Books
Simon Denny
Secret Power

Secret Power is the catalogue accompanying Simon Denny’s exhibition of the same name representing New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Simon Denny is known for his research-based art projects exploring such themes as technological obsolescence, corporate culture, national identity, and internet politics.

As New Zealand's representative at the 2015 Venice Biennale, Denny presented Secret Power. Its starting point was how the world is imagined and depicted today by powerful states.

Secret Power was staged in two venues: the historic Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Marciana Library), in Piazzetta San Marco, in the heart of Venice, and the new terminal at Marco Polo International Airport, on its outskirts.

In the Renaissance-period Library, Denny presented a case study of NSA visual culture, focussed on the work of a former NSA top-level designer.

Resonating with the maps and allegorical paintings of the Library, this iconography of current political power was framed within one of the past.

Denny was the first Biennale artist to use Marco Polo Airport as a pavilion. He 'dragged-and-dropped' two actual- size photographic reproductions of the Library's decorated interior across the floor and walls of the Airport's arrivals lounge, traversing the border.

Secret Power addressed the way that complex intelligence-gathering systems are represented visually. By exploring the Biennale, the Library, and the Airport as frames, it hinted at geopolitical imperatives that both cross-reference and distinguish them.

Produced in collaboration with designer David Bennewith, this fully illustrated book offers a guide to this complex, layered project. It features essays by curator Robert Leonard and art critic Chris Kraus and an interview with Amsterdam-based graphic designers Metahaven.