biennale venice 2009 – it never even rained2 min read

just got back from venice, where we went for the biennale 2009 and to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of our marriage! jap! yay us.
i was not too impressed with the biennale this time around though. especially the curated parts seemed to have lots of decorative art, textural stuff, on the whole it felt pretty empty after last editions exiting political bent. there was some impressive neo-analogue work, and of course there were some absolute highlights. here they are:

new zealand pavillion - francis upritchard
spot my wife 2 - miranda july - arsenale

francis uprichard – save yourself @ new zealand pavilion – brilliant, funky clay figures, well worth the 2 hours of running around in heavy rain trying to find the pavilion… [photo above]

miranda july – eleven heavy things @ arsenale (behind the italian pavillion) – miranda’s work says “please touch” and as usually she creates pieces that intend to get people to interact. [photo above]

natalie djurberg – experiment – giradini (palazzo delle esposizione) – 3 intense claymation videos set in a dramatically lit fantasy garden.

teresa margolles – what else could we talk about – mexican pavillion – margolles uses the blood of mexican murder victims to create an environment that will haunt you.

gonkar gyatso – the shambala in modern times – arsenale – this tibetan living in london marries the iconic tibetan art of his homeland with western brands and iconography.

estonian pavilion - kristina norman
the fear society

also worth a visit: estonian pavillion – kristina norman [photo above], the fear society [photo above], wales pavilion – john cale, australian pavilion – maddestmax imvs, shaun gladwell

ahhh, venice, tons of walking till your feet bleed, terrible food, mosquitos, and rain rain rain. yet always so inspiring… be back in two years, if the city won’t sink into the sea before then.

where we stayed: bed & breakfast fujiyama – a very nice bed & breakfast, close to everything, 5 m. to academia, comfortable rooms in japanese decor cost us 120.- euro per night.
where we ate: restaurant avogaria – good food can be almost impossible to find in venice, this place is a little on the pricy side, but the food is really quite good.
what we will do next visit: rent an appartment for a week and cook our own food!

make sure to pick up the unofficial map/guide produced by british council because the official festival map is unusable this year. it can be dowloaded from artupdate.com/venice [pdf]

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