Looking back at footage of Venice Biennale 2011, The Artist remembers the optimistic feelings felt at the time, the projected careers, the romantic setting and how art meant something. The Finnish pavilion was closed when the footage was shot because of a fallen tree. Was it a sign? The sinking city echoes The Artist's current sense of resignation. The piece shifts from video footage into cartoons with speech bubbles, perhaps in an effort to reclaim the voiceover from a romanticising of ennui that seemed to be setting in. Is this a new beginning? Liberated from its ambitions for an illustrious career, art has now become a more metaphysical means of survival.
