Come to to Venice if you possibly can. Hi i'm Nana Oforiatta Ayim i'm the
curator of the Ghana pavilion. Arriving in Venice is like entering
a magical theatre. One that puts on a show every two years on a stage so spectacular,
that no other art fair could possibly match it. The Venice biennale is called the olympics
of the art world. It can be a gruelling and overwhelming experience, with 213
artists from 58 countries taking part, as well as countless extra events.
But it is an art lover's paradise, and throughout its six months duration the city of
Venice comes alive. This is the original biennale. Welcome to the 59th Venice biennale
the Venice biennale is the oldest biennale in the world. The Venice biennale takes place in
two main venues: The Giardini and the Arsenale, as well as hundreds of off-site exhibitions and
events. During his short time in Venice, Napoleon built the Venice Giardini, the public gardens. Later
29 permanent national pavilions were constructed in which each country has exhibited
their art every other year since 1895. This year's biennale curated by Cecilia
Alemani features a majority of female artists for the first time 90% in fact, meaning
the 59th biennale will go down in history. The show's title "The Milk of Dreams" is a
reference to the artist Leonora Carrington. Politics naturally also featured this year. Great
Art Cities Explained was in Venice for the opening, and we have chosen our favorites from hundreds
of exhibitions featuring thousands of artists. Simone Leigh has transformed the US
pavilion from a building reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson's plantation, into an
african palace. In front is a sculpture suggesting a D'mba, a headdress worn by the Baga
people of the Guinea coast for ceremonial purposes. The head, a satellite dish, broadcasts
Leigh's ideas to the Biennale crowds. The physical act of making sculpture is important
to Leigh. Her work cast in bronze and ceramic represents the labour of black women, both physical
and intellectual - often written out of history. The first black woman to represent the US at the
Biennale, Simone Leigh's work is powerful, ambitious and explores history, race, colonialism and gender.
Francis Alys has been looking at human behaviour through the medium of children's games for over 20
years. It is an open-ended tribute to Pieter Bruegel. For the biennale he has produced a joyous
multi-screen piece, of street children at play in their own environment and following their own
rules of play. The work, called "The Nature of the Game" reflects his concerns with geopolitics. The
films were shot in Hong Kong. The Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Belgium and Mexico. They remind us
that even in the ruins of poverty and war, play is something that we learn instinctively
and where we can find joy and hope. If you like experimental rock music
then this is the exhibition for you. The artist is performing a live concert that
will last 200 days straight, eight hours a day. The images on the screen are triggered by the
live music. Fusinato tells us that the point of this ongoing cacophonous wall of sound feedback,
is to remind the audience that "they are alive". This pavilion is not for the faint-hearted. One of
the most disturbing experiences of the biennale. The pavilion has been transformed into a hyper
realistic trans-human world that blends idyllic Danish farm life with strange science-fiction
elements. A family of centaurs made of silicon and taxidermy, including this female giving birth, is
one of the more unsettling exhibits in the gardens. Zineb Sedira is the first person of
Algerian descent to represent France. Cinema has been a lifelong obsession for
the artist and this installation features a series of studio interiors on a sound stage - all
about cinema - Sedira screens her own recreated or reimagined films based on films that were made in
the 1960s and 70s that depict Algeria's struggle for liberation. The show is punctuated with live
tango performances on a recreated 1960s film set Japan's entry is a Kyoto artist collective who say the
work highlights "the theme of today's post-truth society". I'm Jonathas de Andrade, and this is
the Brazilian pavilion. We are here in front of the the sculpture of the piece which gives the
title of the show which is "Com o coração saindo pela boca" - 'With the heart coming out of the mouth". This is
one of the 250 expressions based on the body. From these expressions there are photographs
sculptures and a video installation. So we the the audience, the visitors, are invited to
enter through one ear and leave out of the other. They are allegories of Brazil and the world,
and most of them have political connotations. The Sámi people are the only indigenous people
of the European Union and are one of the oldest living cultures. They live in four countries: Norway,
Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The Nordic pavilion has been transformed into the Sámi pavilion showing
three indigenous artists who highlight the Sámi struggle against the Norwegian state, including
these works made of reindeer sinews and wax. The pavilion celebrates the art and sovereignty
of the indigenous Sámi people who have been subjected to well-documented
discrimination, abuse and mistreatment. Another groundbreaker at this Biennale is Sonia Boyce,
as the first black woman to represent Great Britain. The installation explores the human voice
as an instrument for freedom and imagination. She has five black female singers on screen
in separate rooms improvising in a kind of jam session. As their voices drift through the
galleries they sometimes blend in together and sometimes they clash. Finally in the central
hall installation, we see their meeting at the Abbey road studios, where they met and improvised
together for the first time. The work is about collaboration and the art of listening. As Boyce
said: "The performances were born out of a simple question: As a woman, as a black person what does
freedom feel like? How do you imagine freedom? The Russian artists and their curator pulled out
of representing Russia at the Venice Biennale as they disagree with the invasion of Ukraine.
