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HOST: Venice is crowded.
And also not crowded.
Depending on where you find
yourself in the city and when,
you may be adrift in a
torrent of fellow tourists
or alone, at least
for a moment, in what
feels like a ghost city.
During its glory days from the
Middle Ages to the Renaissance,
when its magnificent towers
and palazzos and basilicas
were constructed across
numerous small islands,
it was a major financial
and maritime power.
An incomparable center
for global trade.
Then it was crowded with people
from around the world, as well
as merchants and shipbuilders
and doges and artists
and regular people
who live there.
And it's been a
tourist destination
since tourism began.
A pilgrimage site for artists
and writers and admirers
of its many charms.
But it's never been as crowded
with tourists as it is today.
And we were among them.
Not just to appreciate its
riches from previous areas,
but to see what's happening now.
To take in the
exhibition of new art
that it hosts every two
years, and has since 1895.
We began our trip at the
Giardini della Biennale,
the public gardens that
Napoleon drained a marsh
to create in the
early 19th century.
The first pavilion was
made to house and celebrate
Italian art, but soon after
other countries were invited
to create their own
pavilions, starting
with other European
countries and spreading.
Demonstrating with each
a distinct geopolitical
and architectural
moment in time,
with the most recent addition
of Australia in 2015.
Every two years,
countries put forward
a commissioner and an
artist or group of artists
to make work for each space,
and a jury announces winners.
It can be helpful to think
of it as a kind of art world
Olympics, only much,
much more subjective.
And doping is allowed.
Art has changed tremendously
since most of the pavilions
were built, and many of the
most successful installations
interact directly
and strategically
with the given
architecture of the site.
One of these is Phyllida
Barlow's contribution
to the British pavilion,
announcing itself
from afar with colorful baubles
surrounding the entrance
and playing off
of the building's
grand neoclassical design.
Barlow's roughly hewn
structures and assemblages
contrast with the smooth
neat finish of the space.
They're playful and
surprising and funny,
and also confusing, obtrusive,
and at times foreboding.
This labyrinth of textures
and colors and hulking forms
made me smile, and
also appreciate
how the seemingly
unfinished or even foolish
can be more appropriate to
the times than the rational.
We continue on to
the German pavilion
where visitors line up to
experience Anne Imhof's Faust.
Inside, we stand
atop a glass floor
and look around the space,
identifying performers
positioned atop wall
mounted pedestals.
They move about in
unpredictable ways,
seemingly aware of each
other but not so much us.
We move about to make
space for the performers
and for each other.
They interact.
They occupy the space
beneath the floor.
And we take pictures of them.
Sound fills the space,
along with the mute howls
that, according to
the press materials,
bear witness to the ever
increasing pain of vanishing
living beings and
to the zombification
of capitalist bodies.
The description rings true.
Onward to the US pavilion,
where we notice rubble
outside the Palladian
style building and poems
on the facade written in
the voice of Hephaestus,
Greek god of fire
and metal working.
They're by Mark Bradford, the
artist representing the United
States.
Although representing
is an uneasy term here.
As soon as we encounter
the first work--
a bulging mass of layered
and shellacked paper, trash,
roofing tiles, and grommets--
we realize that like many
artists at the Biennale,
his aim within this clearly
nationalistic context
is to challenge the very
idea of nationalism.
He has made the pavilion
into a kind of a ruin,
occupying it with ominous
sculptures and installations
alongside the large scale
paintings for which he
is known, made up
of posters and signs
and discarded materials from
the south LA neighborhood where
he grew up and still
bases his operations.
And because we are in need of
something more lighthearted,
we then stepped into the Alvar
Aalto pavilion of Finland
to see an installation by
Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka
Nissinen Animatronic
puppets engage
in a dialogue about
Finnish society,
present videos of Finnish
creation mythology,
and discuss the
country's future.
It's hilarious--
cuttingly irreverent,
gross, and a delightfully
absurd approach to the challenge
of representing a country.
And we never refuse
an opportunity
to interact with the
work of Erwin Wurm, who
represents Austria along
with artist Brigitte Kowanz.
We navigated the truck turned
on its head that sits outside,
which you can enter
and climb to its top.
It's a work by Wurm titled
Stand Quiet and Look Out
Over the Mediterranean Sea,
which is exactly what we did.
Or tried to do.
In the artist's
words, it's a memorial
to thinking about
what's going on
and to focus on this dramatic
situation of the Mediterranean
Sea, which is of
course currently
the locus of mass migration.
It's one of the artist's
one minute sculptures, which
also populate the
interior of the pavilion,
inviting visitors
via instructions
to pose with given objects.
In this way you
become the sculpture,
and also realize how epically
long one minute can be.
Next we make a quick stop by
the unmissable Korean pavilion,
adorned with a
rooftop installation
by Cody Choi, whose
works often explore
the interplay of cultural
influences between the US
and South Korea.
