The 59th edition of the Venice Biennale is taking place from April 23 to November 29, celebrating 127 years of existence. After a one-year postponement due to the pandemic, we are delighted to be back in the artistic excitement of the largest and most prestigious global event around contemporary art. Cecilia Alemani is the curator, under the presidency of Roberto Cicutto. The first edition of the Venice Biennale was initiated by the city council in honor of the 25th wedding anniversary of King Humbert I and Marguerite of Savoy. It took place from April to October 1895, with awards already being given at the time to reward artists. For the occasion, the mayor commissioned a building in the Giardini, on which several architects worked, a building that was soon completed with the national pavilions established over time, creating a multi-faceted architecture. Since 1999, the former Arsenal slaughterhouse has become a new venue for exhibitions in addition to the Giardini.
A selection dedicated to women and emerging talents
The official exhibition can be discovered through the two dedicated venues: the Giardini of the Biennale, which bring together all the national pavilions – the Russian pavilion being, circumstances aside, closed – around a central pavilion that showcases a selection guided by the theme of this edition: the milk of dreams. The second exhibition venue is The Arsenale, a few steps from the Giardini, with monumental spaces for strong installations and works. A total of more than 1400 works created by more than 200 artists from 58 countries, including 80 % women, testify to the richness of the selection, especially since 180 of these artists have never previously appeared in an international exhibition. The biennale thus gives priority to discovering emerging talents.
The theme of the selection for the 2022 biennale
Commissioner Cecilia Alemani referred to the title of the work by the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington to define the thread of this selection: the milk of dreams, a journey into the dreamlike and fantastic imagination where female creativity is particularly highlighted. A mysterious fairy tale from the 1950s in Mexico that draws the contours of a world emancipated from identity-bound constraints, open to an infinite range of possible horizons has thus inspired the artistic choices of this 59th biennale. A world where identities are plastic, undefined, fluctuating at the whim of the imagination. Three themes unfold the surrealist thread of the « milk of dreams»:
– the representation of the body and its metamorphosis
– the links between individuality and technology
– the links between bodies and the environment
What defines and specifies the human being, in relation to the non-human, in relation to its environment, and through its transformation? The journey through artistic creation is a step back from anthropocentrism, a questioning in response to a period marked by uncertainty and instability.
The list of winners of the 59th Venice Biennale
At the inauguration of this 59th biennale, the jury unveiled an engaged jury with six women out of seven laureates, and two Golden Lions awarded to two Black artists: Simone Leigh represented in the American pavilion and selected for the main exhibition on the Arsenal site, as well as Sonia Boyce represented in the British pavilion. Two Golden Lions for their entire careers were awarded to Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña. The Silver Lion was awarded to the Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, whose film about a Sudanese dam intertwined with mythology is presented at the Arsenal. Two special mentions honor the national pavilions, honoring the artist presented in the French pavilion, Zineb Sedira, whose installation is a tribute to emancipatory cinema, and the Ugandan artist Acaye Kerunen for her textile sculptures. Two other special mentions reward the artists selected for the main exhibition: the American artist Lynn Herschman Leeson for an experiment that subjects portraiture to artificial intelligence, and the Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona for his drawings in the colors of the cultural representations of his people. It will be recalled that among the winners of previous editions are Georges Braque, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Anish Kapoor, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Fabrice Hyber, Yoko Ono, John Baldessarri… The French selection of previous editions has highlighted Daniel Buren, César, Annette Messager, Sophie Calle, Claude Levêque, Christian Boltanski, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Xavier Veilhan, or even Laure Prouvost.
An artistic journey through Venice
The biennale is an extraordinary opportunity to explore the secrets of the serene city. Outside the official selections, the «off» biennale is a constellation of exhibitions in the city’s museums and galleries, as well as in the palaces commissioned by artists. One wanders from one universe to another, strolling through the alleys and crossing the various islands of the lagoon on the boats. One comes across unexpected gems along a bridge: the entire city vibrates with artistic creation.
Here is an overview of our visit, starting with the Giardini and the Arsenale for the official selection of this biennale, and then the various highlights of this 59th edition through the lagoon.
Our visit to the 2022 biennale
In photos, the central pavilion of the Giardini, the sculptures by Simone Leigh at the Arsenale and the American pavilion, the installation by the English artist Sonia Boyce, the installations bathed in orange lights by Latifa Echakhch, the emblematic work woven in lightness and transparency by Ruth Asawa, a Japanese artist born in California and died in 2013, who underwent the internment camps of the Japanese in the US after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the artist Roberto Gil de Montes and his colorful figurative paintings with incongruous imagery where one finds references to pre-Columbian iconography and mythology, the artist Solange Pessoa, whose work on form questions time and memory, and the artist Pinaree Sanpitak.