Various protests and performers have been taking place outside the pavilion. Nearby a temporary
Ukraine pavilion was only planned two weeks ago! It symbolises strength and resilience. A wooden
pavilion burned to strengthen the wood, and a stack of sandbags (similar to those used to
protect historical monuments in Ukrainian cities). The second main exhibition space is Arsenale,
which in the middle ages was the leading shipyard of the world. Today the former shipyards are a
huge exhibition space where we find national representation for those countries who don't
have a permanent space in the gardens. Simone Leigh shows in both the Giardini and the Arsenale,
and the first thing to hit you is her 16-foot tall, bronze bust of a black woman with a torso that
combines the forms of a skirt and a clay house. Here in no particular order are the
highlights of the Arsenale. Caravaggio's masterpiece can be found in Malta where he once lived. The painting inspired three Maltese artists to create this fantastic kinetic, sculptural installation that uses
"Induction technology" to melt steel, producing molten droplets that then fall into seven basins
of water - each representing a part of Caravaggio's painting. After hitting the water, the bright
orange embers hiss, cool and recede into darkness. Some works get lost, due to the
sheer volume of art available. This quiet site-specific installation
surrounds the spectators en-route through the galleries, and is a sensory mix of
soil, clay, cinnamon, tobacco, and charcoal. In a biennale with many disturbing exhibits,
this got our vote for the most disturbing! The subject of this dark, dark film: A man who
murders his family, is made even more disturbing by its aesthetic. What looks like a stop-action
animated film is in fact actors in prosthetics. Hi my name is Na Chainkua Reindorf, and i am
one of the artists representing Ghana. I'm really interested in storytelling. I
basically created a mythology of seven characters, and the sculpture you see behind me is
a physical representation of one of the characters. Which is the blue painting over
there - and then this particular character is based on this idea of a woman who is in
total control over her body and her sexuality, and also in control over who has
access to her body and her sexuality. Mire Lee makes kinetic sculptures with low-tech
motors, plastic hoses and machinery that resemble internal organs. But instead of blood they are
pumping liquid clay. We are big fans of Emma Talbot who works with her personal thoughts and
emotions, to produce a wider universal narrative, so we were pleased that she is showing her beautiful
hand-painted texts and patterns at the biennale. Pavlo Makov's work was conceived a long time
before Russia invaded Ukraine, but has NOW taken on new meaning. We spoke to one of the curators. This project - this idea of "exhaustion" was not
anymore only about Ukraine, about the local context. But it really become relevant for the global context. So the project was referring to the idea of exhaustion of ecology, of economics of politics. Social connections
after the pandemic of Covid-19 of course. And now, after the the war in Ukraine started,
and after our country was brutally invaded by Russian troops, it has become the symbol
of "Exhaustion of humanity" and it's not only relevant for Ukraine but it's relevant
for global society, because unfortunately this brutal war is not only about our country but it's
against the civilised societies, against any human civilised relationship, and so this project has become
double relevant and even more important right now. Makov: "If you don't have culture
there is no nation - there is no country" The off-site shows during the biennale are in
churches, palazzos, theatres. cinemas, shops - even the islands around Venice. The influential American
collector's home and museum on the grand canal is a must-see on any Venice art itinerary. One of
the themes of the biennale is surrealism and the Guggenheim is well placed to
put on a great show on that theme. The new show "Surrealism and Magic" has around 60
works by artists like Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Dorothea Tanning and others. One of
our favorite shows was Marlene Dumas. Her haunting paintings and stunning watercolour portraits
shown here, confront the grand themes of life. A truly great painter who has radically
expanded the vocabulary of painting. Kahinde Wiley is best known as the artist who
painted President Obama's official portrait. For this new body of work Wiley has created
a haunting series of prone black bodies, reconceptualizing classical pictorial forms
to create a contemporary take on historic art. These powerful monumental works reverberate
with violence, pain and death as well as ecstasy. Wiley: "So what i want to do is go in there and
really play to the strengths of what art CAN do. What art can, is it can dominate
the story. If you're making big sculptures like this, when you walk into the room it's bigger
than you, it consumes you. It's about this kind of "language of domination". It's language of warfare,
which is where so much of this stuff comes from. Who makes the rules?
Who gets to dominate public space? And who's worthy of being celebrated in
the big squares of the world?" in Fiona Banner's mesmerising film, two full-scale inflatable
military decoy aircrafts, slowly inflate on a beach, coming to life. Two figures including the artist,
dressed as fighter planes, dance around each other in a darkly comical
ritual of courtship and combat. Angela Su's witty show is inspired
by the strange tale of anti-Vietnam war protesters, who try to levitate
the pentagon with psychic energy. The last time we saw Wallace Chan's work
was in Canary Wharf, London. For Venice he has deconstructed his monumental sculpture and viewers
are invited to walk through the darkened palazzo and physically connect with the fragments.
