[MUSIC PLAYING] HOST: Venice is crowded. And also not crowded. Depending on where you find
yourself in the city and when, you may be adrift in a
torrent of fellow tourists or alone, at least
for a moment, in what feels like a ghost city. During its glory days from the
Middle Ages to the Renaissance, when its magnificent towers
and palazzos and basilicas were constructed across
numerous small islands, it was a major financial
and maritime power. An incomparable center
for global trade. Then it was crowded with people
from around the world, as well as merchants and shipbuilders
and doges and artists and regular people
who live there. And it's been a
tourist destination since tourism began. A pilgrimage site for artists
and writers and admirers of its many charms. But it's never been as crowded
with tourists as it is today. And we were among them. Not just to appreciate its
riches from previous areas, but to see what's happening now. To take in the
exhibition of new art that it hosts every two
years, and has since 1895. We began our trip at the
Giardini della Biennale, the public gardens that
Napoleon drained a marsh to create in the
early 19th century. The first pavilion was
made to house and celebrate Italian art, but soon after
other countries were invited to create their own
pavilions, starting with other European
countries and spreading. Demonstrating with each
a distinct geopolitical and architectural
moment in time, with the most recent addition
of Australia in 2015. Every two years,
countries put forward a commissioner and an
artist or group of artists to make work for each space,
and a jury announces winners. It can be helpful to think
of it as a kind of art world Olympics, only much,
much more subjective. And doping is allowed. Art has changed tremendously
since most of the pavilions were built, and many of the
most successful installations interact directly
and strategically with the given
architecture of the site. One of these is Phyllida
Barlow's contribution to the British pavilion,
announcing itself from afar with colorful baubles
surrounding the entrance and playing off
of the building's grand neoclassical design. Barlow's roughly hewn
structures and assemblages contrast with the smooth
neat finish of the space. They're playful and
surprising and funny, and also confusing, obtrusive,
and at times foreboding. This labyrinth of textures
and colors and hulking forms made me smile, and
also appreciate how the seemingly
unfinished or even foolish can be more appropriate to
the times than the rational. We continue on to
the German pavilion where visitors line up to
experience Anne Imhof's Faust. Inside, we stand
atop a glass floor and look around the space,
identifying performers positioned atop wall
mounted pedestals. They move about in
unpredictable ways, seemingly aware of each
other but not so much us. We move about to make
space for the performers and for each other. They interact. They occupy the space
beneath the floor. And we take pictures of them. Sound fills the space,
along with the mute howls that, according to
the press materials, bear witness to the ever
increasing pain of vanishing living beings and
to the zombification of capitalist bodies. The description rings true. Onward to the US pavilion,
where we notice rubble outside the Palladian
style building and poems on the facade written in
the voice of Hephaestus, Greek god of fire
and metal working. They're by Mark Bradford, the
artist representing the United States. Although representing
is an uneasy term here. As soon as we encounter
the first work-- a bulging mass of layered
and shellacked paper, trash, roofing tiles, and grommets-- we realize that like many
artists at the Biennale, his aim within this clearly
nationalistic context is to challenge the very
idea of nationalism. He has made the pavilion
into a kind of a ruin, occupying it with ominous
sculptures and installations alongside the large scale
paintings for which he is known, made up
of posters and signs and discarded materials from
the south LA neighborhood where he grew up and still
bases his operations. And because we are in need of
something more lighthearted, we then stepped into the Alvar
Aalto pavilion of Finland to see an installation by
Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen Animatronic
puppets engage in a dialogue about
Finnish society, present videos of Finnish
creation mythology, and discuss the
country's future. It's hilarious--
cuttingly irreverent, gross, and a delightfully
absurd approach to the challenge of representing a country. And we never refuse
an opportunity to interact with the
work of Erwin Wurm, who represents Austria along
with artist Brigitte Kowanz. We navigated the truck turned
on its head that sits outside, which you can enter
and climb to its top. It's a work by Wurm titled
Stand Quiet and Look Out Over the Mediterranean Sea,
which is exactly what we did. Or tried to do. In the artist's
words, it's a memorial to thinking about
what's going on and to focus on this dramatic
situation of the Mediterranean Sea, which is of
course currently the locus of mass migration. It's one of the artist's
one minute sculptures, which also populate the
interior of the pavilion, inviting visitors
via instructions to pose with given objects. In this way you
become the sculpture, and also realize how epically
long one minute can be. Next we make a quick stop by
the unmissable Korean pavilion, adorned with a
rooftop installation by Cody Choi, whose
works often explore the interplay of cultural
influences between the US and South Korea. Inside are other works by
Coi, as well as Lee Wan. The most impressive of
which is his presentation of the personal archive
of deceased journalists Mr. K, which the artist
found and purchased at an antique market for the
equivalent of $50 US dollars. Then came the Swiss pavilion,
designed by architect Bruno Giacometti, brother of
artist Alberto Giacometti. Carol Bove created works for
the Biennale in reference to the work of artist
Giacometti, who during his life declined all
requests for his work to be shown at the Biennale. Artist duo Teresa Hubbard
and Alexander Birchler contribute their
masterful film Flora, which tells the story of
Flora Mayo, an artist who studied in Paris in the
1920s and was involved with Alberto Giacometti. On one side of a
screen we see and hear an interview with Flora's son,
who knew little of his mother's life as an artist. And on the reverse a reenactment
of young Flora's life. It's a moving consideration of
what it means to be an artist-- to be influenced, to be
included and excluded. And I encourage you
to seek out this film. We then approach the entrance
of the central pavilion, and admired the
Sam Gilliam drapes work suspended from the
ceiling of the colonnade. It marks the beginning of
the main art exhibition of the Biennale, which this year
is curated by Christine Macel and titled Viva Arte
Viva, celebrating the role and voice of the artist at
a time when, they assert, it's needed most. The first is the pavilion
of artists and books, and we quickly came across an
actual physical artist, Dawn Kasper, as she was hanging
out in her studio space, like she's done each day
since the show opened in May. It's the latest installment of
her nomadic studio practice, where she sets up a studio
space as a work in itself, performing the role of
the artist within it. Next came another studio-- this one conceived but not
occupied by Olafur Eliasson. It's the current location of a
workshop that invites refugees, asylum seekers, and members
of the public to come together to construct green light lamps. And also participate in
language courses, seminars, and screenings. It shares the same
space with wallpaper by Edi Rama, an artist and
the current prime minister of Albania, composed of
the doodles he creates over top his daily agendas. In an adjacent gallery, we catch
the interaction of a visitor with Lee Mingwei's project,
When Beauty Visits. A host invites a visitor
to follow her to the Carlo Scarpa designed garden nearby. There, a chair is
waiting and the guest is asked to sit and enjoy
the beauty of the garden while the host leaves
to retrieve a gift. She returns,
presents an envelope, and requests that it be opened
only after the visitor's next encounter with beauty. When it is eventually
opened, they will find the story of another
person's encounter with beauty. There are many wonderful
moments in these galleries. We made a close inspection of
the works of McArthur Binion, who creates abstract
compositions atop copies of his birth certificate,
the address book he kept from the 70s to the
90s, and photos of his childhood home in Mississippi. There's a superb progression
of galleries displaying Kiki Smith's Rogue Stars,
surrounded by her works addressing themes of
femininity from life to death. It leads to a gallery of
works by Senga Nengudi, who began making abstract
sculpture in the 1970s using nylon stockings
which she stretches, knots, and weights with sand. Here we see a collection of such
works, my favorite of which you can see vibrating and responding
to humming fans and air vents. There is a lot more good
work in these galleries. Too much to cover here. We took our time
getting to know work by artists we'd never
previously encountered, and looked forward to exploring
the next chapters of the show we'd seek out tomorrow. The next morning we
walk to the Arsenale, the complex of former
shipyards and armories that houses the next seven
chapters of the Biennale exhibition. Here we came across
structures by Rasheed Araeen, a series of 100 trellis
cubes that the public is invited to
arrange and rearrange in whatever way you please. Around the corner we
come across another work by Lee Mingwei, The
Mending Project. Either the artist
or a volunteer-- in this case a volunteer--
sits at a table and visitors are invited to bring a
damaged item of clothing and wait and watch
while the article is repaired with colorful threads. It's then placed on the table
with the thread still attached, joined to a wall
of colorful spools similarly links to mended items. Like Lee's work in
the Scarpa garden, this project is about
interaction and exchange. Art not as an object
coolly observed from afar, but art as a gift that only
emerges through participation. This exhibition
contains the work of 120 artists from 51
different countries, and 103 of the artists are
participating in the Biennale for the first time. There are many works that just
don't show up well on video. They require your close physical
presence and careful attention. And there are also large scale
installations, like this one by Leonor Antunes,
taking advantage of the dramatic scale
of the Arsenale space and softening it with
