It was another day of art in Venice. We had breakfast at the usual time and met up at 10am in the marketplace for the walk to the Biennale. Today’s exhibition were located in a garden area a bit farther out than we went yesterday, in fact, it’s a 1.88-mile walk, a great way to start the day.
Jodi gave us an overview of what we were going to do and then we headed out on our trek.
We waited a few minutes for the exhibition to open and got going on our plan. There is a main Biennale building similar to the one we visited yesterday but the bulk of this area contains the individual country pavilions and our plan was to get to most or all those pavilions today and leave the main building for tomorrow.
Heading for our first stop took us by the monument to the people of Ukraine.
We checked it out and the continued over to the United States pavilion.
This pavilion features the work of Simone Leigh.
And this is how the day went, from pavilion to pavilion, viewing art that was selected to best represent each country. Here are some more:
Hungary:
We watched a video in from Finland that was a documentary racism in a security force. We met back up outside and used a telescope to look at sculptures on top of the main Biennale building by Venetian artist Colima Von Bonilla.
Estonia in the Dutch pavilion:
Belgium with interesting videos of children playing:
Spain with interior walls construct 10-degrees out of square:
Switzerland:
Denmark:
The Russians were absent:
Norway gave their space to the Sami people.
The South Korean exhibition was very hi-tech.
The German pavilion was about reconstruction.
Great Britain featured the work of Sonia Boyce which was a new media exhibition of women singing in various ways across multiple rooms.
The grounds here are quite beautiful, like being in a city built for art.
We took a lunch break and grabbed a meal at this deli.
This sandwich of hummus, sun-dried tomatoes, and grilled eggplant on a deliciously course dark bread was excellent. The beer, from Sweden, rounded out the lunch nicely.
Next up was the French pavilion. It had something to do with filmmaking and the films of the 1930-40s as the rooms were like movie sets and included an editing studio with a small theater in the back.
The group regathered behind the Australian pavilion along the canal.
We checked out what the Australians had it was a large screen of fast changing line drawing accompanied by a cacophony of very loud sounds. It was by Marco Fusinata and titled “Desastres.” Curious, but I took no photos there. Across the way was the pavilion from Uruguay which talked about “dressing” and how we cover our bodies. It displayed large roles of fabric with some sleeves (?) displayed on an adjacent wall.
This finished off the pavilions on this side of the property and we headed across a bridge to the next island for the remaining ones.
Brazil was next.
Then it was the City of Venice pavilion. I am not sure I can explain this one. Oh, and that was not a live model.
Poland featured an interesting room ringed by levels of art that told stories rooted in everyday life or mythology.
Serbia’s pavilion featured two large video screens. One was a video of the ocean.
And the second one, mounted vertically, showed a swimmer in a lap pool.
Egypt’s pavilion was a single room that could be viewed from behind a roped opening. It was a commentary on artificial intelligence and was supposed to represent the womb and birth and a spiritual connection.
That wrapped up our day at the Biennale and we did the 1.8-mile walk back, retracing our morning steps. A few of us stopped on the corner shop from our hotel to rehydrate.
Across the way is a store with all sorts of goods.
We relaxed a bit and then did the walk to our dinner spot. Here are some photos I shot along the way.
And at our dinner place.
It’s mainly a pizza place but lots of other Italian dishes. They had a decent beer menu.
We had chips and fried veggies as appetizers.
I decided to eat of the lighter side and went with a salad.
On the walk back, some of us decided it was time for gelato. It’s like really good ice cream. It’s interesting how the many flavors are displayed.
And that was it, a pretty full day.
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