Fare Mondi: Making Worlds (Italy Day 2)

The Biennale is here!

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years (in odd years) in Venice, Italy.

The formal Biennale is based at a park the Giardini that houses 30 permanent national pavilions. The assignment of the permanent pavilions was largely dictated by the international politics of the 1930s and the Cold War. There is no single format to how each country manages their pavilion. The pavilion for Great Britain is always managed by the British Council while the United States assigns the responsibility to a public gallery chosen by the Department of State. The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale's director.

We all roamed around various exhibitions and they were incredible. So creative. I'd never heard of the Biennale but it is definitely on my radar now and I would love to come back when it's happening again. It was fascinating to see what each country came up with as representation through art!

Here are some of my favorites:

Spouting Heads (China)

Worlds Connected (Japan)

Rock Solid

This was my FAVORITE!!!!! You walk into this room (done by Poland I think) and you're surrounded by windows. You think you're looking at people's reflections outside (to the right there's construction, to the left there are kids playing, in front you are adults chatting lively) but they're all projected. The scenes change periodically and I was riveted. It was incredible. When it rained (my favorite) you could see the rain sliding down every window and pooling on the ceiling! Once a woman walked up to the "glass" and put her palms on it as if trying to look in. She stood there, palms flexing, for about 3 minutes. It was the coolest, creepiest thing I've ever seen!

This exhibit (by Holland and possibly Switzerland) was actually designed like a house. Complete with bathroom (the coolest bathroom you've ever seen made to look like it was outdoors), kitchen, in floor bed and couch area (with a fire pit in the middle) and erotic male art all over the walls. The basis of it was an author who was writing a book about his erotic life. And after you make your way through this amazingly designed house, you find he has drowned in the pool out back. Very thought provoking.