an immersive environment of metal mesh, leather,
wood, and glass lamps created in the famed
workshops of nearby Murano. We passed into what seemed
like another universe-- the Pavilion of Shamans-- through the fantastical
well-mounted works of Rina Banerjee. And on to Ernesto
Neto's A Sacred Place-- a structure
whose form he adopted for the indigenous Huni
Kuin people of the West Amazon in Brazil. Further on in the
Pavilion of Colors we resisted the urge
to dive headfirst into Sheila Hick's monumental
installation of stacked bales of pigmented fiber. Alas, it is not allowed. In the final chapter, we came
to Liu Jianhua's installations square. Sheets of steel on
top of which rest gold glazed porcelain pools. Beyond it, we became entranced
by Alicja Kwade's arrangement of sculptural objects and
steel frames and mirrors. Walking around and
around the piece you're unsure of what is
real and what is reflection. What is doubled or tripled. What belongs to the space
and what to the artwork. I was astounded and confused
in the best possible way. Also at the Arsenale are
a number of other national pavilions, including Tunisia's. Titled The Absence
of Paths, you're invited to step
forward to a kiosk, shed your own nationality
and citizenship, and be issued a universal travel
document, granting freedom of movement across any border. I apply my thumb print to the
document-- origin unknown, destination unknown,
and status migrant. It's stamp declares
me only human. I will treasure it. Oh, and the Biennale
is much more than an art show,
and is composed of a huge number of events. Venice has Biennales for
architecture, cinema, dance, music, and theater,
the last of which was also going on at
the time of our visit. We peeked into a theater
workshop taking place at the Aresenale for
Biennale College, offering younger
artists the chance to work alongside more
established artists and develop new work. By the afternoon we had
reached art exhaustion, so we boarded the Vaporetto,
Venice's waterbus, to see what we could in the
breezy shade it offered. There are many collateral
Biennale events that take place throughout the city,
and special exhibitions at most of the city's museums. You can see art all day every
day for a whole week here. And if you had that time, you'd
visit the Punta della Dogana, owned by uber collector
Francois Pinault, currently hosting an
exhibition of massive works by Damien Hirst. From our watery perch
we admired the Basilica de Santa Maria Della Salute. And further along
the Grand Canal we passed the Peggy Guggenheim
Collection, which you'd also want to be sure
to visit, followed by James Lee Byars'
temporary Golden Tower, whose illusions are
too obvious for me to mention. Outside of the Palazzo
Grassi, also owned by Francois Pinault and
home to his collection, we saw more of the
Hirst exhibition and felt OK about not going in. We passed under
the Rialto Bridge and motored by the Prada
Foundation, and by Ca Pesaro, currently hosting an exhibition
of portraits by David Hockney. This is a really hard
hitting art trip, I know. We disembarked at
San Stae, as it was high time for gelato,
which we found and enjoyed at Fontego delle Dolcezze. If you must know,
I had the peach. That evening it was
back to the Aresenale, since we had snagged
tickets to a play that was part of the theater Biennale. We passed another
work by Alicja Kwade-- a constellation of
polished stone spheres distributed across the
gravel walk like an array of unknown planets. And took in the stunning
environs of the Aresenale at the end of the day. That evening we sat
in a cool, dark space and watched the
tour de force that is Und Dann, written
by Wolfram Holl and directed by Claudia Bauer. We knew nothing of what
we're seeing in advance, and surrendered ourselves
to the experience. In a coming together of acting,
puppetry, dance, and live video projection, we watched play
out a nightmarish and masterful childhood memory. We were speechless,
somewhat traumatized, and wholly impressed. On our third day, we set out
for some of the Biennale venues scattered around
the city, including the pavilions of
countries participating for the first time. One of these is Nigeria,
whose exhibition titled How About
Now, is installed in the former home of a
guild of artists and makers of gold thread and gold leaf. Within, we traverse
an installation called A Biography
of the Forgotten by Victor Ehikhamenor, for
which he gathered hundreds of Benin bronze heads from
Igun Street in Benin City and strung them,
along with mirrors, to large sheets
of painted canvas. We also see Peju
Alatise's instillation based on the story
of a little girl who works as a housemaid in
Lagos and longs for a realm where she is free and can fly. We wind our way
back to Dorsoduro, to the Antigua and Barbuda
pavilion, tucked away in the recesses of a 15th
century former monastery. There we delve into the
world of Frank Walter, who was born in Antigua in 1926,
became the first person of color to manage
a sugar plantation. Spent time in Europe. Later returned to Antigua and
lost a bid for Prime Minister to his cousin. And eventually retreated from
society to live in isolation. All the while he generated a
tremendous volume of artwork-- paintings, sculptures,
writings, and recordings, which he hoped to someday share
by opening his studio as an art center. It's this thorough,
