Page 53 - La Biennale di Venezia 2022 issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

APPLIED ARTS PAVILION
SPECIAL PROJECT AT
BIENNALE ARTE 2022 A
COLLABORATION BETWEEN
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
AND VICTORIA AND ALBERT
MUSEUM, LONDON
Sophia Al-Maria, Tiger Strike Red, 2022 Video installation
LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA & 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams
Photo by: Andrea Avezzù, Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
V&A LONDON PRESENT:
TIGER STRIKE RED
Curated by Cecilia Alemani, Artist Sophia Al-Maria Tiger Strike Red (2022) is a new single-channel video
Sale d’Armi A, Arsenale 23 April– 27 November 22 created for the Applied Arts Pavilion in response to
the Biennale’s theme, The Milk of Dreams. It is the
third in an ongoing series of Al-Maria’s video works
This is the sixth collaboration between La Biennale di that include Beast Type Song (2019) and Tender Point
Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Ruin (2021). Taking inspiration from the collection
who present a Special Project jointly organised by the of automata at the V&A, Al-Maria was drawn to
two institutions at the Applied Arts Pavilion in the Sale the peculiar eroticism of the automaton known
d’Armi, Venice Arsenale: Tiger Strike Red by Sophia as “Tippoo’s Tiger.” Made for Tipu Sultan, an 18th
Al-Maria, an artist selected by the Curator of the century ruler of Mysore in South India, the mechanical
Biennale Arte 2022 Cecilia Alemani. sculpture depicts a tiger mauling a British soldier.
In Al-Maria’s eyes, this automaton both demonstrates
Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker Sophia a yearning for revenge on the colonial oppressor and,
Al-Maria explores the echoes of colonialism and in the suggestive entwinement of man and beast, the
racism as they have bled into the contemporary subconscious fantasy of sexual coupling. Tiger Strike
relationship between humans via the inherent Red proposes that the non-consensual projection of
biases of our algorithms and machines. Al-Maria’s Orientalism’s (white male) gaze is once again at work
work raises questions around the alienation and in our collective vision of the future, suggesting that
dysfunction arising from a culture of “alternative facts” the imaginary monsters conjured by British colonialism
and whitewashed history, identifying remnants of – whether the tiger of Mysore or the image of women
colonialism in the fields of quantum computing, virtual wearing niqabs – are deeply entangled in our present-
space, and artificial intelligence. day machines and technologies.

Sophia Al-Maria, Tiger Strike Red, 2022 Video installation
59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams
Photo by: Andrea Avezzù, Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia

WORLD of ART 51