Venice Biennale - Making Worlds

I feel I have neglected my blog again lately - I think the upheaval of the move is causing more disturbance than I thought so I have started up my meditation practice again - thankfully it is paying off and I feel much calmer and more grounded. I came back from a few days in Venice at the Biennale a week ago. I went with an artist friend and we stayed at the Hotel Casa Linger (an apt name!!) Basic and cheap (for Venice) accomodation in the Castello district so within easy walking distance of both the Giardini and Arsenale without having to get vaporetti! On the way we came to our first art work situated on the edge of the Grand Canal - a giant mirrored box which reflected weird images of the water, nearby buildings and the passers by and caused lots of amusement - it was like being in an outside hall of mirrors! This is me with a one thin and one fat leg! Of course before we started we needed a cup of coffee - this is one of the cafes - great fun and not very busy thank goodness! Here I am enjoying the first of several cafe lattes!
I want to share with you a few of my favorite artist's works - I took lots of photos as you can imagine and I have found it difficult to choose just a few - maybe I'll introduce some more of the artists whose work I enjoyed in future posts - meantime - this was in the main exhibition Palazzo in the Giardini - a very beautiful installation of black threads by the Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno with the wonderful title 'galaxies forming along filments, like droplets along the strands of a spider's web'
Also in the Giardini in the Egyptian Pavilion was the work of the artist Adel El Siwi - tall, straw woven figures bowed us in!
I loved his work and his sense of humor - the exhibition was called 'Lightly Monumental' and it was!!
Some of the best exhibits were projections and artist films and impossible to capture so I am hoping I can find links for you if you are interested in seeing some of the work - below is Nathalie Djurberg (Sweden) who created a 'Garden of Eden' installation of enormous plants and several screens showing her rather disturbing feminist gothic animated films - (she calls them Claymation films) disturbing and brilliant - I saw one of her films at the Frieze Art Festival four years ago and it made an impression on me then!


Very different and equally powerful - Krzysztof Wodiczko projections of windows on the Polish Pavilion walls showed immigrants washing windows and chatting together outside while the viewers watched from the inside - the link HERE gives a lot more information about the work that was created for the Biennale - It had a profound effect on me and will stay with me for a long time
The link for the British Pavilion is HERE - I was inspired by Steve McQueen's film made in the Giardini and depicting it's other life once the Biennale was over and winter arrived. the work from artists in Northern Ireland was also strong - the most disappointing of all was the Welsh artist John Cale - I'm afraid to say it did nothing for me at all!

Well that's all for now!