Yet somehow this grand festival of creativity has a vitality, often substance, and a sense of context broader than the usual art-world connections and hierarchies. Much of the credit goes to Adriano Pedrosa, the Brazilian curator of his two major exhibitions that underpin the seven-month Biennale. One will be held in the park-like central pavilion of the Giardini, and his other in a cave-like industrial space in Venice's Arsenale. They used to build ships that sailed around the world.
Pedroza, artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Fine Arts, is the first South American to serve as curator of the Biennale and the first openly queer person. And it shows. South America is represented by a group of top contemporary talents, as well as historical figures, indigenous artists from the Amazon, folk painters, self-taught artists, and outsiders from across the continent. is. Queer artists, both living and dead, revitalize old media, including painting, which is sometimes casually and contemptuously declared obsolete or dead. The number of invited artists has grown to 331, including first-time participants. Two years ago, there were 213 people, but the last time I visited in 2019, there were only 79 people.
And for the first time in a while, the Biennale's theme, “Foreigners Everywhere,” provides a real catalyst for processing art. Pedrosa says this has at least a double meaning. The world is full of people who are considered outsiders or foreigners, including minorities, immigrants, and asylum seekers. But we are all strangers, even to ourselves. Not all works express these ideas, but the themes are large enough to be overarching, specific, and meaningful.
Renowned brand artist Yinka Shonibare, whose show celebrates newcomers, captures the theme in the work that will greet Arsenale visitors. It is “Refugee Astronaut VIII,'' a life-sized figure dressed as an astronaut and carrying a large mesh bag on his back. It's a playful but disorienting suggestion that Earth has become uninhabitable and space is our last refuge.
Shonibare's sculptures are great icons, but at the same time they feel like moments that might suddenly pass away: fully on-brand, well-expressed, a little conceptual, sophisticated, and infinitely reproducible. It represents the art of the past 30 years. What's even more striking and exciting is Pedrosa's focus on works that address a more basic but intuitive level of expression. Giardini His pavilion contains an extensive gallery of portraits from around the world, including works from several decades ago.
Human faces stare out from the tightly packed walls, including “Johnny Cool,'' a 1967 portrait by Jamaican artist Osmond Watson (who died in 2005). This young man in jeans and an oversized blue shirt has a factual presence that is more interesting and more intense than the details of the artist who created him or the postcolonial discourse that explains his presence at the Biennale. .
An even older self-portrait created in 1941 by renowned Argentine artist Raquel Forner is full of symbolism. A bloody newspaper clings to a globe in the foreground, a disembodied hand holding a dead pigeon in the background. Mr. Foner, standing in the midst of signs of war, places his right forearm against his stomach, as if to relieve his own fear and pain. I did something similar last night while watching CNN's report on children killed playing foosball in Gaza's Magazi refugee camp.
This is clearly not joy, and is addressed to the inhuman rather than the human. Most of the artists in this exhibition do not directly talk about happiness. There is no sign of complacency. But throughout the Biennale there is an overwhelming and deeply moving sense that art is at work again, picking up the pieces and sweeping away the dust and rubble. This is Sudoku, not an intellectual game, but a visual one. Most of the artists Pedrosa has chosen have something to say and need to say it clearly. And with so many new artists participating, the event becomes truly international, rather than a parochial display of something obsessed with the insular professional art world. .
There are too many highlights, don't miss them. A photo of River Claure, a reproduction of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's “The Little Prince'' in modern Bolivian language. A room full of Haitian art by brothers Senek and Philome Obin. A completely mysterious and deeply disturbing narrative work by Salman Toor, a contemporary Pakistani artist based in New York.From modern mosaics Lebanese artist Omar Mismar explores subversive themes. Landscape by Native American Kay Walkingstick. A mashup of pastel abstraction and figurative elements by Chinese artist Evelyn Taochen Wang. Papercuts depicting distinctly queer subjects by Chinese artist Xiyadie. and Rosa Elena Curcic's small but evocative folk paintings from the 1980s, hand-sized works that capture the daily life of Guatemalan Maya Kaqchikel.
The main exhibition, overseen by Pedrosa, is the focal point of other exhibitions, including national pavilions concentrated in the Giardini and more warehouse-like galleries in the Arsenale. Representing the United States is Jeffrey Gibson, a queer artist of Cherokee descent. Gibson covered nearly every corner of the neoclassical building, which usually looks like a modest branch of a local bank, in a rainbow riot of color and geometric patterns, from the building's foundation to the entablature. Ta. For wall-sized paintings, The stylized script includes familiar political phrases (“We believe these truths to be self-evident”) and more pointed references to Native American history (“The Returned Men Too often, students return to their reservations and fall into old habits.'' Please grow his hair long. Inside, videos and sculptures, including a mesmerizing bird-like shape with wildly colored dreadlocks, complete a response to what the curators call “chromophobia,” or the fear of color.