Inside are other works by
Coi, as well as Lee Wan.
The most impressive of
which is his presentation
of the personal archive
of deceased journalists
Mr. K, which the artist
found and purchased
at an antique market for the
equivalent of $50 US dollars.
Then came the Swiss pavilion,
designed by architect
Bruno Giacometti, brother of
artist Alberto Giacometti.
Carol Bove created works for
the Biennale in reference
to the work of artist
Giacometti, who during his life
declined all
requests for his work
to be shown at the Biennale.
Artist duo Teresa Hubbard
and Alexander Birchler
contribute their
masterful film Flora,
which tells the story of
Flora Mayo, an artist who
studied in Paris in the
1920s and was involved
with Alberto Giacometti.
On one side of a
screen we see and hear
an interview with Flora's son,
who knew little of his mother's
life as an artist.
And on the reverse a reenactment
of young Flora's life.
It's a moving consideration of
what it means to be an artist--
to be influenced, to be
included and excluded.
And I encourage you
to seek out this film.
We then approach the entrance
of the central pavilion,
and admired the
Sam Gilliam drapes
work suspended from the
ceiling of the colonnade.
It marks the beginning of
the main art exhibition
of the Biennale, which this year
is curated by Christine Macel
and titled Viva Arte
Viva, celebrating the role
and voice of the artist at
a time when, they assert,
it's needed most.
The first is the pavilion
of artists and books,
and we quickly came across an
actual physical artist, Dawn
Kasper, as she was hanging
out in her studio space,
like she's done each day
since the show opened in May.
It's the latest installment of
her nomadic studio practice,
where she sets up a studio
space as a work in itself,
performing the role of
the artist within it.
Next came another studio--
this one conceived but not
occupied by Olafur Eliasson.
It's the current location of a
workshop that invites refugees,
asylum seekers, and members
of the public to come together
to construct green light lamps.
And also participate in
language courses, seminars,
and screenings.
It shares the same
space with wallpaper
by Edi Rama, an artist and
the current prime minister
of Albania, composed of
the doodles he creates over
top his daily agendas.
In an adjacent gallery, we catch
the interaction of a visitor
with Lee Mingwei's project,
When Beauty Visits.
A host invites a visitor
to follow her to the Carlo
Scarpa designed garden nearby.
There, a chair is
waiting and the guest
is asked to sit and enjoy
the beauty of the garden
while the host leaves
to retrieve a gift.
She returns,
presents an envelope,
and requests that it be opened
only after the visitor's
next encounter with beauty.
When it is eventually
opened, they
will find the story of another
person's encounter with beauty.
There are many wonderful
moments in these galleries.
We made a close inspection of
the works of McArthur Binion,
who creates abstract
compositions atop copies
of his birth certificate,
the address book
he kept from the 70s to the
90s, and photos of his childhood
home in Mississippi.
There's a superb progression
of galleries displaying
Kiki Smith's Rogue Stars,
surrounded by her works
addressing themes of
femininity from life to death.
It leads to a gallery of
works by Senga Nengudi,
who began making abstract
sculpture in the 1970s using
nylon stockings
which she stretches,
knots, and weights with sand.
Here we see a collection of such
works, my favorite of which you
can see vibrating and responding
to humming fans and air vents.
There is a lot more good
work in these galleries.
Too much to cover here.
We took our time
getting to know work
by artists we'd never
previously encountered,
and looked forward to exploring
the next chapters of the show
we'd seek out tomorrow.
The next morning we
walk to the Arsenale,
the complex of former
shipyards and armories
that houses the next seven
chapters of the Biennale
exhibition.
Here we came across
structures by Rasheed Araeen,
a series of 100 trellis
cubes that the public
is invited to
arrange and rearrange
in whatever way you please.
Around the corner we
come across another work
by Lee Mingwei, The
Mending Project.
Either the artist
or a volunteer--
in this case a volunteer--
sits at a table and visitors
are invited to bring a
damaged item of clothing
and wait and watch
while the article is
repaired with colorful threads.
It's then placed on the table
with the thread still attached,
joined to a wall
of colorful spools
similarly links to mended items.
Like Lee's work in
the Scarpa garden,
this project is about
interaction and exchange.
Art not as an object
coolly observed from afar,
but art as a gift that only
emerges through participation.
This exhibition
contains the work
of 120 artists from 51
different countries,
and 103 of the artists are
participating in the Biennale
for the first time.
There are many works that just
don't show up well on video.
They require your close physical
presence and careful attention.
And there are also large scale
installations, like this one
by Leonor Antunes,
taking advantage
of the dramatic scale
of the Arsenale space
and softening it with
an immersive environment
of metal mesh, leather,
wood, and glass lamps
created in the famed
workshops of nearby Murano.
