At the Venice Biennale, the art world's insiders consider outsiders

Open this photo in gallery: At the Venice Biennale, the Netherlands has invited a plantation workers’ art collective from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to fill its pavilion. The International Celebration of Blasphemy and The Sacred includes clay effigies and palm oil on the walls.Matteo de Mayda/Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia There are times in Venice when it seems as if the mighty Biennale will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Conceived in an age of Eurocentric nationalism, it must now contend with postcolonialism and postnationalism. This is the place where the elite of the Euro-American art…