Berlinde De Bruyckere, Belgian Pavilion @ Venice Biennale

In the darkened space of the Belgian Pavilion a massive wax form rests horizontally across the gallery floor –artist Berlinde De Bruyckere’s cast of an uprooted tree: Cripple wood. Detailed plaques defining this title term are the first thing you see when entering the space. In a dictionary-like fashion, curator and Nobel laureate author J.M. Coetzee describes the tree’s desire to reach the sun being thwarted by a genetic poison distorting its growth. These texts highlight the unusual partnership between artist and curator: that they react to each other’s work, are inspired by it, which results in such an enthralling exhibition.

The space is illuminated through tiny holes in grey fabric covering the ceiling windows, natural light that feels more like spores of mould and decay. There are sections in the pavilion that this light doesn’t reach. Dark recesses that allow the viewer to stand back, to absorb the incredible scale of the work and to reflect on its beautiful deformity. In this shadowy gloom, gnarled, knotted branches extrude from the trunk, reaching stiffly out like the tentacles of a giant beached sea creature. In several places they are wrapped in thick cloth, bandages protecting several wounds. With the fleshy tones of the wax, (colours found in Bruyckere’s earlier figurative sculptures), there is something humanising about the piece. Awkward, painful, vulnerable, the comforting presence of the fabric offering a juxtaposition to the twisting form of broken branches.

This impaired, deteriorating form mirrors the miraculous Venetian city, making the Biennale the perfect platform to display this work. For despite its missing plaster, peeling paint and obvious water damage Venice is still imposingly grand, perhaps more so due to the vulnerability of its looming destruction. Like Bruyckere’s piece, it is still awe-inspiringly beautiful. [Cathy O'Brien]