We passed into what seemed
like another universe--
the Pavilion of Shamans--
through the fantastical
well-mounted works
of Rina Banerjee.
And on to Ernesto
Neto's A Sacred
Place-- a structure
whose form he
adopted for the indigenous Huni
Kuin people of the West Amazon
in Brazil.
Further on in the
Pavilion of Colors
we resisted the urge
to dive headfirst
into Sheila Hick's monumental
installation of stacked bales
of pigmented fiber.
Alas, it is not allowed.
In the final chapter, we came
to Liu Jianhua's installations
square.
Sheets of steel on
top of which rest gold
glazed porcelain pools.
Beyond it, we became entranced
by Alicja Kwade's arrangement
of sculptural objects and
steel frames and mirrors.
Walking around and
around the piece
you're unsure of what is
real and what is reflection.
What is doubled or tripled.
What belongs to the space
and what to the artwork.
I was astounded and confused
in the best possible way.
Also at the Arsenale are
a number of other national
pavilions, including Tunisia's.
Titled The Absence
of Paths, you're
invited to step
forward to a kiosk,
shed your own nationality
and citizenship,
and be issued a universal travel
document, granting freedom
of movement across any border.
I apply my thumb print to the
document-- origin unknown,
destination unknown,
and status migrant.
It's stamp declares
me only human.
I will treasure it.
Oh, and the Biennale
is much more
than an art show,
and is composed
of a huge number of events.
Venice has Biennales for
architecture, cinema, dance,
music, and theater,
the last of which
was also going on at
the time of our visit.
We peeked into a theater
workshop taking place
at the Aresenale for
Biennale College,
offering younger
artists the chance
to work alongside more
established artists
and develop new work.
By the afternoon we had
reached art exhaustion,
so we boarded the Vaporetto,
Venice's waterbus,
to see what we could in the
breezy shade it offered.
There are many collateral
Biennale events that take place
throughout the city,
and special exhibitions
at most of the city's museums.
You can see art all day every
day for a whole week here.
And if you had that time, you'd
visit the Punta della Dogana,
owned by uber collector
Francois Pinault,
currently hosting an
exhibition of massive works
by Damien Hirst.
From our watery perch
we admired the Basilica
de Santa Maria Della Salute.
And further along
the Grand Canal
we passed the Peggy Guggenheim
Collection, which you'd also
want to be sure
to visit, followed
by James Lee Byars'
temporary Golden
Tower, whose illusions are
too obvious for me to mention.
Outside of the Palazzo
Grassi, also owned
by Francois Pinault and
home to his collection,
we saw more of the
Hirst exhibition
and felt OK about not going in.
We passed under
the Rialto Bridge
and motored by the Prada
Foundation, and by Ca Pesaro,
currently hosting an exhibition
of portraits by David Hockney.
This is a really hard
hitting art trip, I know.
We disembarked at
San Stae, as it
was high time for gelato,
which we found and enjoyed
at Fontego delle Dolcezze.
If you must know,
I had the peach.
That evening it was
back to the Aresenale,
since we had snagged
tickets to a play that was
part of the theater Biennale.
We passed another
work by Alicja Kwade--
a constellation of
polished stone spheres
distributed across the
gravel walk like an array
of unknown planets.
And took in the stunning
environs of the Aresenale
at the end of the day.
That evening we sat
in a cool, dark space
and watched the
tour de force that
is Und Dann, written
by Wolfram Holl
and directed by Claudia Bauer.
We knew nothing of what
we're seeing in advance,
and surrendered ourselves
to the experience.
In a coming together of acting,
puppetry, dance, and live video
projection, we watched play
out a nightmarish and masterful
childhood memory.
We were speechless,
somewhat traumatized,
and wholly impressed.
On our third day, we set out
for some of the Biennale venues
scattered around
the city, including
the pavilions of
countries participating
for the first time.
One of these is Nigeria,
whose exhibition
titled How About
Now, is installed
in the former home of a
guild of artists and makers
of gold thread and gold leaf.
Within, we traverse
an installation
called A Biography
of the Forgotten
by Victor Ehikhamenor, for
which he gathered hundreds
of Benin bronze heads from
Igun Street in Benin City
and strung them,
along with mirrors,
to large sheets
of painted canvas.
We also see Peju
Alatise's instillation
based on the story
of a little girl who
works as a housemaid in
Lagos and longs for a realm
where she is free and can fly.
We wind our way
back to Dorsoduro,
to the Antigua and Barbuda
pavilion, tucked away
in the recesses of a 15th
century former monastery.
There we delve into the
world of Frank Walter, who
was born in Antigua in 1926,
became the first person
of color to manage
a sugar plantation.
Spent time in Europe.
Later returned to Antigua and
lost a bid for Prime Minister
to his cousin.
And eventually retreated from
society to live in isolation.