Material, Space and Time are his concerns, and Chan works with Titanium, a material once
considered too complex for large works, but here is seen on a gigantic scale. The combination
of monumentality and close human interaction make us aware, of not just space but our place within it.
For me, part of the appeal of the Venice biennale is seeing modern works in ancient buildings.
And our next two artists demonstrate that. Baselitz takes as his starting point Titian's
enigmatic portrait, and has produced his own interpretation using HIS point of focus:
The human body. In sculpture and painting. 12 abstract paintings hang on 18th
century stucco framed panels where portraits of the palazzo's Grimani
family were originally on display. Painting meets sculpture in the show at the Doge's
palace on St. Mark's square. Which mixes a range of materials: Acrylic and oil, resin, steel, zinc, lead,
metal, wire, gold leaf, wood, fabric, earth, straw, rope, paper, and charcoal - as well as shoes
and jackets. Anselm Kiefer is well known for his large-scale paintings, and here in the grand
Doge's palace he has created site-specific works in response to the 33 monumental paintings on
the ceiling by great masters like Tintoretto. Here, Kiefer's 14, floor-to-ceiling 3-D paintings
cover every wall of the "Sala della Scortino". This thrilling installation from Canadian
artist Stan Douglas, has two giant screens hanging opposite each other in a 16th century
salt warehouse. On one are British Grime artists, and on the other are Egyptian artists who mix
hip-hop, electronica and Egyptian folk music. The two groups of rappers seem to
perform an endless "call and response", but in fact it's fictitious, as they were each
recording separately without listening to the other! Richter: "The title of this show is called "Limbo",
and limbo is the state that you get in when you're not going directly to Hell. You go in
like a stance before you go to Hell - to repent. All the paintings are based on one small
photo from the First World War of two men that lost both their one leg, and
they together form "An insect of sorrow". Raqib Shaw is often inspired by old master
traditions, and in his new show in Venice, the centerpiece is based on a Pannini painting. Shaw's
version is immense, nearly seven-feet wide and highly detailed. It contains dozens of miniatures,
but these are all old paintings that Shaw previously produced. Shaw paints with enamel, an
unusual material which is incredibly hard to work with, but it produces a highly detailed work,
with richly textured surfaces that shine brightly. Shaw: "Now that is beautifully explained in
this passage here, where you see the treatment of the wood, metal, flesh tones and
cloth. So it's very difficult to be able to do that with enamel, because usually enamel is
a language that is very, very flat". The curator of the show Sir Norman Rosenthal, also
spoke to us about this spectacular painting. "If you look here, you can see soldiers fighting each
other, killing each other, terrible things going on. But Raqib in his way, has made - like many of us have -
our own kind of private garden. He's made a very particular, very exalted private garden for himself - in
his own world, and in his art - but I think, all of us, many of us who will be watching this film, will
make our own gardens and pray that war does not affect us directly. All of us, particularly in this
moment in history, know that war is a terrible issue for many many people in the world,
and these paintings explain that. Some of these works we see in Venice are enormous, and
weigh tons so how on earth do they transport them with no roads? We spoke to Gisela Winkelhoffer, the
curator who arranged to transport four enormous Julian Opie sculptures - each weighing a quarter of
a ton - and then place them on a terrace 100 feet above water level. "So - the four sculptures,
the so-called "Venice Runners" came from the UK to Venice. I was asked by the transport
company: "Can the truck go directly to the hotel?", and I said:"Of course not! Venice is on the water!"
So finally we had to discuss all the logistic steps. It was going first from the UK to Maghera
to unload with the crane all the four big sculptures in the crates on a huge transport
boat. And then slowly it took another one hour to deliver it on a huge pontoon boat and crane,
in front of the balustrade of the Saint Regis. Finally they arrived and then we needed a huge
crane to get them to a height of 33 meters, on the middle terrace of Saint Regis.
It was logistic-wise really a masterpiece. Historically important as a major trading port,
Renaissance Venice had the economy and the will to support artists, and it did so in a big way.
Now with around 320 biennales around the world it is hard to imagine that one of them has more
power than any other, but the Venice biennale matters, because it is one of the few places that
the art world visits en masse. Part of the appeal of the biennale is a combination of the beautiful
1600 year old city of Venice itself, the historical importance of it, and the art world pulling
out all the stops!. There is so much art here that you can't possibly like all of it. Sometimes
you are left scratching your head in disbelief, but sometimes there are flashes of genius
so brilliant that you'll NEVER forget it.
