In Ritual City, Benjamin Orlow treats sculpture as a body whose cohesion remains uncertain. Raw clay, monumental fragments and exposed supports set material fragility against architectural authority. At the Nordic Pavilion, the figure does not appear as a finished monument: it seems still to be negotiating its own existence. This tension between construction and collapse opens a political as well as material question: what holds a community upright?
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Work: 2026. Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 9 May–22 November 2026. Nordic Pavilion video published 3 June 2026. Source and context.