Venice Biennale 2022: Giardini

Second full-on day at the Venice Biennale on the Giardini site.

We followed out usual pattern on this site of doing the country pavilions as you come in first then heading into the large central exhibition space before walking over the to the island site before scooping up the final pavilions enroute to the exit. All fueled by lots of coffee stops.

In previous years the large exhibition space has featured artists who were also in the similar space in the Arsenal but this year the space had all new artists. You were greeted by a life sized sculpture of an elephant in a round mirrored room so I was won over from the start! Highlights in this section included Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s big bright pictures (as shown here), Kaari Upson’s works which started as thick impasto paintings which she then 3D printed and Jana Euler’s small shark sculptures which reminded me of Gormley’s Field works and we nicknames them ‘sharky little people’.

There were also more three more of there ‘art capsules’ showing art of previous generations with a concentration on that of women which are a new idea this year. My favourite was a section on artists which used metamorphosis in their work and included a lot of surrealist artists. Again lots of people to look up and investigate. There was also a lovely homage to Paula Rego who died earlier this year.

As ever the country pavilions are a bit hit and miss. My favourite was Poland with 12 large format textiles of Roma life showing the 12 months of the year which mirror Renaissance frescos in their domination of the room and three layers of images. They were beautifully produced and showed tender, human scenes. I also liked Estonia’s which was a contemporary look at a 19th century artist, Emilie Rosalie Saal who painted orchids. There were some mesmeric videos in the show. Shout out too to the USA pavilion with lovely sculptures by Simone Leigh.

We didn’t have as much time to do pavilions around town this year and just managed two, Chun Kwang Young: Times Reimagined who showed large sculptures made of handmade paper from second-hand books and Mouna Rebiez : The Soothsayer for the Republic of San Marino, large images of tarot cards painted on aluminium so they reflected each other and the viewer.

I have come away from both days quite befuddled by everything I’d seen but looking forward to seeing the artists in different contexts on my travels.

Closes 27 November 2022


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