Super Superior Civilizations
April 20–November 24, 2024
Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
Curator: Andrea Bellini
Super Superior Civilizations presents the sixth and seventh chapters of Guerreiro do Divino Amor’s monumental “Superfictional World Atlas” saga: The Miracle of Helvetia and Roma Talismano. The “Superfictional World Atlas” is a worldwide cartographic project, allegorical in nature and potentially infinite in scope, which the artist has been dedicated to for nearly two decades. Through his studies and research in experimental architecture, Guerreiro do Divino Amor’s artistic practice questions the relationship between urban space and collective imagination, between architecture and ideology, and between political propaganda and national identity.
In the Swiss Pavilion, Guerreiro aims at creating the most complex and ambitious installation of his career so far: a total, immersive work of art, littered with classical architectural elements—artificial symbols of an assumed Western racial superiority. Columns, fountains, and capitals, along with large surfaces of fake marble textures, suggest an imagery of power and supremacy and serve as the backdrop for the Pavilion’s two main installations.
The Miracle of Helvetia, a video that stages a grand allegory of Switzerland, represented as a miraculous and “super-fictional” paradise on earth, in which nature and technology, capitalism and democracy, rusticity and sophistication are in perfect and surreal balance. A long corridor connects The Miracle of Helvetia with the installation Roma Talismano, an allegorical entity and phantasmagorical twin of Roman civilization, as well as a symbol—through the centuries—of a supposed moral, political and cultural superiority. Brazilian artist and singer Ventura Profana embodies the Capitoline wolf, a symbolic and phantasmagorical animal, that sings a song narrating the exploits of three allegorical animals: the she-wolf, the ewe lamb and the eagle. By being mythical figures in the constitution of white identity and its imagined superiority, the wolf is the universal mother from whom the superior people descend; the eagle is the symbol of Roman war supremacy; and the lamb embodies, in Christian Rome, the very idea of purity and innocence.
“The Swiss Pavilion, as envisioned by the artist, plays with the national logic of celebratory self-representation through culture, which is at the very origin of the National Pavilions at the Giardini over a century ago,” says Andrea Bellini. “A curious documentarist with a baroque imagination and an extraordinary worlds builder, Guerreiro do Divino Amor invites us to laugh in a benevolent spirit at our chauvinism and at those clichés with which we represent the world and ourselves. The latter attitude seems to us of fundamental importance in a period of increasing polarisation of politics and radical oppositions such as the one we are currently experiencing.”
Project team and publication
For the Swiss Pavilion project, commissioned by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, artist Guerreiro do Divino Amor and curator Andrea Bellini worked together with executive producer Larisa Oancea, director assistant Diego Paulino, musical director Beà Ayoolà, scenography producer Giovanna Bellini, technical director Pedro Zaz, sculptress Lyz Parayzo and costume designer Andy Roba, among many others. The cast includes Ventura Profana (the she-wolf), Adriana Carvalho (the eagle) and Amanda Seraphico (the ewe lamb).
The exhibition Super Superior Civilizations will be accompanied by a newspaper-format publication including a conversation between Guerreiro do Divino Amor and Andrea Bellini.
Media moment
There will be a dedicated media moment at the Swiss Pavilion in which Guerreiro do Divino Amor and Andrea Bellini will present the exhibition, followed by a Q&A section.
Please register through this online form by Monday, April 1, 2024 to receive the confirmation.
Please note that accreditation to the Biennale Arte 2024 is required to attend the media moment at the Swiss Pavilion, and must be obtained directly from the Biennale Press Office before 5 April 2024, from this link.
Individual interviews with the nominated team and the Director of Pro Helvetia will take place by appointment.
Media requests
Switzerland: Ursula Pfander, upfander [at] prohelvetia.ch
International: Zeynep Seyhun, zeynep [at] picklespr.com; Costanza Savelloni, costanza [at] picklespr.com
