Day 2 in Venice- The Biennale Continued…

Ciao Tutti!

We slept like rocks and got up around 7am today.  Justin went for a run and got see tons of Venice, though running in Venice is a bit more on the leisure side due to all the bridges and streets that end in water!

Our B&B served us a cute little breakfast that we were able to eat at the table in our room, and then we headed out for more art!  I must confess that after last night's tour of the Arsenale I almost said that we did not need to see the Giardini Pubblici portion of the exhibit, but boy am I glad we didn't pass it up.  This portion of the Biennale reminded me of what I imagine the Chicago World's Fair may have felt like. There was a central pavilion in which the curator exhibited more works of similar feel to that in the Arsenale.  This exhibit was once again beautifully laid out.  Something we found most interesting were the handful of work created by people who were or are not technically artists.  There were these large, semi-abstract technical chalk drawings on black paper that were created by a professor, not intended as art but rather as part of his lectures.  One of his students started covering his blackboard in black paper so that she could save his drawings and catalog them.  There were also pages of a journal drawn by a boy when he was 12-18 years old, depicting his somewhat childlike sexual fantasies.  And drawings made by a few people who considered themselves to have healing powers, that used their drawings not as art but rather as part of their healing processes. 

Not only was the art intriguing to look at, but the background information behind the artists was so interesting.  I have never wanted to read the exhibit descriptions as much as I did during this exhibit.  After we finished in the Central Pavilion we wandered around in the garden area.  Here is where the world's fair comes in… While the Aresenale was a large exhibit curated by a singular person, drawing art from countries all around the world, the rest of the Giardini had individual country exhibits.  Each country has its own unique building.  Each building housed artwork for that country only and was chosen by a curator from that country.  We made our way through most of them, one cooler than the next.  By the time we got to USA I was a bit nervous that we wouldn't measure up to what we had seen so far.  Not true. For the US exhibit the curator chose a single artist who made these large scale found object installations that took up the majority of each room and spilled out into the front of the building.  Very cool and very impressive.  Oh, and the exhibit was sponsored by Bloomberg, go figure!

I could talk about the rest of the exhibit for pages, but I will refrain.  I will mention just one more, the exhibit from Israel.  The building itself was pretty cool, you walk into to a small area on the ground floor.  There was a small hole dug into the floor, clearly drilled down through the concrete to the dirt below.  All the rubble was laid out around the hole.  Then there was a video of a DJ, with a huge old mixer table, playing music.  In the video he was set up in the exhibit room, with the hole. Then you walk up the stairs and as you do so you pass a small exhibit of what looked like somewhat abstract clay heads on poles, furniture and other types of found pedestals.  Then when you arrive at the top of the stairs you are greeted by another video, this one completely bizarre.  It was a video of people (somewhat odd and quirky people) sculpting the heads we had just passed.  The bizarre part however, were that these people were making noises AT the sculptures while they were making them, some singing, some just making odd noises.  Some spoke into microphones that had become part of the sculpture, others just made noises into their sculpture as they worked.  Some of the artists were half covered in clay themselves, making gestures that seemed more of a ritual than of making art.  It was one of those things that was so bizarre to watch that you could not look away.  We were transfixed with the oddity of it.  When we finally moved on, we headed back down the stairs of the small space, stopping one more time to glimpse the video of the DJ.  This is when it dawned on us, the DJ was mixing the sounds/noises of the people who we just watch sculpting the heads! It had all come together, and once understood as one large piece of work, it was astounding.  I often say that art is as much about the process as is it about the end result.  This body of work was such a perfect example of it that.  It was just very very cool.

By this point it was well after lunch time and we were tired and hungry.  We decided to head back towards our B&B.  We found lunch on the way back, stopping at a cute little trattoria.  Justin had an excellent glass of Prosseco and a large bowl of muscles and I had a small pizza with fresh mozzarella, arugula and fresh tomatoes.