Venice Biennale 2024: Giardini

Eclectic exhibition and national pavilions at the Venice Biennale on the Giardini site.

I deliberately went straight to the British pavilion as I knew it was a video installation by John Akomfrah and I wanted to have time to watch it properly. It was well worth doing as there were about seven rooms with layered videos blending new and archive material which each echoed each other in a poetic way. Each room was set up in a different format which made them more varied to watch.

I then did the large curated pavilion where Evelyn Taocheng Wang's delicate paintings and Fred Kuwarni's video "We Were Here" looking at how black figure appear in history were the highlights. I'll definitely be looking that one up to see it I can watch the whole thing online. I loved a room which paired two gay artists Louis Fratino and Filippo de Pisis with gentle domestic works.

The national pavilions have rather merged in my mind since going and seemed less distinctive than usual. I think my favourite was the Venice one which featured some beautiful work by Vittorio Marello, Pietro Ruffo an Safet Zec. I also loved the Romanian one with pale paintings by Serbon Savu of men working man in archaeological settings.


Reviews

Times

Guardian

Telegraph

Reviews of British Pavilion

Times

Guardian

Telegraph


 

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