The Most Provocative Performance in Venice

At the Venice Biennale, every two years, we expect big things from the artists picked to represent their countries. But I'm not sure anyone can quite prepare themselves for the universe of Florentina Holzinger. After years becoming a titan of the theater world, Holzinger is now getting one of the most visible slots in the art world, a national pavilion in the Giardini. She’s representing Austria this year for what is surely going to be one of the most talked about pavilions. Known for feminist performances that push the human body—and, by extension, the viewer—to their absolute limits, she does not shy away from nudity or sexuality. Flesh hooks, stunt artistry, live tattooing, bodily fluids, heavy machinery—all of it is in play, and none of it is trying to be polite. The physicality of her practice is not for the faint of heart, nor for her performers. Her work tends to divide a room, something Holzinger seems entirely unbothered by. Opening May 9th, her exhibition called “Seaworld Venice” fills the Austrian Pavilion with water, turning it into an underwater theme park and a fully functional sewage treatment plant. Audiences can be part of the work: they can urinate in the onsite portable toilets, and their fluids will get cleaned and cycled back into the tanks. The work is about the human body, but it's also about ecology and about Venice itself, a city that is sinking, built on water it cannot drink, overwhelmed by the waste of mass tourism. Kate Brown spoke with Holzinger about what went into building her trailblazing project for Venice, about the move from theater and dance into the art world, and about what it means to make genuinely uncompromising work.