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The Biennale of Venice is one of the most important and anticipated events
for the contemporary artistic community.
It opened on the 1st of June and it will stay open until the 24th of November
there are more than 150 artists
coming from 38 countries
and for many of them it will be their first time in Venice.
The Holy See, Republic of Cote d'Ivoire
Kwait, Maldives, Tuvalu
This Biennale's curator is the young Massimiliano Gioni
who chose to title the 55th Art Exhibition "Il Palazzo enciclopedico" (The Encyclopedic Palace)
"Il palazzo enciclopedico" is an exhibition on the desire of an all-embracing knowledge
a desire that drove Marino Auriti himself, and that is a recurring desire throughout
the whole history of art and humankind. During my studies I've found a quote
from Plato wich says "Ain't anything better than knowledge"
And, somehow, this is the idea and the guiding light of this exhibition.
"Il palazzo enciclopedico" is an exhibition on this desire of knowledge
and what turns this desire of knowledge into an obsession
There are more than 150 artists
coming from 37 different countries
I like to think about this exhibition more like a temporary museum
The exhibition takes an anthropological approach to the study of images and
and there won't be just artworks but it will feature
a wide range of heterogeneous performance and performances
Ultimately this is an exhibition on the self-taught person
Every pavillion rapresents a country.
Some of them are in Venice
but most of them are at the Giardini and at the Arsenale near Piazza San Marco
The Biennale sucks!
I think it's a freak show
I believe it brings an income to an economy and a buisness foreign to Venice
I think that
the people coming to Venice for the Biennale
are just freaks
This is the live performance
of a russian artist.
His name is
Vadim Zakharov
This is "Dream of a human being"
From this circle, up here, coins are falling down
and they end up down here.
Entertaining, isn't it?
I'm in the Danae's room
where the coins are ending up.
Only women are allowed to enter this room.
We're walking on the streets of Venice
and we're headed to the East Europe pavillions.
This is the live performance in the Slovenia's pavillion
It does make you think about Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange"
I'm the second commissioner for the Montenegro's pavillion.
We have only one artist
She's very young Montenegrin artist
We came here in Venice the first time two "pavillions" ago
with a Parisian artist, and then Marina Abramovich
This time we decided to host a young artist Irena Lagator Pejovic
She's using three rooms here in Palazzo Malipiero
It's an artistic journey
First we have the so called Black Cube, an artwork to explore the idea of design
and what happens when we can't see within and we can
only give an input and see an output as result.
It explores what happens on a cognitive level.
We then have a White Cube with many little pictograms.
They all look alike but each one is different.
It explores the idea, of creating something
unique and unified without ereasing our differences.
She's a curator and... I'm just her escort.
I liked the Libanese pavillion.
And the one with John Bock.
And the French one. I also liked the Greek one.
Yes, in the Greek one artists were really good.
Yesterday we run out of luck.
- We took the ferry boat for the lido... - It was too early.
Yes it was a little earlier, there was no one around
and it was cold so we decided to go back.
We decided to go to another party,
but today our friends told us it has been a terrific party!
Visiting the pavillions we saw a lot of different performances
like the one in the Romanian pavillion.
Or theese 3 performers who invaded different pavillions
enforcing their performanc over the other ones.
It's Disneyland.
It's like in the classical exemple where you find the fire extinguisher, and
and you can't say if it's meant to be an artwork or just a regular fire extinguisher.
I'm not an outsider to the contemporary art.
I've studied art history and I don't consider myself a fool
but the artist's *** could work in the Sixties
but not now.
Now everything is just ***.
- You're very stylish. - No...
This is just... casual.
- It's the first thing you found in the closet... - Yes.
I'm from Serbia but I live here in Venice.
I'm a visual artist.
I did something for a book in the French pavillion.
A few years ago.
I liked the Estonian pavillion.
It's not bad.
And... I still have to see theese ones.
I don't know anything because I haven't seen anything yet
but the Estonian one.
The parties...
they are better organised.
And I liked it also because my friends rent their places for the parties so...
We're in Forte Marghera
where you can find Tuvalu's pavillion
and this is the welcoming entrance
with this... hanged penguing.
We're always in Tuvalu's pavillion
where we found an artwork we really liked
It's this one.
The Statue of Liberty, representing the most powerful countries in the world,
bowing, as if she was asking for forgiveness, to theese entites here,
all around th statue.
They represent the animals that are now extencted because of global pollution.
I'm always in Tuvalu's pavillion, Tuvalu wich is probably an island located in Polynesia
This pavillion is the only one outside Venice.
It's near Mestre in Forte Marghera
I have to say the opening is going well, there is rich lunch and...
and there are many people eating,
but it feels like the "Sagra del vino di Ariccia" (a town festival)
There had been many questions during the preparations for this exhibition,
and the main one was how can we shape the images in our mind
when we live assaulted by artificial images.
How much space is there, today, for our dreams
and for the immaterial images of our mind.
If you want to know a little more about the Italian pavillion
visit Giovanna's column on artforus.it, ARTNEWS.