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    Travel » Italy » Venice

    La Biennale - ILLUMINations

    Published: Sep 8, 2011 · Modified: Dec 12, 2017 by Marissa Stevens · 2 Comments

    We may have missed La Biennale if our neighbor hadn't told us about it. (Thanks Christen!) It's a contemporary art exhibition that takes place every two years - odd years - in Venice. This is the 54th annual exhibition. More than 34 countries exhibit sculpture, performing art, painting, modern media, music, dance, theater and, of course, cinematography with the Venice Film Festival.

    The title of this year's exhibition: ILLUMInations.

    Permanent La Bienalle pavilions of many countries stand at the north end of Venice. The remaining exhibitions are in buildings peppered around the city; the Venice Film Festival is on Lido island, southeast of Venice.

    We spent 6 hours today wandering in and out of pavilions; we were surprised, entertained, repulsed, moved, offended, enlightened. What more can you ask from an art exhibition?

    If you walk from St. Mark's square toward the Arsenale and through the Castello gardens to the La Biennale, you are rewarded with tall trees and green grass, rare in most areas of Venice.

    castello-gardens-statue-la-biennale

    castello-gardens-walkway-la-biennale

    la-biennale-entrance

    castello-gardens-tree

    A lovely woman from Austria took this photo of us.

    keith-and-marissa-at-la-biennale

    I wish we could show you so much more, but here's a glimpse of the show.

    A favorite...

    I hope you can read this - it was moving to look in the eyes and read the story of the person in each photograph.

    Artist: David Goldblatt

    people-stories-2-la-biennale

    people-stories-3-la-biennale

    The floor of this room had piles of gray, red, and white clay for people to sculpt and press to the wall.

    There were piles of clay on the floor for people to create wall art.

    la-biennale-art

    la-biennale-fight

    la-biennale-militant-in-flowers

    At the Isreal pavilion, in a film projected on the floor, 3 boys marked lines in the sand. In turn, each boy would drag his stick through the sand, making lines and a shape, then another would brush it out with his foot and make his own.

    israel-redraw-lines

    Waving your hand across a motion sensor made red and blue light beam on to a blank white wall.

    la-biennale-red-blue-light

    la-biennale-venice-sculpture

    la-biennale-pop-art la-biennale-art-2

    This capsized tank was part of the USA exhibit.

    We met David (he's pointing below), a gymnast from New Jersey, when he took a break from jogging on the tank.

    keith-at-usa-exhibit

    More

    • Little Red House with a Bridge
    • A Walk in Venice
    • The Courage to Feel Welcome
    • We Made It!

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    1. Christen Gladu says

      September 14, 2011 at 11:51 pm

      Looks amazing! Someday I'll get there...just got the update about the updates, glad I'm back in the loop.

      Reply
      • marissa says

        September 15, 2011 at 12:04 am

        Thanks again for the great advice. What a show!

        Reply

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