La Biennale di Venezia 2015

An early summertime trek through the 56th Art Biennale in Venice - "All the World's Futures" - presented the opportunity to explore hidden palazzos, city corners, and architectural and historical gems which a regular jaunt would never have afforded. My dear friend Gisela was over from Sao Paulo, and we found ourselves pulled from show to show - with frequent macchiato breaks. The Biennale is sprawling; and between that and Venice’s own glorious permanent repository of art we made enough progress to get you the itinerary below.

 
 Down a few macchiatos and onwards (with Gisela)         The 56th Venice Biennale runs till November 22nd 2015

Accademia

 

 
The entrance to Peggy Guggenheim's old home on the       A window at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
banks of the Grand Canal

You've not really begun a Venice art tour if you haven't traipsed through Peggy Guggenheim's panoramic home on the banks of the Grand Canal - she has a remarkably complete collection of modern art on display - with a particular patronage of Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Marc Chagall. Head a few steps over to the grand Galleria dell'Academia - packed full of old masters and treasures - and remind yourself of why everyone still comes to this city in the pursuit of art, creativity and beauty.

 
Memories of Peggy Guggenheim's beloved home             Alexander Calder in the foreground at the Peggy
                                                                                  Guggenheim Collection

Palazzo Fortuny

Axel Vervoordt has made a career (and an empire) out of being the modern day tastemaker. With echoes of Bernard Berenson in the scope and impact of his influence, he has now curated three incredibly successful shows in Venice. Proportio, launched in conjunction with the Biennale and held at Palazzo Fortuny, the old home of the Pesaro family, is one of the most aesthetically moving shows I've seen. The exhibit is articulated around a series of themes: Sacred Numbers, the Fibonacci Sequence, the Hypotenuse, Squaring the Circle and Le Corbusier's Modulor.

Alex Vervoodt curated the Proportio show at Palazzo Fortuny - an unforgettable feast of history,
design and inspiration

Big names in contemporary and modern art are out in full force - Izhar Patkin, Anish Kapoor Marina Abramovic (all of whom display pieces commissioned for the show). Sensual responses abound - Le Corbusier's sketches set against Markus Brunetti's photographs of ancient cathedral and a cubic matte Giacometti set against four massive slick Anish Kapoors - in one of two "silent rooms".

Giacometti in the foreground and Anish Kapoor at Palazzo Fortuny

The classics hold the show together - Boticelli's Portrait of a Woman (1485) and even ancient Egyptian artefacts. Architectural treatises by Palladio are portrayed in the city of the some of his actual masterpieces, such as the beautifully proportioned 16th century Benedictine church of San Giorgio Maggiore right across the water from Piazza San Marco.

My East is Your West

The great Rashid Rana teams up with Shilpa Gupta in the first joint South Asian pavilion at the biennale. This statement alone and the grand palatial location - all reserved entirely for this show - are an experience enough.

Outside the joint Pakistan and India pavilion at Palazzo Benzon, starring the great Rashid Rana and
Shilpa Gupta

Built in the spirit of a shared history and windows into the same world, the exhibition explores themes of geography, dislocation and belonging. Peer through a camera into a live screening of a room in Lahore and wave hello. And walk through another room see people in Liberty Market walking into a replica of one of Palazzo Benzon’s grand rooms and looking around as rickshaws drive past the open doorway.

Rana plays with Caravaggio, technology and the ideas of presence and spatial time. The takeaway - technology brings everyone closer together, but nothing holds us more firmly together than a shared history and culture. These two brave artists articulate this and much more in a beautiful show.

Arsenale and Giardini

Enough pavilions already, and some political satire near the Giardini

"All the World's Futures" - the 56th Venice Biennale is curated this year by Nigerian Okwui Enwezor, and includes presentations by 88 nations. It is both moving and confusingly overwhelming. As one critic put it - one would need all seven months from the May launch to closing in November to properly examine each piece of work.

Chris Ofili at the Arsenale

Highlights include Chris Ofili'sl technicolour pieces set in a chapel-like installation (Nigeria and UK), Oscar Murillo's foreboding 20 black canvas flags - "signalling devices in now bastard territory" (Colombia), Mariam Suhail's laugh-out-loud funny city planning series (Pakistan), Hiwa K's The Bell, made out of found war shrapnel (Iraqi-Kurdish) - one of the many pieces which hones in on war, weapons and violence.