thoughtful, and captivating showing at the Venice
Biennale that he got instead, and which we felt lucky
to spend some time with. Afterward, we stopped
for a quick bite to eat at Osteria
Al Squero, where we selected a
number of cicchetti, or snacks, and shared them
alongside an Aperol Spritz-- a super refreshing
Italian aperitif. And because you can't
go to Venice and not, its gondola time. The oppressive sun was
finally hidden behind clouds and we ventured out
onto the Grand Canal, before turning to explore
some of the smaller canals of Dorsoduro. We are seeing the city as
it was meant to be seen, and spent our brief ride trying
to conjure this place as it was in eras past. Wondering which buildings
are occupied or empty, used as they were intended
or rented out as Airbnbs. We disembarked by our
next stop, the Gallerie dell'Accademia, to see their
temporary exhibition Philip Guston and the Poets. The Academia has a terrific
permanent collection, of course-- masterworks by Veronese,
Titian, Giorgione. But we were there to see works
by American painter Philip Guston, who spent time in Italy
and was heavily influenced by the work of Italian
Renaissance masters. The galleries feature
works that span a 50 year period of his career,
and thematic groupings consider the writings
of 20th century poets like D.H. Lawrence
and T.S. Eliot as the, quote, "catalyst
for his enigmatic pictures and visions". I like Guston's work,
and I especially like seeing it in
the rare context of this historic institution and
through the lens of the ideas and poetry that inspired him. From there we walked
a short distance to the Future
Generation Art Prize, which had taken up
residence for the Biennale in a mid-15th century palazzo. The artists whose
work are on display are recipients of the
prize, awarded to 21 artists from around the world
and made possible by the Kiev based Pinchuck
Arts Center and Victor Pinchuk Foundation. We explored the pungent
installation made by South African artist
Dineo Seshee Bopape, made from locally extracted soil
along with hay, crystals, ash, herbs, and clay objects. It is of course striking
to see giant slabs of dirt within a grand palazzo. But more than anything
I felt privileged to see this work here,
where I can appreciate the collision of times and
geographies and textures and materials. I felt similarly taking
in the work of Dominican born Firelei Baez, whose
paintings of Creole women in red headscarves
replaced the Rococo mirrors that usually adorn the space. Beyond it is Ghanaian
artist Ibrahim Mohammed's enormous construction
of material collected from abandoned industrial sites,
along with old shoe shiners boxes. Described as quote, "objects
of labor and exploitation" that belong to the mundane
urban landscape of Accra and other places in Ghana. It was getting darker and
darker outside as we explored the many good works here, and
just as we are about to leave-- torrential rain. That ended the day's
art viewing as we sat for quite a while huddled
at the doorway of the palazzo until the rain eased enough
to make a mad dash back to the hotel. On the day of our departure,
we made a last stop by the Icelandic
pavilion on Giudecca to see its installation
by this artist, who I'm going to spare from
my mispronunciation. Apologies to everyone
who came before. Inside, we're led to
believe that two trolls, Ugh and Boogar, have
followed the artist from his studio in
Berlin and taken over the creation
of the pavilion. We hear about their Venetian
adventures-- drinking espressos and plucking tourists from St.
Mark's Square and eating them. The whole thing is a
wildly happy making. OK, so it's fair to say
that we did not experience Venice like the locals. But while the
city's residents are far outnumbered by the
masses that arrive daily, you can still catch
glimpses of what real life might look like here. And you can still wind your
way through its narrow streets and alleys, bask in
the breathtaking glory of its architecture, its
light, and its centuries long commitment to the arts. What we missed an
authentic experience we made up for in our exposure
to new art and artists from disparate
corners of the world, together for a handful of
months in this historic city. This year's Biennale aims to
reveal the universes artists create for themselves, and also
the way those universes open up and involve others. Astounding things happen
when artists spend long hours sketching, making, and
creating forms in closed rooms. But they also happen
when those artists admit and embrace that
they, like us all, are part of a wide web
of people and communities and influences and political
and environmental forces. I mean look at it-- Venice is gorgeous. As I impatiently push my way
through my fellow visitors, I swore I'd never come back. But I will. I have to. In two years the
city will be filled with entirely new artwork
and voices and ideas, and I want to be
there to see it. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Art Assignment is funded
in part by viewers like you, through patreon.com-- a subscription
based platform that allows you to
support creators you like in the form of
a monthly donation. Special thanks to
our grand master of the arts, Indianapolis
Homes Realty. If you'd like to
support the show, check out our page at
patreon.com/artassignment. [MUSIC PLAYING]
