The Venice Biennale opens in two days. Here is just a small part of what you can see there

Forwarded From 43 / Forty Three

The Venice Biennale opens in two days. Here is just a small part of what you can see there

The 61st Venice Art Biennale will officially open on May 9 (not counting the closed press previews). We are telling you about several events worth paying attention to.

🔵The two most notable actions that everyone is talking about even before the biennale opens are the protests around the Russian pavilion and a performance by Austrian artist Florentina Holzinger.

She climbed naked into a huge bronze bell, hung upside down inside it, and began ringing it with her body. This is part of Holzinger’s Seaworld Venice installation about the climate crisis, which can be seen at the Australian pavilion and in other street performances.

In one of them, two people immerse themselves in an aquarium filled with recycled urine from exhibition visitors.

🔵French street artist and photographer JR has unveiled the work Il Gesto on the facade of Palazzo Ca’ da Mosto, inspired by Paolo Veronese’s painting “The Wedding at Cana.”

For it, JR placed photographs on the building of participants in the Refettorio Paris project, which works to combat waste. In them, volunteers prepare dishes from unsold food and distribute them to people in need.

🔵Studio DRIFT is showing a new version of its kinetic installation Shy Society. This time it has been placed directly above the Grand Canal.

🔵At the Holy See Pavilion, visitors are invited to a meditative music-listening experience as part of the exhibition “The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul,” curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers.

Here is how it works. Visitors to the Mystical Garden at the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth receive headphones and a map marking the locations of the compositions across the grounds. As they walk through the garden, tracks created by Brian Eno, FKA twigs, Devonte Hynes, Patti Smith, Suzanne Ciani, and Terry Riley appear, disappear, and sometimes briefly overlap with one another.

🔵The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice will host Marina Abramovic’s exhibition “Transforming Energy” as part of the biennale. The Serbian artist will become the first woman to receive a major exhibition at the Accademia during her lifetime.

Inside are both Abramovic’s iconic works and pieces created especially for the exhibition. In particular, visitors will encounter stone arches and lodges with built-in crystals that, according to the artist’s concept, are meant to activate the “transfer of energy.”

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