Venice Biennale: the political power of curating by country.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Despite the years of planning that went into both the Iraq and Wales pavilions for the 54th Venice Biennale, it was chance rather than design that placed these two off-site exhibitions facing each other across a narrow canal at the end of the Rio Garibaldi. It's an accident of geography that adds a disturbing resonance to both exhibitions, and an example of how the Biennale's curating by nation often invests the work of individual artists with unintended layers of interpretation and symbolism.

Although the Iraq exhibition Acqua Ferita/ Wounded Water is shaped by the theme of water, the recent invasion and conflict in the country bleeds into each of the six artists' work. Crossing the bridge over the Rio di Sant'Anna to the Wales Pavilion, a visitor is met by three video …