Venice Biennale 2023: Arsenale site

Intense day at the Venice Biennale on the Arsenale site.

We started with the large section of invited artists. The theme title year was “The Milk of Dreams” from a book by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington which describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination.

As ever the show starts off quite crowded and hot but by the third section the crowd thins out and things relax. I must admit a lot of it felt quite woke and by the time we got an artist who was a Sami reindeer herder I was a bit hysterical. Having said that I liked the textile art of said herder. Open your mind and see what happens.

I liked the bright paintings of Ficre Ghebreyesus in the second room which were full of colour and life. I loved the large installation of earth mixed with spices by Delcy Morelos which dominated the entrance into one section and worked well with the space.  A shout out to Prabhakar Pachpule’s long canvas partly inspired by the finding of a Roman shipwreck and the image of a tiger which escaped onto the wall at one end.

My favourite piece was Igshaan Adams tapestry (shown here) with beads in the pattern of the lino in his South African children home. It was poignant plus a stunning art work.

A new idea this year was to have sections breaking up the contemporary art with what they call ‘art capsules’ showing art of previous generations with a concentration on that of women. I found two of them and recognised some names but have more to look up. I particularly liked some Weimar Era ballet costumes.

We then moved onto the country Pavilions on the site which were a little underwhelming this time. Ones I liked included New Zealand’s look at an LGBTQ community on Samoa with a nod to Gauguin. Also molten steel dripping into water from Malta which you viewed in a cage and was meant to represent the Caravaggio John the Baptist on the island. It’s not the first thing which would have come to my mind but it was beautiful.

My favourite in this section was the Lesbian ceramics by Skuja Braden for Latvia which mixed erotic pieces with some really tender and beautiful works. If they’d been for sale I’d have been tempted by the bowl with hands shown here.

Closes 27 November 2022


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