The Hungarian pavilion and the artist Zsofia Keresztes, the Russian pavilion closed, Yun Chul Kim at the Korean pavilion, the French pavilion and the artist Zineb Sedira, the Israeli artist Ilit Azoulay, the Armenian artist Andrius Arutiunian, the Canadian artist Stan Douglas.
At the Arsenal, Niki de St Phalle, Louise Bonet, Emma Talbot, Kiki Kogelnik, Elias Sime, Jamian Juliano Villani, in the former slaughterhouse that now houses a selection of works in a monumental space.
Anish Kapoor invests in the Galleria dell’Accademia and Palazzo Manfrin
Outside the official selection, several major exhibitions are a must-see at this 59th edition of the biennale. Anish Kapoor has invested two different locations in Venice: the academies’ galleries and the Manfrin Palace. Works and installations that can be described as visceral, carnal and bloody. which evoke an interior in conflict. Anish Kapoor claims the part of abjection that these reliefs of red matter exude, such as the entrails of a disenchanted world out of its touch. In the Galleries of the Academy, the British artist juxtaposes masterpieces of Venetian painting. The Palais Manfrin in the Cannaregio district was recently acquired by Anish Kapoor to make it the headquarters of his art foundation. Transformation works will be carried out by the German agency UNA to turn this 18th-century palace into a place with multiple functions: a studio, an exhibition space with a permanent display of the artist’s works, but also to host contemporary artists for events. Palazzo Manfrin will work in partnership with the museums and cultural institutions of the city of Venice to contribute to the promotion of artistic, cultural and intellectual life.
The exhibitions of the Pinault collection during the biennale
The two places acquired by François Pinault in Venice, to exhibit part of his collection, the Punta della Dogana and the Palazzo Grassi, offer temporary exhibitions as part of the biennale. At the tip of the customs, an emblematic place of the lagoon, it is the American artist and video artist Bruce Nauman that we rediscover with a series of experimental works that question the body of the artist in action, and beyond the fragility of the human condition. The place gives remarkable depth to the work with, through intrusive views of Venice, sublime vistas. At the Palazzo Grassi it is the South African artist Marlène Dumas who is the subject of an exhibition with powerful works that depict the body in all its states of ecstasy or suffering, as well as transgressing works such as fleeting images that traverse the unconscious of our dreams and nightmares before censorship.
Anselm Kiefer at the Palazzo Ducale
Anselm Kiefer invested the Doge’s Palace in Venice, a must-see venue, with grandiose and monumental works, in the vein of his exhibition at the Grand Éphémère Palace, as a vision of the apocalypse through strong symbolic scenes, including a representation of the fire that marked the history of the Palace in 1577, in reliefs of inserts of objects from a world that is falling apart. In the magnificent Sala delle Scrutinio (Hall of Scrutiny), Anselm Kiefer thus confronts his spectacular canvases with the frescoes of the 16th-century masters: Tintoretto and Vincentino. On one of the works, this quote from the Italian philosopher Andrea Emo: «These writings, when they burn, will finally enlighten us a little.».
Finally, to conclude this visit, the exhibition by the artist Francesca Leone at the Nomas Foundation entitled Take your time, an immersive journey through works inspired by the extraordinary experience of the suspension of individual and collective time during the sudden pandemic.
Bosco Sodi invests the Foundation of the Golden Tree in the Vendramin Palace with his minimalist installations made of raw materials. «Like a merchant, I imported my exotic merchandise to Palazzo Vendramin Grimani. Gold, red stones, clay… In my imagination, all these materials were negotiated and exchanged in Venice.» A wabi sabi spirit between art and architecture.
At the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, three artists have been invited to fill the space: Danh Vo, Isamu Noguchi for light installations made of paper with delicate transparency effects, and Park Seo Bo for his abstract motifs.
June is an ideal month to explore the Biennale and admire Venice. The sunny days and the low risk of Aqua alta allow you to move around on foot and discover the mysteries of the city of the Doges by visiting one exhibition hall after another. But the Biennale runs until the end of November, and this renewal edition after the pandemic brings back that Italy that paid a heavy price. The tourist lull gives all its nobility to serenity, and art adds that extra touch of soul that suits this city so endearing.
