Giardini
So much has been written about the Giardini it's hard to make sense of it as a whole, objectively. There's a lot of work on display, by many artists with many different concerns but interestingly enough, a kind of sombre theme ran throughout, if this was cleverly constructed by Birnbaum I'm doubtful but I think it made it a lot more coherent than before. The standout Nordic Pavilion which was curated by Elmgreen & Dragset, managed to draw the crowds with the floating dead collector in the outside pool and it's great selection of art displayed. Many of these pavillions also highlighted another more structural, architectural theme which ran throughout many of the shows, notably Liam Gillick's Germany Pavilion, France's disco-like goth-cathedral, and Romania's confusing foliage-topped structure.
There was a sombre, more thoughtful tone throughout the work, especially in the British contribution, a film by Steve McQueen is predictably beautiful, still and calm. Although if he filmed more close up of a small bug moving slowly I would've gone mad. Winner of the Golden Lion, Bruce Nauman, represented America and showed all old work, including many casts of a faces/hands and a great eating boogers neon lights.
Unfortunately not all work can be described so positively, the Japanese pavilion for one, which was by Miwa Yanagi. Big saggy breasted amazonian-style women don't do much for me. The garish Austrian pavilion which featured scrawled graffiti text throughout by Elke Krystufek, Dorit Margreiter, Franziska & Lois Weinberger was a strict walk in/walk out affair. And even though Shaun Gladwell's work in the Australian pavilion has been highly praised within many of the reviews i've checked out, I found it painfully obvious and not at all interesting - video of a man standing on a roof in a car in the outback I can appreciate some artistic/skill merit but the spray painted and video works in the lower gallery really it down. Gosha Ostretsov in the lower room in the Russian pavilion got confused and thought the Biennale was actually a theme park and turned his space into an Alton Towers-esque
The Italian Pavilion's name changed to La Biennale Pavilion and looked a cheesy mess thanks to a front facade by John Baldessari. The work inside was brilliant though, a thoughtful, interesting and fun show displaying a great mixture of known and unknown new artists. I'm sure everyone reading this has seen pictures of Tomas Saraceno's huge web of black strings that fill the first huge gallery space, not many people know it's actually a replica of a Black Widow spiders web, and hopes to display how it manages to hold such vast weights. Adjacent to this room was a creepy environment of nightmare plants and claymation by Nathalie Djurberg which looked interesting but unfortunately was spoilt by other visitors in the room taking the opportunity for a fantasy glamour photo shoot. Wolfgang Tillmans installation was a welcome addition, and his new work looked incredible in the upper gallery space, I often think Tillmans is forgotten in global exhibitions as he is so well established. Other works of note in the curated space were by Rachel Harrison, a tableau by Hans-Peter Feldman, Toba Khedoori, and Georges Adeagbo's intruiging installations.
