Feng Zhengjie, China Portrait No 62, 150 x 150, 2005. 2: Armando Tanzini.
Split in two, between Caserma Cornoldi in the mainland and the island of San Servolo, the Kenyan Pavilion prompts, for the first time, a synergy between Kenyan and Chinese artists. Among them, African artist Mbuno Kivuthi, Italian sculptor Armando Tanzini (a Kenya resident for decades) and Chinese painter Feng Zhengjie, joined by Italo-Brazilian artist César Meneghetti in a special project, all set to identify, reveal and explore the natural borders within, and outside of ourselves. The presence of only two local artists, however, didn’t go unnoticed by the those in the art world, and many have commented on the lack of representatives from the emerging modern Kenyan art scene, and the failure of the Pavilion to adequately represent or even reference Kenya’s cultural and artistic traditions.
Artistic collaboration between local and foreign artists is a fact that would normally go unnoticed in the Biennale; France has chosen an Albanian artist for their pavilion this year, for example, and the Germany pavilion sees four artists of Chinese, Indian, South African and France nationalities on show. Yet for a country whose art scene is so grossly underrepresented, the dominance of Chinese artists and simultaneous eclipsed presence of Kenyan creative forces, here, raises concerns of a more sinister political, commercial and cultural nature. Dr. Wenny Teo, Iwan and Manuela Wirth lecturer of modern and contemporary Asian Art at London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, wrote in a relevant article for The Art Newspaper that ‘… the exhibition is a stunning example of present day Orientalism, and its cursory inclusion of the two Kenyan artists is Primitivism at its very worst.’ Naming her article, Orientalism As Multiculturalism at the Kenya Pavilion, she talks of the ‘blatant marginalization of Kenyan artists,’ in a national pavilion show that was, in addition, put together by two Italian curators. With these issues and questions in mind, we present you the twelve participants of an exhibition that have generated such controversy:

A ‘Natural’ Alliance Between Kenyan And Chinese Artists Flourishes In Venice

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