Slip of the Tongue

 
Part of the Tadao Ando refurbishment - Punta della         At François Pinault's Punta della Dogana
Dogana

The majestic Punta della Dogana has been refurbished along with Palazzo Grassi across the Grand Canal by the Japanese maestro Tadao Ando, commissioned by owner François Pinault. It would be hard to find a cooler combination of contemporary design philosophy with art heritage.

Betrand Lavier in the foreground, cheeky at Punta della Dogana

Giovanni Bellini, Picasso and Brancusi are lined up next to Sigmar Polke and Rodin in telling a powerful and holistic story. Curator Danh Vo’s own work is featured extensively alongside significant contributions by contemporary artists Elmgreen and Dragset, Peter Hujar, and Nairy Baghramian (whose grouping of several flaccid-looking silicon-coated concrete sculptures sets the name of the show). This work is set against 13th century maestros, sculpture, sound, and the sweeping blue views outside the massive arched windows of the building itself.

The Sound of Creation Paintings by Beezy Bailey and Brian Eno

Palazzo Pisani, after the Sound of Creation journey

Forty works, many of them accompanied by headphones with music streaming through, are part of this vertical journey of the senses and up the stairway of Palazzo Pisani, which is home to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music. As you walk through the vaulted courtyard to hear streams of violin as the sounds of performances and practice sessions waft out of classrooms. Walk up to vistas of Campo San Stefano and more musical inspiration in the turret.

Country Pavilions
 

Joan Jonas, American pavilion

"They Come to Us Without a Word" has been the subject of almost universal praise. The veteran artist brings avant garde uses mirrors, reflections and shadows played over ghostly spoken histories to bring together the themes of life and ecological peril. We were cautious with all the hype, but it is truly worth a visit.

Turkey Pavilion

Turkish Pavilion at the Aresenale

The solo show of Sarkis, - a Turkish-born, Paris-based Armenian artist - is a telling choice on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which his work commemorates separately at the Armenian pavilion. But for his solo for Turkey, he reaches beyond geopolitics. The exhibition, titled "Respiro" ("breath" in Italian), fills the Arsenale's Sale d'Armi with multimedia works that use the image of the rainbow to explore concepts of transformation and shared human experience.

Japanese Pavilion

At the Giardini, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota hangs thousands of pieces of red yarn hung, webbed together and each hung with an antique key to create an immersive experience of shared memory. Centered on two wooden boats, “The Key in the Hand” is layered with experiences of personal grief, and as it allows light to filter through in the softest of reds: telling a powerful story can be done with poetry and beauty.

Icelandic Pavilion

Shut down early on and quickly part of the news cycle, this pavilion was set up as a functioning mosque (and titled "The Mosque") in a former Catholic church in the quiet Canareggio neighbourhood. City officials, nervous about violence, shut down the installation. Provocative statement made by the artist and country.

Tuvalu Pavilion

"Crossing the Tide" is made up of vast geometric pools of steaming water playing to the themes of climate change and Tuvalu's own struggles with rising water levels. Walk gingerly along the bridges over which water seeps slowly above and through.

China pavilion

Placed at the point from which Marco Polo set out for his journey to China, the two dramatic figures of The Phoenix, built out of waste materials and hung under a large-scale pier make a quite massive statement. Design began in 2008, and was impacted by everything from the Beijing Olympics to shortages of available waste for repurposing.

The actual pavilion is interactive - featuring music performance, video installations and sculpture. Reem Koolhaas's firm, OMA created the actual design for the exhibition which features works from including composer Tan Dun, architect Liu Jiakun and filmmaker Wu Wenguang.

Ca d’Oro Palace

 
The exquisitely renovated entrance to the 15th Century  G. Franchetti's priceless collection at his old home, Ca d'Oro  
Ca d'Oro Palace - treasures include the sculpture             Palace Pellegrino di Mariano Rossini from the mid-1400s
Doppio Ritratto² by Tullio Lombardo

We ended our wander through the gem-like Ca d’Oro (Palazzo Santa Sofia), named for its once gilt covered exteriors. The final private owner, Giorgio Franchetti, bequeathed his entire art collection to the palace. The collection includes many seminal sculptures and paintings - “Busto di Fanciullo” by Gian Cristoforo Romano and “Venere allo Specchio” by Tiziano.

A view of one of the terraces at Ca d'Oro Palace, the facade of which was once painted entirely in gold

The Medici charm really lives on in a city which has always nurtured and celebrated the exquisite, so savour the moment and wash it down with a glass of Aperol spritz and some cicchetti. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE TO READ: Artist Olivia Fraser's Venice diary