Alfredo Jaar: 61st Biennale di Venezia

With The End of the World, the result of years of research supported by human geographer and political geologist Adam Bobbette, Jaar brings attention to the struggle for resources—a critical and increasingly significant factor in international conflicts. The installation demands focus on a 4×4×4 cm cube composed of layered raw materials: cobalt, rare earths, copper, tin, nickel, lithium, manganese, coltan, germanium, and platinum—ten strategic metals vital to digitalization, electromobility, high-tech applications, and storage media. Despite the growing demand for these materials, their extraction is fraught with severe human rights violations and environmental destruction.

The staging of this diminutive object in the monumental setting of the Biennale creates a space of contrasts and discrepancies that extend beyond the physical oppositions of space and object: the cube’s almost absurd diminutiveness vs. the immense scale of the ecological, social, and political upheavals it represents; the elegant presentation of the object, reminiscent of a jewelry display vs. the “dirty business” of its extraction.

These raw materials are not only essential for civilian technologies but also for the military sector, underpinning the functionality of modern weapons systems and high-tech armies. The importance of “rare earths” for Western supply security is starkly at odds with NATO states’ near-complete dependence on imports from China. Addressing strategic metals thus also provides a new perspective on current military conflicts and anticipates scenarios of future resource wars. Jaar’s examination of strategic metals culminates in the apocalyptic title of the piece.