T.after 2 years of a pandemic, it adorns the most awaited appointment with art in the world and does so with great style. Not only attendances already registered in Venice are record-breakingbut so is the presence of female, queer and non-binary artists within the Biennale Arte curated by Cecilia Alemani. Starting with the theme of the 59th edition: “The milk of dreams”, inspired by the homonymous book by Leonora Carringtona surrealist artist with the concept of metamorphosis at the center of his imagination.
And it is the metamorphosis of bodies, cultures and minds, one of the main themes of an edition that would require at least 3 full days just to be approached, between works and pavilions in the Arsenale, in the Garden and in the city. Not to mention the private initiatives and museums of the Serenissima. To help you extricate yourself in this sea of suggestions and creativity, between parallels between yesterday and today, emotions and the unconsciousseparation of man and nature and fragility given by the uncertainty of recent years, here are some works not to be missed for any reason.
What not to miss at the Biennale Arte 2022
1. Marcelot’s paper lion
The Swiss-Brazilian artist Marcelot, multifaceted creator of suggestions and visions with always different supports, after a residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel of Shanghai (since 2011, over 450 artists from 54 countries have been hosted in the residence that Swatch has created to support art), brings two fascinating works to the Biennale that you could look at for hours and never run out of details that compose them: a bust of Napoleon and the Lion of Venice. Both made of newspaper and then hand sewn reside in the Arsenal Hall in excellent company. For the sixth time Swatch returns as main partner at the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and does so by exhibiting the works of six magnificent artists in both locations – in the Sala d’Armi of the Arsenale and in the Giardini. In addition to Napoleon and the Lion of Marcelot, you can admire the threadlike Buddhas of Hoyoon Shinthe surreal creatures of Xue Fei, the impressive spaced beach of Tang Shu and the cheerful and colorful collages of Landi. And in the Gardens the impressive work of Navin Rawanchaikul (see below).
2. The artists at the Arsenale
This year 80% of artists present in the Biennale are women To which are added non-binary and queer creatives who for once steal the show from male domination. After having walked a corridor of 150 meters under human bodies and dismembered animals of the “Dead dance” by Giulia Cencithe exhibition at the Arsenale opens with the “Brick house ”by Simone Leigh: African-American artist who through his monumental sculpture – already exhibited on the High Line in New York – tells about African women, slavery and cultural identity.
Around her i paintings by Belkis Ayòn, Cuban artistwho speak of another cultural heritage, that of the secret brotherhood of the Afro-Cubans Abakuà.
The immense ones are also feminine oven-figures of the Argentine Gabriel Chaile: magical creatures that represent the women of the artist’s family by recovering traces of local indigenous cultures. At the center of the works of Rosana PaulinoBrazilian artist, there are black women’s tears in Brazil they impregnate the earth giving life to trees which, as in the myth of Daphne and Apollo, protect women through their transformation.
It is also a feminine revolution that of Haitian Myrlande Constantwhich with the introduction of the beads in the “drapo Vodou”, the traditional voodoo flags, fits into a world that has always been dominated by men, renewing it. Also Tunisian Safia Farhat renews a tradition, the feminine one of carpet weaving. And he does it by breaking down stereotypes, his gigantic works in fabric are modern and bold.
The poem about the body of women as a metaphor for the health of the Earth is at the center of the works of Sandra Vasquez De La Horra, the Chilean artist living in Berlin. Women are strong and indomitable, frail and sick. Like the planet we live on.
Archetypal images, drawings of children, aliens or humans? The large black figures on a white background of the Brazilian Solange Pessoa evoke folklore and dreams. And they make you dream (or have nightmares?) Too the immense fabric heads of Tau Lewis, Canadian artist, whose works as masks of powerful guardians can seem benevolent and menacing at the same time. The threat, that of fracking, is instead at the center of the work of another Canadian artist, Kapwani Kiwangawho with his works denounces iniquity and explore systems of power.
Cinematic objects built like musical instruments, the “Autophones” of Croatian Dora Budor they are “resonant sculptures in which vibrators are integrated, which infuse with an invisible libidinal energy”. Sea and land symbolize opposing instincts, between trust and fear, in immense creatures by Teresa Solar, in search of a connection between man and the sea. Venetian animals instead those of Allison Katzwhich for its paintings was inspired by the lagoon city.
They are strong images, which they speak of domestic violence and seeking refugethose portrayed in the photos ofPolish artist Joanna Piotrowska. While evoking the alchemical process, so dear to surrealism, the ceramic transformed into marble of the works by Kerstin Brätsch.
Towards the end of the path you are then immersed in post apocalyptic world devoid of humanity by Sandra Mujinga. From the oil rigs made precious by the Senegalese Monira Al Qadiri we move on to robots that talk to each other in the tapestries by the Russian Zhenia Macheva. So you dive in in the video furniture by Sondra Perry and in the Sicilian one of Elisa Giardina Popethat with U Scantu ”: A Disorderly Tale tells the story of the witches of the abandoned city of Gibellina Nuova, built after the devastating Belice earthquake of 1968 and never populated. Moving on to the conventions of social language overturned by Barbara Kruger.
The path to the arsenal ends with Precious Okoyomon’s gardena path between ancestral statues made of plants that tell about slavery and diaspora with nature, but are also a symbol of a change in a real and emotional path towards life.
3. Homage to the Venetians by Navin Rawanchaikul
The artist Navin Rawanchaikul poses with some of the portraits in the work “The Description Of The World” at the Biennale Arte 2022. (Photo: Justine Bellavita)
Getting married in the second location of the Biennale Arte 2022, at the Giardini one cannot fail to notice, walking towards the central pavilion, an immense work of 15 x 4 meters, created byThai artist Navin Rawanchaikul. Reproduction of the original, it is un gigantic diorama depicting the artist’s stay in Venice, which occurred during the Covid pandemic. A journey, which Rawanchaikul imagined as a letter to Marco Polo, in which people, stories, lives of Venetians, immigrants, travelers they are immortalized and told in detail. A real fresco of the cosmopolitan nature of the city.
4. Surrealism and magic at the Peggy Guggenheim
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