Venice Biennale Highlights

So last week I was lucky enough to visit the 56th international Venice Biennale Art Exhibition, All The World's Futures. The exhibitions took place in the beautiful pavilions at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in the city of Venice featuring over 130 artists from 53 different countries.

Entitled All The World's Futures, the Venice Biennale seeks to "observe the relationship between art and developments in the human, social and political worlds as external forces" within a world where "we are negotiating an age of anxiety".

The Biennale was an amazing avalanche of work from all over the world with a lot of art to take in over the two days I was there. There was a heavy focus on media, sculpture and instillation in the work linking back to the theme of the increase in knowledge and technology within the world.

Here is a tiny selection of my favourite pieces of work exhibited at the Biennale from the Giardini and Arsenale.

Katharina Grosse

Untitled Trumpet.

The Propeller Group

The AK47 vs The M16.

Thea Djordjadze

That is the last item on this list: A glass of anger.

Kerry James Marshall

Untitled (Blot).

Irina Nakhova

Devestatingly Direct.

Chiharn Shiota

Key In The Hand.

The work I found most interesting at the Arsenale was The AK47 vs The M16 by The Propeller Group because of its concept. The work is about the rare occasion when opposing military bullets have collided on the battlefield to form a single object. The two bullets, aimed with the intention of killing the other, fuse together in mid air under ridiculous odds. The M16 is America's gun of choice from the second half of the 20th century and is a symbol of freedom while the AK47 is the weapon of choice for liberation and revolution. Both 'weapons of peace' that are still used on battlefields today. This piece is a series of performances where the rifles were aimed at each other and shot in order to replicate the collision and fusion of the bullets. This was recorded in high speed videos and a ballistics gel block capturing the indexical mark produced by the projectiles flight paths so that they can be seen by the human eye.

I also enjoyed the work of Irina Nakhova in the Russian pavilion at the Giardini. There was something about being confronted by a huge head upon entering the pavilion that made it feel slightly haunting. The work then continued into other rooms that were transformed into environments of colour relating to the history of the 100 year old building, emphasising the significance of colour for Russian Postmodernism.

I had such a great time visiting Venice and all the art it had to offer. Such a beautiful city with loads of rich history, it was an amazing opportunity to stay there for a couple of days and absorb it all!