The 56th Venice Biennale is a sprawling labyrinth of stately permanent pavilions, glamorous exhibitions at rented palazzos, avant-garde satellite events, and spectacular performances. Finding your way to the hidden gems scattered throughout the ancient city can be tricky without a little guidance, so whether you’re heading over to soak in the last of the fanfare as the Biennale kicks off or waiting until the crowds die down before making your way to Venice, we’ve got your guide to very best pavilions, exhibitions, and performances.
Top 5 Pavillons at the Giardini, Venice Biennale
There’s no better way to kick off your Biennale bacchanalia than with a visit to the Giardini, home of the most established National Pavilions and an oasis of calm in an otherwise chaotic city. While it’s always delightful to wander amidst the eclectic architecture and let chance be your guide, there are a few standout shows you won’t want to miss.
Venice Biennale 2015: Outside of the Italian Pavilion
National Pavilion / Great Britain
Sarah Lucas’s bawdy, larger than life overhaul of the British Pavilion celebrates a lewd interplay of objects and bodies against an egg-yolk yellow backdrop. Positioning early work in which plaster bodies penetrated by pristine cigarettes interface with objects exemplifying domestic infrastructure alongside monumental abstract sculptures that vaguely resemble the outsized offspring of a Louise Bourgeoise spider and a Jeff Koons balloon dog, Lucas manages to simultaneously celebrate her past as one of the seminal YBA artists and push new boundaries both material and conceptual.
Giardini Biennale // Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia, Italy
National Pavilion / Switzerland
Pamela Rosenkranz’s deft, subtle, dazzling installation at the Swiss National Pavilion pays homage to our material underpinnings with a minimal ode to the organic and the environment. Bathing the architectural structure of the pavilion in a dew-green light, both richly natural and profoundly synthetic, Rosenkranz invites viewers into the center of the space — a warm, bubbling bath of organic pink ooze filling the interior in its entirety. The sensuous juxtaposition of materials effortlessly draws out conceptual contemplations and visceral sensations both subtle and profound.
Giardini Biennale // Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia, Italy
Venice Biennale 2015: Swiss Pavilion
National Pavilion / Finland
Don’t be dissuaded by the inevitable line arching outwards from the petite blue Finnish pavilion, the treasure inside is well worth the wait. The artistic duo IC-98 have constructed a rich dark haven for pure aesthetic ecstasy with Abendland (Hours, Years, Aeons). A delicate, magical animation detailing the minute changes that make up monumental shifts in a mythic forest is a veritable orgy of wonder. The sprawling soundscape animates the intimate hand-drawn animation, and the rich, cloistered darkness of the interior space draw viewers deep into lush, curious contemplation of landscape.
Giardini Biennale // Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia, Italy
Joan Joans for the American Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2015
National Pavilion / USA
Born in 1936, Joan Joanas‘ pioneering performance, video, new media, and installation art have influenced generations of contemporary practitioners. With a quirky eye to the off-beat, the ungainly, and the developmental, Jonas‘ intimate video works portray adolescents on the verge of adulthood superimposed against a rich natural background. Subtle, strange and brimming with energy, Jonas offers an alternative perspective on nature, and dewy-eyed dance with the sublime.
Inside the Canadian Pavilion
National Pavilion / Canada
With impish wit and childlike wonder, Canadian collective BGL have transformed the National Pavilion, conjuring out of thin air a Quebecois convenience store, identical down to the sagging ceiling tiles. Only the slightly blurred labels on the items for sale mark the environment as an aesthetic curiosity, a delicate poke at capitalism underlined by the acid-trip wonder of the subsequent space of the exhibition, a workshop of chaos honoring the act of making and questioning the very nature of cultural production more broadly. Warm, witty, and wonderfully off-beat, a trip to „Canadassimo“ is the perfect culmination to a day at the Giardini.
Giardini Biennale // Sestiere Castello, 30122 Venezia, Italy
Inside the Arsenale, Photo by g.sighele
Venice Biennale’s Primary Exhibition: Arsenale
After a day at the Giradini, ready yourself for an encounter with Okwui Enwezor’s dark, mordant „All the World’s Futures“ at the Arsenale. Lingering in a chaos of bodily degradatarion, environmental decay, and mental anguish, Enwezor’s tent-pole exhibition offers the ultimate foil for the lush, inviting exhibitions of the Giardini.
Arsenale // Castello, 30122 Venezia, Italy
Our favorite Satellite Exhibitions at Venice Biennale 2015
Doug Fishbone’s Leisureland Golf
Refresh your body and soothe your soul after the onslaught of death and destruction with a trip to Doug Fishbone’s Leisureland Golf. Quirky, quixotic, and casually magnificent, Fishbone’s installation offers up not only the finest round of mini golf on the archipelago, but also a deft and devilishly delightful exploration of the commodification of leisure. Marvel at the exceptional artist-designed holes and stay for a cool drink and a delicious meal on the water at the Biennale’s chicest lunch spot.
Arsenale Docks // Castello, 40A, 40B, 41C, Venice
Biennale Lunch at Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Mini Golf
CYLAND’s On My Way
Revel in the avant-garde aesthetic explorations brought together by the Biennale with a trip to CYLAND’s „On My Way,“ a contemplative exhibition of contemporary Russian New Media in conversation with seminal 20th century paintings from the Arfiev group. Extraordinary investigations of form and perception nimbly dance between classic representational strategies and new technologies like 3D printing and live streaming.
Ca‘ Foscari Zattere // Dorsoduro 1392, Venice
Have a wonderful wonderful art trip!
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