The Venice Biennale!
La Biennale! That is, a large international exhibition, this year curated by Cecilia Alemani and divided between the Corderie dell'Arsenale and the Central Pavilion at the Giardini, and the dozens of National Pavilions that are scattered around the city.
And then there are the de facto collateral exhibitions because despite the regulatory restrictions they will be held in the extraordinary Venetian palaces during the exhibition.
The themes addressed this year are disarmingly topical and most of the artists are participating for the first time.
The Art Biennale 2022 runs from 23 April to 27 November 2022.
-Complete ticket: 25 euros;
-Reduced ticket for students: 16 euros (valid for one entrance to the Giardini venue and one entrance to the Arsenale venue) which can also be used on different days.
Here are the pavilions not to be missed:
-The Swiss Pavilion, one of the most beautiful one would say: on the way in you are heavily pervaded by an invasive smell of charred wood. Once inside, darkness reigns supreme, interrupted by streaks of red light that are responsible for the illumination of immense wooden sculptures by Latifa Echakhch. They are hands reaching out, faces without a gaze, signs of a life that has long since come to an end.
-Further on is the Danish Pavilion, entitled 'We Walked the Earth'. In what looks like a Danish farm, we find on one side an extremely realistic centaur dangling hanging and on the opposite side his companion is on the ground torn apart by the pains of childbirth. A disturbing dystopian tale.
-As one moves forward, one immediately notices the striking Russian Pavilion barred: a guard ready to put an end to any protest gestures.
-In the Japan Pavilion, we can contemplate our own image reflected in one of the many mirrors, impossible not to pause for a minute to admire.
-a few steps further on begins the Republic of Korea Pavilion, which presents us with a concentration of mechatronics that places before us a cyborg-dragon that contracts for no known reason. Gyre, artist Yunchul Kimqui, decided that this would be the title of the work; movement in stillness and stillness in motion coexist. The result is hypnotic.
-The French Pavilion this year entrusted - for the first time in history - to an artist named Zinebe Sedira who proposes 'Les rêves n'ont pas de titre', 'Dreams don't have titles', a route designed with a film set in mind, reflecting her real home. Once inside
Inside, you find yourself in front of a bar counter, then in your living room, with the TV on. A representation of the 'power' of cinema as social engagement. Finally, almost imperceptibly, in a corner of the room is a coffin whose lid is not yet nailed down.
-Sonia Boyce presents 'Feeling Her Way', a musical installation placed on a series of big screens that loop the performances of five black female artists. A pop but minimalist, colourful installation in full Brit style: a tribute to Afro-descendant female artists, those who have played a major role in the British music scene, a work later judged as the best of this Biennale 2022.
-The German Pavilion: inside, the reigning colour is white, just as white are the texts painted on the white walls. White is the colour out of time, an empty and partially excavated space, representing the past returning to the present (the extension made during the Nazi era that forms the current structure), in a play of continuous renewal with multiple meanings.
-The Maltese Pavilion, is simply 'magic'. Thanks to technology, you can delight in the mere sight of this work, which consists of many small drops of molten steel falling from the sky into seven rectangular basins filled with water, placed to represent the subjects of the Decollation. A hypnotic rhythm composed of incandescent drops falling into the water.
-Last but not least is the Ukrainian Pavilion: Pavlo Makovdalk's work The Fountain of Exhaustion, an artwork with a liberating character that aims to emphasise and show a paradoxical symbol of life: one river flows into another and then into yet another, without interruption until the moment when it dries up.