to the series, a tribute to the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, was deemed ‘too divisive’ by the South-African minister of Culture, who decided not to undersign Goliath’s nomination. Goliath went to court and although she wasn’t able to revoke the ministry’s decision, the case is still ongoing. It is striking, to say the least, that the same national government who took Israel to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, is cancelling an artist for mourning Palestinian deaths. This single dead body is too much. With the support of donors and international arts organizations such as Ibraaz (London) and OCA (Milan), Goliath managed to present the project in the Chiesa di Sant’ Antonin, during the Biennale and on her own terms.

Elegy was staged in the main exhibition of last Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, as a live performance, while another video installation by Goliath, Personal Accounts, was also shown. Two years later, situations forced the artist to take a step back from the Biennale. The whole debate and the empty South-African pavilion confront us with an artist who, at the exact moment her work becomes internationally established, takes cancellation as empowerment and, by her standing right outside this parallel universe that is the art biennale, points to its faulty system and becomes inescapable at the same time. During the presentation of the Elegy Reader, a compilation of poetry in connection to the videos, dozens of people come together to read the poems collectively, slightly obstructing the Salizada Sant’ Antonin for local passersby and tourists. Both in its content and context, the project is subversive in an unspectacular and unapologetic way, simply demonstrating the importance of presence.

Taking a shit

As I am writing these words, my body twists and shifts uncomfortably in my chair with spasms induced by a raging pain in my hips. The worsening of the pain compared to the past days could be due to my old mattress, the rainy weather, or a feeling of stress. I don’t know. All I know is that it obstructs my brain from functioning to its full potential. Also, I need to take a shit. When I drink coffee, I need to shit more, but I need the coffee to make my brain convince my body that it doesn’t need to rest. I will postpone taking a shit to a level of extreme discomfort, because somehow it feels important to finish this paragraph before I move.

In Aline Bouvy’s cinematic project for the Luxemburg pavilion, a human-sized turd plays the lead role. With witty sarcasm and a piercing look, she makes every conversation uneasy, much to her own enjoyment. The shit makes everyone uncomfortable. The shit, however, says it like it is. The shit is not bothered by the unease of others – the shit is in your face, impossible to ignore. The shit is erotic, painful and soothing. The shit gives a lecture, drinks cocktails with friends.

It is disgusting, hilarious, and awkward to watch and above all, it is impossible not to watch. Bouvy has assembled a magnificent team and presents her film in a simple but extremely efficient installation, which takes the viewer hostage aboard what turns out to be gigantic headphones. It could also be a spaceship, what with the reflecting exterior and an E.T.-like sculpture pointing at its own mirror image. She explains that she read an essay by a psychoanalyst, interpreting the Steven Spielberg classic film E.T. as a metaphor for a child learning to hide its shit in shame. The sculpture is a 3D printed merging of E.T. and Bouvy’s self-portrait. The message is clear: we are completely alienated from our own bodies. We are obsessed with appearance, beauty and cleanliness. But we are disconnected from what happens on the inside. There is this lame joke I remember hearing as a child: the internal organs are having a competition on who is the most vital one. The heart and the brain make very convincing arguments. However, one day, the bowel decides to hold the shit in. As the shit won’t come out, the heart starts racing, the skin starts to sweat and the brain can no longer think through the pain. The bowel is actually the master of organs because it controls the unloading of trash. The shit is where it gets real. The shit is something we try to hide in shame, but which in fact connects us to all living creatures. If we want to be really honest with ourselves, we need to face the shit.

With the tagline ‘We live in your piss’, Holzinger’s urine tank cynically presents a possible future where humans (and especially Venetians) will need to live under water. But she is not the only one taking a piss out of this Biennale’s visitors. Some of the strongest presentations turn a merciless mirror to themselves, their audience and the foundations on which the Venice Biennale still rests. As the Biennale itself remains despicably unmoved, one of the bravest and most significant exhibitions, the one by Gabrielle Goliath, stands right outside its invisible borders, no longer only mourning the victims of violent systems, but also the silence of those in power.

If live bodies and physical presence are what it takes to make art move us, let’s face that body in its entirety. Let’s stop performing the art world as a parade of Aperol-sipping VIPs ‘enjoying’ what they see and get to the real shit. As the art community is present in mourning and protest, the power structure that is the Biennale keeps holding in their shit – but with its heart rate rising, head spinning, a fever manifesting, bones shaking with spasms, this bowel might just burst.

Stop shaming the shit! Take a shit! Be proud of the shit! Then Give a Shit!

