Venice Biennale

_DSC0829

Entrance to the Biennale Pavilion at Giardini

While in Venice on the Northern Italy Field Trip, on the last day we went to the Venice Biennale. The Biennale is a festival that takes place every two years and it is (every other year) either art or architecture. The art one is held in odd years hence this year was the art festival (some people may know of the Venice film festival which also comprises the Art Biennale)

_DSC0857

The work of late artist Christoph Schlingensief at the German pavilion of the Venice Biennale.

Each country has their own pavilion in a large area called the Giardini and then individual artists are shown a little ways away at the arsenale. This year, the prize for the pavilion went to Germany for their artist (who passed away before the show was put on) who made a church of sorts within which there were images and scans of his struggle with cancer.

_DSC0856

Japanese Pavilion – a 360 degree video installation

_DSC0841

Nordic Pavilion

_DSC0852

Venezuelan Pavilion

_DSC0865

Installation at the Arsenale

_DSC0863

Installation at the Arsenale

_DSC0840

Installation outside the American Pavilion

The Leone d’Oro (Golden Lion), a prize given to the best piece by an individual artist at the Biennale, went to a well deserving artist in my opinion, and the most popular as well, a show by Christian Marclay of a 24-hour clock that shows clips from movies of various films in which the time that is shown is the exact time you are watching the film. Its funny how people tend to forget time when they are looking at time, crowds stood mezmerised in front of Marclay’s video, impressed at all the effort and painstaking research of looking at film after film that must have gone in to this work. Here is a clip on youtube so that you can get some idea.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *