VISUAL CULTURE IN BRITAIN 2016/11 Volume 17, Issue 3 Original Articles On Steve McQueen’s Giardini and the Follies of Nations
Abstract
Steve McQueen’s Giardini (2009) was a film installation made specifically for the British pavilion at the 53rd Biennale. It pondered the architectural and ideological grounds of Venice’s ageing institution of art. Filmed in the winter, the Giardini della Biennale were made to appear derelict, abandoned by the summer exposition crowds and left to the effects of nature. Viewers were positioned within a heritage of ruin-gazing that extends back through the picturesque tradition, and which had been familiar to the Venice of Englishmen such as Byron, Turner and Ruskin. In this film, the national pavilions took on the character of so many follies, in a proleptic fantasy or ‘fairytale’ that challenged a line of imperial imaginaries handed down from Scipio, Gibbon and Speer.