Copyright: Tamara Beheydt

OKV – 01. 2026

Written with Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven
Afterall – 12.2025

GLEAN – 12.2025

De Wereld Morgen – 12.2025

De conceptnota van minister Caroline Gennez zet het museale landschap in Vlaanderen op stelten. Grootschalige fusies worden voorbereid, maar vooral één ingreep lokt storm uit: de onverwachte degradatie van het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA).

De conceptnota van Vlaams minister van Cultuur Caroline Gennez (Vooruit) doet het museale landschap in Vlaanderen daveren. De regering maakt een hertekening die niet alleen leidt tot grootschalige fusies, maar ook een controversiële schrapping inhoudt. Centraal in de storm: de onverwachte degradatie van het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA). 

Nieuwe Museumkaart: Bakens en Satellieten

Minister Gennez presenteert een structuur met drie thematische ‘bakens’ die de Vlaamse kunstmusea moeten aansturen. Het KMSKA is daarbij bestemd voor oude kunst, Mu.ZEE voor moderne kunst en S.M.A.K. voor hedendaagse kunst. 

Rondom deze bakens worden ‘satellieten’ georganiseerd. De conceptnota voorziet in opmerkelijke fusies: het Roger Raveelmuseum en het Felix Art & Eco Museum worden bijvoorbeeld “onderdeel van Mu.ZEE vzw”, terwijl het Kasteel van Gaasbeek en Museum Hof van Busleyden onder de vleugels van het KMSKA komen te vallen.

Het meest ontwrichtende voorstel is echter de strategische positionering van S.M.A.K. als dé enige Vlaamse instelling voor hedendaagse kunsten, en tegelijkertijd het schrappen van de museale functie van M HKA. Dat laatste idee werd pijnlijk genoeg door ArtNews benoemd als één van de 25 meest bepalende momenten in de internationale kunstwereld. 

Onthoofding van M HKA: Een Zakelijke Afrekening?

M HKA, het Antwerpse vlaggenschip voor hedendaagse kunst, ontving de afgelopen jaren herhaaldelijk een negatieve evaluatie van de onafhankelijke beoordelingscommissie, voornamelijk op zakelijk vlak. De beleidsplannen werden als onvoldoende beoordeeld. De beleidskeuze van Gennez om de museale werking van M HKA volledig te schrappen, gaat echter veel verder dan het advies van de commissie. 

Een museum is geen fort van economische winst, toeristische marketing en spectaculaire bezoekcijfers

Deze ’top-down’ beslissing zonder enige inspraak van de kunstengemeenschap is een regelrechte aanval op het culturele en democratische fundament van de samenleving. 

Nergens in het onafhankelijke oordeel wordt gesuggereerd om de museale werking te schrappen. Deze ingreep doet denken aan fusies of schrappingen in de bedrijfswereld op basis van een negatieve bedrijfsbalans, maar een museum is geen fort van economische winst, toeristische marketing en spectaculaire bezoekcijfers.

Culturele Rechten Versus Commerciële Logica

De discussie gaat verder dan centen en cijfers. Het recht om deel te nemen aan de culturele gemeenschap en te genieten van kunst is verankerd in de Belgische grondwet (Art. 23) en de Universele Verklaring van de Rechten van de Mens (Art. 22 en 27). 

Kunnen we daarom logisch concluderen dat kunst en cultuur fundamentele pijlers van de samenleving zijn? Een museum is, in de definitie van ICOM (International Council of Museums) waar de minister zich nota bene zelf op beroept, een permanente instelling die het erfgoed van morgen opbouwt. 

Het plan om een museum te schrappen zonder even fundamentele argumenten, kan dus niet anders dan slecht geïnformeerd zijn.

De Democratie op de Tocht: Geen Visie, Geen Inspraak

De conceptnota ontbreekt een gefundeerde visie op hedendaagse beeldende kunsten en de rol van musea in de (internationale) samenleving. Het plan laat andere cruciale spelers – die niet tot de Vlaamse instellingen behoren – buiten beeld, zoals M Leuven, het Middelheim museum en FOMU, en raakt slechts terloops kunsthuizen als Z33 en Kunsthal Gent aan. 

Jaren van een door subsidies aangemoedigd concurrentiemodel heeft de solidariteit in de sector uitgehold

Het meest ondemocratische aspect is de totstandkoming van de nota: het kabinet stelde de hertekening op zonder consultatie of inspraak van het veld. Belangenbehartigers en adviesorganen zoals NICC (Netwerk en Informatiecentrum voor Beeldende Kunst), Kunstenpunt of AKO (Antwerps Kunstenoverleg) werden gepasseerd. 

