Florentina Holzinger climbed by rope to the bell hanging in front of the Hoffmann Pavilion portal on the last rehearsal day before Seaworld Venice opens in Venice. She swung heavily against the bell wall as the final run of the Austrian contribution reached its end, a hard, physical prelude to a Biennale that was already under strain before the first crowds arrived.
The Austrian contribution, titled Seaworld Venice, will turn the Hoffmann Pavilion into a place of permanent action during the Biennale. Starting next Saturday and running until November 22, 25 performers will occupy the pavilion area daily and naked, a setup that could make Holzinger’s work one of the audience favorites at this year’s event. Holzinger said, in effect, that she is trying to allow chaos.
That ambition lands in the middle of a tense opening to the Venice Art Biennale. Russia’s participation remained controversial because it was the first since the start of the war of aggression against Ukraine, and Pietrangelo Buttafuoco pushed it through despite protests and the wishes of Italy’s culture minister. Israel’s participation and Iran’s recent cancellation added to the trouble, and the international jury resigned at the height of the dispute.
The Austrian pavilion is not being presented as a static exhibition space, but as a site of live performance with bodies, movement and endurance at its center. That makes Holzinger’s contribution part of the Biennale’s art program and part of its atmosphere: a work that opens as the fair itself struggles to project calm. The question now is not whether Seaworld Venice will be noticed, but whether the surrounding arguments will make the performance feel even larger than the pavilion itself.
