Venetians turn blind eye as Britart chums invade for Biennale bash

WHEN THE British art world decamps to Venice to let its hair down for the International Biennale, it brings Cool Britannia with it. And so on Thursday night Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery and Elizabeth McGregor, director of the Birmingham Ikon Gallery, a vampish black wig over her red hair, boogied with 500 other artists, collectors and dealers in a fabulous palace under a Veronese painted ceiling to a private performance by the former Britpop band Pulp.

Jay Jopling, dealer to the Brit Pack, dispensed champagne. His client Damien Hirst declined the request to represent Britain. But Mr Jopling was unfazed. Gary Hume, the British Council's eventual choice, is also his client.

They all danced to, but did not watch, Pulp. Until the last few numbers Jarvis Cocker and the band played behind a venetian blind. Intentionally or not, it was a telling insight by Cocker, a former art-school student. A venetian blind in Venice giving the celebrity audience a blind concert was exactly the sort of post-modern irony (if you are part of the art world) or slightly laboured joke (if you are not) that was to sum up much of the art on show from around the world.

But it was well worth it to see the cream of the art world staring at a blind and applauding it madly in the blind faith that there really was a pop star and not just a CD player behind the screen.

I clearly lacked the requisite post-modern irony and sneaked through a side-door to get behind the blind, where the over-generous Cocker did not seem to object to my joining in or becoming one of his backing singers, as I shall one day tell the grandchildren.

They are probably more likely to believe that than what was being presented this week as the face of cutting-edge art. Every country has its pavilion; and when one sees the global cutting-edge one begins to realise Hirst, for all his pickled sheep, is deeply conventional. He might put a chimpanzee in formaldehyde but he probably wouldn't ask the little fellow to execute the art work.

Not so in Russia. Half its pavilion is devoted to photographs of Red Square by aMuscovite chimp that changed the camera's focus by touching the lens with its nose. The photos are out of focus, no doubt a commentary on post- Communist existence.

To be a real art lover, one has to experience pain. The Czech pavilion ensures this. It has a wall of motifs and in the middle of the room is a hospital bed and surgical instruments. These are in constant use, as visitors can be tattooed on the spot with the motif of their choice. One can spot the dedicated art lovers in Venice by their heavily bandaged arms.

The biennale gardens are extensive; each host country plies you with drink, but there is a dire shortage of toilets. So the last thing one really wants to see is an exhibit that is a room full of urinals. It seems little short of sadistic. But the room in the Israeli pavilion turns out to be part of a larger exhibit about the Holocaust. Next to the sterile urinal room, which has pictures of concentration-camp inmates on the walls, is a child's bedroom, with soft toys on the bed rhythmically inflating to the sound of a child crying from beneath the bed. The message of lost youth, fear and sterility is very affecting.

Near by, the Americans at their pavilion are in no doubt that contemporary art is a branch of showbiz. A government official calls a press conference to introduce the artist Ann Hamilton as in an Oscars ceremony. Indeed, Ms Hamilton then stands up and says: "I would like to thank my crew." Do artists have crews? In contrast to most British artists, Ms Hamilton is keen to explain her work - walls of enlarged braille poems with a mysteriously drifting deep-pink powder falling upon the braille characters. "Why is the colour pink?" says Ms Hamilton. "It's because pink occupies a place of in-betweenness. "

Perhaps explaining the art isn't such a good idea after all. The government official says that we can see here the government and President Clinton's commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, which seems a lot to read into pink powder.

Back in the British pavilion, Gary Hume's colourful and vibrant paintings were being viewed by Cherie Blair and her daughter, who had come to Venice for art-historical reasons or maybe to show our government's commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

"I spy toes," declared Mrs Blair, speaking freely in front of a seemingly abstract painting by Hume. "That's my Four Feet in the Garden," beamed Hume, delighted that the painting's hidden extremities had been recognised by the celebrated visitor.

There was mixed success in a very lengthy and heartfelt tribute to Sir Anthony Caro as he unveiled his sculpture The Last Judgement. The tribute was made by the Italian art historian Giovanni Carandente in Italian. Sir Anthony responded: "Despite my name, I don't understand a word of what he said. But it sounded beautiful."

It was a snatch of dialogue totally in place with this week's slightly surreal glimpse of international art and the British art world at play.

Even the vaporettos, the boats that serve as buses, carry, as part of the biennale, sayings by artists. So the rush-hour commuters are greeted by Yoko Ono's profundity: "In my sleep I hear the beep of the universe."

The Venetians seem blind to that and blind to the invasion by the art world: something that Jarvis Cocker would find utterly appropriate.