Nadat het volledige landschap top-down is hertekend, wordt een zogenaamd participatief transitietraject van twee jaar (2026-2027) ingezet. Dit is onaanvaardbaar voor een sector die al twee maanden lang vraagt om inspraak, transparantie, overleg, niet achteraf, maar voor een herstructurering van het landschap. 

Oproep tot Solidariteit en herbronning

M HKA ontstond veertig jaar geleden van onderuit, als antwoord op een nood van de kunstenaarsgemeenschap. Vandaag, nu de relevantie van het museum in vraag wordt gesteld, is het logisch dat diezelfde gemeenschap het museum herdenkt, niet dat het beleid het schrapt. 

Jaren van een door subsidies aangemoedigd concurrentiemodel heeft de solidariteit in de sector uitgehold. Velen durven zich niet kritisch uitspreken uit angst voor verlies van middelen, waardoor de democratie opnieuw ver te zoeken is. 

Minister Gennez zou hier, als moedig en vernieuwend verbinder, een kans kunnen grijpen. Het museum, en bij uitstek voor hedendaagse kunst, is de spil van een ecosysteem en een gemeenschap. Het is de plaats waar gemeenschappen kunst verzamelen als een geheugen van de samenleving. 

De kunstengemeenschap eist de kans om een gedragen voorstel, van onderuit, voor te leggen. Dit moet een nieuw museaal model opleveren voor hedendaagse kunst, dat de misvattingen en het wanbeleid van het verleden achter zich laat en er één is van en voor de gemeenschap. 

Hier ligt de kans voor M HKA om een precedent te worden: niet een museum dat ondoordacht geschrapt wordt, maar een museum dat – met en vanuit haar gemeenschap – het verlies aan democratie rechttrekt en een nieuw model voorstelt.

Pas dan stelt een beleid zich écht participatief en democratisch op. Het is tijd dat het hedendaagse kunstenveld haar maatschappelijke relevantie opnieuw in handen neemt en uitdraagt.

Essay: ‘Generosity of Spirit’

Editor: Chantal Yzermans
Other authors: John C. Welchman, Thomas Delamarre, Clément Gaesler, Béatrice Pereyt-Vignals, Maya Van Leemput, Dennis Van Mol, Stefan Wouters
MER Books – 09.2025

Interview with the artist: ‘De vrijheid van onveilige paden’ / ‘The Freedom of Unsafe Paths’ (translation by Jenke Van den Akkerveken).
Other authors: Brenda Guesnet
Oktober Publications, 09.2025

Essay: ‘Waar geen mens ooit was. Ruimte, utopie en het menselijke in het werk van Karel Breugelmans.’ (original Dutch) / Where no mas has gone before. Space, utopia and humanity in the work of Karel Breugelmans (English translation by Jonathan Beaton).

Transit, 02.2025

Essay: ‘Gegrond in wording’ (original Dutch) / ‘Grounded in becoming’ (English translation by Zinnig).

Other authors: Kristof Reulens, Louis Beyens.

‘Essay: Altijd Sisyphus. De kromme parallel tussen kampioen en kunstenaar’ (original Dutch) / ‘Always Sisyphus. The warped parallel between champion and artist’ (English translation by Oneliner).

Other authors: Karen Embrechts, Stef Van Bellingen
Publisher: MER Books

COLLECT, 04.2024

Metropolis M, 08.2023

De Tijd, 03.06.2023

H ART, 02.2023

H ART, 12.2022

Essay: ”Allé, allé, De Vos komt!’ Over Frans De Vos en zijn circusbanieren’ (origineel NL) / ‘Allez, allez, De Vos arrive!’ Frans De Vos et ses bannières de cirque’ (traduction française par
Sixtine Drossart).

Other authors: Joanna De Vos, Véronique Carpiaux
Stichting Kunstboek, 05.2022

H ART, 04.2022

H ART, 03.2022

H ART, 12.2021

Essay: ‘Wachten op het gouden uur. Zonlicht als primair materiaal in het oeuvre van Kaat Van Doren’ (original Dutch) / ‘Waiting for Golden Hour. Sunlight as a primary material in the oeuvre of Kaat Van Doren’ (English translation by Jonathan Beaton).

Other authors: Katrien Kolenberg
Stockmans Art Books, 2021

Self-published, 2020

H ART, 12.2020