Venice Biennale 2024 : Arsenale

Vibrant exhibition and national pavilions at the Venice Biennale starting with the Arsenale site.

Generally I found the Biennale much more cheerful and life affirming than some previous occasions.  Although it still tackled difficult subjects it tended to present them as joy following hard times and the power of people acting together.

As ever I  started with the curated section and shout outs go to Kiluanji Kia Hendra's views through railings shown with the railings themselves, Omar Mismar's mosaics, a wonderful indigo structure and Bochra Khalili's video installation of maps of migrant journeys.

One criticism however would be that there seemed to be  a lot of art which wasn't contemporary and I expect it to be a contemporary art showcase. I think the aim was to fill gaps from the past along the theme of the show of "Foreigners Everywhere". The second moan is the length of the labels and the very small font used. A lot of space was taken up with telling you about the body of the artist’s work not about the piece you were actually looking at.

I then moved onto the national pavilions on the site starting with the Benin one which had recreated one of the windows in the building which amused me as I'd noticed people photographing the window in the previous room rather than the art!

My favourite was Mexico's with was an installation about a family dinner outdoors with videos around the edge of the meal and an installation of the table down the centre of the room closely followed by Italy's installation with scaffolding and organ pipes which made you feel like you were inside an organ.

Closed 24 November 2024

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