The Israel Pavilion, where Ruth Patia's work was exhibited, has been closed. A sign in the window read: “If a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached, the artists and curators of the Israel Pavilion will hold an exhibition.'' Through the window you can see a video of what appears to be an ancient stone carving of a woman grieving and grieving. Armed guards were patrolling outside. And the graffiti on walls and spontaneous protests across Venice provided much evidence of the world's anger at the brutal toll of Israel's response to the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Highlights of the national pavilions include Wael Shawky's mesmerizing opera video Drama 1882; This video uses human figures in a hybrid puppet show that tells the history of his 1879 to 1882 rebellion against colonial rule. Shawky's extraordinarily evocative work is also on display at the spectacular Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti on the Grand Canal, where an extensive high-tech study has been carried out by the Doha Film Institute and the Arab Museum of Modern Art Matov. A contemporary art film called “Your Ghosts Are Mine.” Judging by the number of “ghost” tote bags spotted in Venice, the show has a huge advertising budget. But it's also a fascinating sampler of serious modern cinema.
There are also 30 independent exhibitions and installations, “collateral” events attached to the Biennale's official imprimatur. I saw some of these, but was impressed by his Brussels installation in the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, one of his most impressive churches in Venice designed by Palladio. Belgian artist De Brueckel filled the sacristy of a church with wax casts of tree trunks, arranged atop rusted metal furniture like ethereal patients on a table. I am. In the nave, huge vestments and giant mirrors hanging from the framework suggest archangels, or echoes of departed angels. Located on an island away from the main hustle and bustle of Venice, this cathedral is a haven for those in need of respite. De Brückel's spiritual art fills you with tranquility.
Other exhibitions include one at the historic Academy commemorating Dutch-born American artist Willem de Kooning. This exhibition focuses on works created during and in response to his travels to Italy. This work depicts an artist completely detached from the darker side of his reputation as a husband who emotionally abused his wife Elaine de Kooning and an artist who tortured the female form as a parody of hysteria. Provide perspective. Italy refreshed him and inspired him to create sculptures, drawing out his amazing expressiveness and playful drawings. The exhibition concludes with his later works, including 1987's luminous, gigantic painting “The Cat's Meow,” a gentle intertwining of red lines and yellow shapes. The painting seems to replicate itself by reflecting off the dark polished floor.
A standalone exhibition of Jean Cocteau's work at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a small pleasure that reinforces the Biennale's theme. Cocteau was a gay artist and a natural talent, but both his sexuality and his indiscriminate crossing of official boundaries made him an insider. And there is a suspicion that he is an outsider or stranger to the orthodox art world. This program aims to correct that unfair judgment. Another stand-alone exhibition at Palazzo Dona dalle Rose is the work of contemporary Italian artist Federico Solmi, a wild affair and another frontal attack on colorphobia. Solmi is a carnivalesque satire of contemporary politics and culture, full of grotesque, preening figures that mimic the mad dance of power and narcissism that defines those we foolishly and reflexively call leaders. .
When you visit a place as full of history and beauty as Venice, you're bound to have questions on your way home. “What will I remember?” You may try to cram impressions into your mind, or into your phone's camera, to make the experience more real and lasting. This biennale provokes the same reaction. You want to distill it down to something bigger than a long list of interesting things.
Perhaps this will help explain the difference between this version and other smaller versions. If we see a brighter sense of humanity, it may be because Venice attracts artists who are grappling with the need to take time off to preserve, preserve, and preserve something important. The world is worse than ever, but artists aren't leaving without a fight.
Before leaving the Arsenale, I made one last stop at the Gallery in the Italy Pavilion. There, a huge dismantled pipe organ appears to be played the old-fashioned way, using a large rotating barrel keyboard. The pipes, lying corpse-like horizontally on metal beams, emit a basic kind of music, a bass that creates a minimalist soundtrack, as if a vast plaza had been imbued with the sounds of ancient times. It's like it's being brought to life again by a sound that's just as grand and profound. a wall surrounding it. This is a powerful piece of work, suggesting that someone has rebooted the old magical machine.