All the while he generated a
tremendous volume of artwork--
paintings, sculptures,
writings, and recordings,
which he hoped to someday share
by opening his studio as an art
center.
It's this thorough,
thoughtful, and captivating
showing at the Venice
Biennale that he got instead,
and which we felt lucky
to spend some time with.
Afterward, we stopped
for a quick bite
to eat at Osteria
Al Squero, where
we selected a
number of cicchetti,
or snacks, and shared them
alongside an Aperol Spritz--
a super refreshing
Italian aperitif.
And because you can't
go to Venice and not,
its gondola time.
The oppressive sun was
finally hidden behind clouds
and we ventured out
onto the Grand Canal,
before turning to explore
some of the smaller
canals of Dorsoduro.
We are seeing the city as
it was meant to be seen,
and spent our brief ride trying
to conjure this place as it
was in eras past.
Wondering which buildings
are occupied or empty,
used as they were intended
or rented out as Airbnbs.
We disembarked by our
next stop, the Gallerie
dell'Accademia, to see their
temporary exhibition Philip
Guston and the Poets.
The Academia has a terrific
permanent collection,
of course--
masterworks by Veronese,
Titian, Giorgione.
But we were there to see works
by American painter Philip
Guston, who spent time in Italy
and was heavily influenced
by the work of Italian
Renaissance masters.
The galleries feature
works that span a 50 year
period of his career,
and thematic groupings
consider the writings
of 20th century poets
like D.H. Lawrence
and T.S. Eliot
as the, quote, "catalyst
for his enigmatic pictures
and visions".
I like Guston's work,
and I especially
like seeing it in
the rare context
of this historic institution and
through the lens of the ideas
and poetry that inspired him.
From there we walked
a short distance
to the Future
Generation Art Prize,
which had taken up
residence for the Biennale
in a mid-15th century palazzo.
The artists whose
work are on display
are recipients of the
prize, awarded to 21 artists
from around the world
and made possible
by the Kiev based Pinchuck
Arts Center and Victor Pinchuk
Foundation.
We explored the pungent
installation made
by South African artist
Dineo Seshee Bopape,
made from locally extracted soil
along with hay, crystals, ash,
herbs, and clay objects.
It is of course striking
to see giant slabs of dirt
within a grand palazzo.
But more than anything
I felt privileged
to see this work here,
where I can appreciate
the collision of times and
geographies and textures
and materials.
I felt similarly taking
in the work of Dominican
born Firelei Baez, whose
paintings of Creole
women in red headscarves
replaced the Rococo mirrors
that usually adorn the space.
Beyond it is Ghanaian
artist Ibrahim Mohammed's
enormous construction
of material collected
from abandoned industrial sites,
along with old shoe shiners
boxes.
Described as quote, "objects
of labor and exploitation"
that belong to the mundane
urban landscape of Accra
and other places in Ghana.
It was getting darker and
darker outside as we explored
the many good works here, and
just as we are about to leave--
torrential rain.
That ended the day's
art viewing as we
sat for quite a while huddled
at the doorway of the palazzo
until the rain eased enough
to make a mad dash back
to the hotel.
On the day of our departure,
we made a last stop
by the Icelandic
pavilion on Giudecca
to see its installation
by this artist, who
I'm going to spare from
my mispronunciation.
Apologies to everyone
who came before.
Inside, we're led to
believe that two trolls, Ugh
and Boogar, have
followed the artist
from his studio in
Berlin and taken
over the creation
of the pavilion.
We hear about their Venetian
adventures-- drinking espressos
and plucking tourists from St.
Mark's Square and eating them.
The whole thing is a
wildly happy making.
OK, so it's fair to say
that we did not experience
Venice like the locals.
But while the
city's residents are
far outnumbered by the
masses that arrive daily,
you can still catch
glimpses of what
real life might look like here.
And you can still wind your
way through its narrow streets
and alleys, bask in
the breathtaking glory
of its architecture, its
light, and its centuries
long commitment to the arts.
What we missed an
authentic experience
we made up for in our exposure
to new art and artists
from disparate
corners of the world,
together for a handful of
months in this historic city.
This year's Biennale aims to
reveal the universes artists
create for themselves, and also
the way those universes open up
and involve others.
Astounding things happen
when artists spend long hours
sketching, making, and
creating forms in closed rooms.
But they also happen
when those artists admit
and embrace that
they, like us all,
are part of a wide web
of people and communities
and influences and political
and environmental forces.
I mean look at it--
Venice is gorgeous.
As I impatiently push my way
through my fellow visitors,
I swore I'd never come back.
But I will.
I have to.
In two years the
city will be filled
with entirely new artwork
and voices and ideas,
and I want to be
there to see it.
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Special thanks to
our grand master
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Homes Realty.
If you'd like to
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check out our page at
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