THE 58TH VENICE ART BIENNALE | MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES

This Venice Biennale was the first time I have ever attended the globally renowned show. As an art lover I found the entire experience overwhelming and was indeed so impressed that I am certain that I will become a Biennale regular in future.

I was invited to the Biennale preview by the organisers of The Cyprus Pavilion which was a privilege in of itself. I had a pass that enabled me to see all the shows. Over the course of two days I saw as much as I could, but I did not have the chance to see everything. I first visited the main exhibition housed in the Arsenale, curated by Ralph Rugoff, who did an outstanding job. This was my favourite part of the Biennale, it was simply spectacular. On the second day I visited the Giardini pavilions, where most countries are represented by a pavilion. The Giardini also had a main space show curated in conjunction with the Arsenale show and it also had the Venice Pavilion. I also visited the Cyprus Pavilion which was an ‘off site’ pavilion. Many countries, like Cyprus, are represented by pavilions dotted around Venice outside the Giardini, this year the prize-winning pavilion was one of these - The Lithuania Pavilion.

During those two days I thoroughly enjoyed a vast wealth of marvellous art. I try to scratch the surface in the following blogs as to what I liked most about some of what I saw and experienced. I tried to separate the various aspects that I wanted to discuss into sections: The environmental emergency, political messaging, experimentation and innovation with new materials and technologies, blurring the artist/design label boundaries, and evocative art. However when writing each blog I discovered that it was impossible to go into any deep level with regards to one of these aspects without touching on all the other aspects, as they all crossover as soon as you start to dig into them.