VIENNA.- Swan Lake is the exhibition title of the Austrian contribution to the Biennale Arte 2024 in Venice, conceived by artist Anna Jermolaewa and curated by Gabriele Spindler. In her work, Anna Jermolaewa, born in Leningrad (USSR) and based in Vienna since 1989, has proven a precise observer of human coexistence, its social conditions and political prerequisites. Her process results in videos, photographs, and drawings, as well as room-spanning mises-en-scène, where she questions, in a critical yet humorous fashion, seemingly insignificant and trivial manifestations of the human condition. However, Jermolaewa’s art is humorous and anecdotal only at first glance, behind it lies a clear critique of political power structures, ideologies, and social grievances.

For the Austrian contribution to the Biennale Arte 2024, Jermolaewa will span themes ranging from her personal migration experience to forms of non-violent resistance against authoritarian regimes. The presentation will comprise videos, installations, light objects, sound, and performative elements in a combination of newly developed or elaborated works.

Rehearsal for Swan Lake (2024), the work from which the exhibition derives its name, refers to Jermolaewa’s childhood memories of Soviet censorship: at times of political or social unrest (for instance upon the death of a head of state), Soviet television would broadcast Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, sometimes in a loop for days on end. In Rehearsal for Swan Lake, a group of ballet dancers rehearse selected scenes from Swan Lake. In this way, Anna Jermolaewa transforms the famous ballet from an instrument of diversion and censorship into one that calls for political renewal and a change of regime. Rehearsal for Swan Lake is realized in collaboration with Ukrainian ballet dancer and choreographer Oksana Serheieva, who ran a ballet school in Cherkasy and fled to Austria with her family after Russia invaded in 2022.
Anna Jermolaewa’s contribution at the Austrian Pavilion blends seamlessly with the general theme of the Biennale Arte 2024, “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” chosen by Adriano Pedrosa, which concentrates on foreignness, migration, and issues of national identity and cultural diversity, with a focus on artists who have known flight and migration.

“In 1989 I came to Austria, which has become my home country, from the Soviet Union as a political refugee. During my last years in Leningrad, I was very active politically. We had clear methods: writing texts, organizing demonstrations, distributing pamphlets, publishing the Samizdat newspaper, which was critical of the regime. Being an artist, I have different tools and a different line of action. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I found it difficult to see any point in making art. So, like many of us, I resorted to direct action, for example to help Ukrainian refugees. Now it’s settled in such a way that I can combine both art and direct action very well, and I think I see a way where the two fields complement each other productively.” – Anna Jermolaewa

“The Biennale Arte in Venice is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of visual art, if not the most important one worldwide. I am thus all the more pleased that, in 2024, artist Anna Jermolaewa is to conceive a presentation titled “Swan Lake” for the Austrian Pavilion. I would like to thank her for making this possible, as I thank curator Gabriele Spindler for her thoughtful selection and great commitment in the realization of our country’s contribution. A number of outstanding exhibitions in renowned institutions have been devoted to Jermolaewa in recent years, with the current contribution to the Biennale crowning an eventful career. The artist’s works are characterized by a vigilant sense of human and social nuances, as well as absurdities and manipulations, all of which she dissects with sharp and delicate humor. Starting out from her own experiences, observations, and ideas, she reformulates them in videos, photographs, paintings, actions, and performances. Her art is deeply political or socio-political, to be more precise, yet playful and light in the way it is realized. As a viewer you recognize her remarkably critical attitude and sense her distinct appeal in terms of political change and the challenge of power structures,” says Secretary of State for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer, “I wish the artist lots of success and the visitors an inspiring tour of the exhibition.”