We may have missed La Biennale if our neighbor hadn’t told us about it. (Thanks Christen!) It’s a contemporary art exhibition that takes place every two years – odd years – in Venice. This is the 54th annual exhibition. More than 34 countries exhibit sculpture, performing art, painting, modern media, music, dance, theater and, of course, cinematography with the Venice Film Festival.
The title of this year’s exhibition: ILLUMInations.
Permanent La Bienalle pavilions of many countries stand at the north end of Venice. The remaining exhibitions are in buildings peppered around the city; the Venice Film Festival is on Lido island, southeast of Venice.
We spent 6 hours today wandering in and out of pavilions; we were surprised, entertained, repulsed, moved, offended, enlightened. What more can you ask from an art exhibition?
If you walk from St. Mark’s square toward the Arsenale and through the Castello gardens to the La Biennale, you are rewarded with tall trees and green grass, rare in most areas of Venice.
A lovely woman from Austria took this photo of us.
I wish we could show you so much more, but here’s a glimpse of the show.
A favorite…
I hope you can read this – it was moving to look in the eyes and read the story of the person in each photograph.
The floor of this room had piles of gray, red, and white clay for people to sculpt and press to the wall.
At the Isreal pavilion, in a film projected on the floor, 3 boys marked lines in the sand. In turn, each boy would drag his stick through the sand, making lines and a shape, then another would brush it out with his foot and make his own.
Waving your hand across a motion sensor made red and blue light beam on to a blank white wall.
This capsized tank was part of the USA exhibit.
We met David (he’s pointing below), a gymnast from New Jersey, when he took a break from jogging on the tank.
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