Prof. Dzenko Participates in 2025 Venice Architecture Biennial

Over Labor Day weekend, Corey Dzenko, Ph.D., associate professor of art history in the Department of Art and Design, joined artist Sheryl Oring as part of her performance at the United States Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennial in Venice, Italy.

In 2004, Oring donned a red, white, and blue outfit of a 1960s-styled secretary and first performed her social practice art project, "I Wish to Say." She asked participants, "If I were the president, what would you wish to say to me?" She typed their responses verbatim with a typewriter onto 4×6-inch postcards. This began her ongoing attempts to listen and record people's messages to the president. The artist uses carbon paper to make a second postcard; she then sends the original to the White House and archives and exhibits the copy. To date, she and her typists have typed over 5,100 postcards in her attempts to "activate democracy." From "I Wish to Say," Oring developed related projects that all use a question, a typewriter, and the act of radical listening.

Dzenko first served as a typist for Oring in 2012. Dzenko curated an exhibition of Oring's "I Wish to Say" and other artworks for a fall 2024 exhibition in Monmouth University's DiMattio Gallery.

Starting in 1895, the Venice Biennial is the world's longest running biennial of contemporary art. In 1980, a biennial dedicated to architecture was added; the art and architecture biennials alternate years. Many nations have their own pavilion in Venice's Giardini. This year, the U.S. Department of State and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) selected the proposal "PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity" from members of the University of Arkansas's Fay Jones School of Architecture and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for exhibition.

The U.S. pavilion's co-commissioners, Peter MacKeith and Susan Chin, invited Oring and Dzenko to be part of PORCH Fest events held in connection with the U.S. holiday weekend. To coincide with Labor Day, Oring performed her new work "What We Work For," when she asked participants, "What is the meaning of your labor?"

Dzenko's role as a docent to the project included assisting with Oring with her new performance, explaining the project to guests and helping them participate, as well as photographing the event. Very quickly, Dzenko realized that international guests also wanted to talk to her about the pavilion's theme and display materials. She learned about the pavilion from studying the displays, from talking with the co-commissioner of the pavilion and others on the development team, and from attending a panel discussion between the project's architects and designers. She also relied on her graduate studies of architecture and from teaching the history of architecture at her former institution to help educate visitors to the pavilion.

In 2026, Dzenko and Oring are publishing the book "Secretary to the People: Social Engagement through the Artwork of Sheryl Oring" with Intellect Books to align with the U.S. semiquincentennial. This book will include extended materials from the 2024 exhibition Dzenko curated for Monmouth University's campus. Their time in Venice will serve as the book's conclusion.

Marlon Blackwell Architects and D.I.R.T./TEN x TEN altered the courtyard space of the U.S. Pavilion in the Venice Giardini for the Venice Architecture Biennial. This was part of the national pavilion's display "PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity." Sheryl Oring takes dictation from a participant in her performance of "What We Work For." She performed this new work in the U.S. Pavilion's Labor Day weekend PORCHFest. One of the many postcards Sheryl Oring collected from participants who answered the question, "What is the meaning of your labor?" Sheryl Oring and Corey Dzenko in Oring's portable office at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennial