Gregor Schneider: Cubes: Art in the Age of Global Terrorism

When Rosa Martinez, in her role as a co-curator of the 2005 Venice Biennale, commissioned Gregor Schneider's Cube Venice, a 50-foot-square tower of veiled scaffolding designed in tribute to the Ka'aba in Mecca--a sacred and undocumented site forbidden to non-worshippers--she and Schneider agreed that Piazza San Marco, the plaza in front of the conversely very touristy cathedral of San Marcos, was the ideal place to display it. As the festival approached, that proximity worried Venice city authorities. In the end, their refusal to grant necessary permissions was supported by Italy's Ministry of Culture. Schneider asked that black pages be substituted for his planned materials in the Biennale's catalogue, but Cube Venice and the debates it provoked are documented here.