Entertainment

I said a few days ago that I would return one last time to a description of the big international show at the Biennale organized by Rob Storr, “Think With the Senses/Feel With the Mind”. And walk with the feet. It’s a big, big show that begins at the Arsenale and concludes, 100 artists and a mile or so later, at the Giardini. As …

I stopped by the Venice Guggenheim, located in Peggy Guggenheim’s former palazzo, to see the joint Joseph Beuys/Matthew Barney show. (More on that later.) I got distracted by her permanent collection. Guggenheim moved to Venice in 1949, after the gradual disintegration of the community of emigre artists who had fled to New York during …

I’m not giving out the prizes here, but now having seen most of the official pavilions at the Biennale — and yes, I’ve been here for five days and yes, it takes that long and longer to do justice to this thing — the pan-African group show at the Arsenale is not to be missed. It represents Africans — defined to include Arab North …

At the Czech pavilion at the Giardini, you can have one of those experiences where the presentation gets badly in the way of the art. The artist is Irena Juzova. (Apologies, there are two accents in her last name, but as I’ve explained before, there are technical complications to doing accents over letters on this blog that would give …

Here’s a nice surprise. Some artists whose work never interested me before show up at the Biennale in a different light — and it’s the same work, more or less. The Russian pavilion features four individual artists and one collective, AES+F, which stands for Tatyana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeny Svyatsky and Vladimir Fridkes. …

I usually give this blog a rest on weekends, but since I’m in Venice I blogged right on through, fully aware that the majority of readers don’t check back til Monday. Now that you’re here, if you care to you can backtrack to find the posts on the U.S. and British pavilions, among other things. Now on to France.

One of my best …

At the Giardini, the wooded park where the Biennale’s national pavilions are all set out in world’s fair style, the British pavilion occupies what you might call a high ground of the Old World. As you approach, France is on its left, Germany on the right. The salmon brick and white marble neo-classical pavilion, with its columns and …

It’s Sunday, the day that the Biennale opens to the public for a run that continues through November 21. The rain is long gone but the high summer weather is edging in. By August the mid-afternoon heat will be Egyptian but for now it’s tolerable. It’s a good day to sit for a while at a shaded table and watch the tourists snapping …