The Tamesis
I first visited the “Floating City” when I was eight years old during a family trip to Italy for the Venice Biennale, and it later became the gateway to my love of historical and cultural destinations. Like my favorite city, Paris, every corner of Venice (even the countless dead-end streets) is filled with art, history, and romance.
Every time I visit Venice, I follow a series of traditions, including a separate aperitivo at the Hotel Danieli, where famed Italian poet, novelist, and war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio arranged a breakfast for Marchesa Casati (a former resident of what is now the Peggy Guggenheim Collection) to meet my all-time favorite artist, Giovanni Boldini. When Marchesa’s signature string of pearls broke and fell to the floor, the Italian painter locked eyes with his future muse, creating a series of riveting portraits that later became the subject of my master’s thesis in costume studies at New York University. But this year, while the Hotel Danieli was undergoing renovations—it will soon become a Four Seasons hotel—I discovered exciting alternatives approved by Marchesa, including a visit to her friend and lover D’Annunzio’s idyllic estate on Lake Garda.
As for Venice, I only had three days to see the Biennale and countless ancillary exhibitions and events, so I had to be selective. Here’s a summary of my busy week, along with some tips on how to spend your trip to Venice.
Day 1: Biennale and Bottega Tour, and Jordan Roth’s Palazzo Performance
With only three days in Venice, it was crucial for me to visit the main locations of the Biennale in one day. My first stop was the Giardini della Biennale, which I liken to the Epcot of the Art World (EPCOT). I head to the central pavilion, where the vision of the Biennale’s late artistic director, Koyo Kouoh, is most vividly embodied. Cuo, who served as executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in Africa in Cape Town until her sudden death last year, made history as the first African woman to be chosen as curator of a biennale. Kouoh took the title of the 61st International Art Exhibition, “Minor Keys” (open until November 22), as a musical metaphor: “If in music, minor keys are often associated with strangeness, melancholy and sadness, here too their joy, consolation, hope and transcendence are expressed,” the curators wrote in an article. She added: “The 61st Art Biennale is rooted in the belief that artists are important interpreters of social and spiritual conditions and catalysts of new relationships and possibilities.”
Throughout the exhibition, artists respond to intergenerational trauma with works that encourage healing through spirituality and nature. Dream-inspired installations and an air of mysticism were everywhere, and I particularly noticed the large number of textile-based pieces. (Favorite pieces include those by South African artists Thania Petersen and Billie Zangewa, as well as works by Annalee Davis, who lives and works on a former Barbados plantation where her Creole family has lived for generations.) Matching the whimsy of Davis’ botanical-imagery embroidery and appliqué pieces (both of which convey notions of femininity and climate urgency) are Beverly Buchanan’s baubles-strewn pieces. spirit jarwhich evokes the artist’s memory as a black woman living in the South. The sculptures were influenced by the “memory pots” left on unmarked African-American graves, often accompanied by mementos of the deceased. Another standout are eight portraits of Cuo and Toni Morrison (the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature) by Cuban artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, as well as resin and glass magnolia sculptures.
Then I try to visit as many national pavilions as possible. While I didn’t get to hear anyone’s bells at the much-talked-about Austrian pavilion, my maternal instincts were definitely put to the test in the Japanese pavilion (have you even visited the Venice Biennale if you haven’t taken a selfie with a doll wearing sunglasses!?). What I most admired were Adriana Varejão in the Brazilian pavilion (especially her tile-like ceiling paintings) and Sung Tieu and Henrike Naumann in the German pavilion for their confrontation with their country’s turbulent history.
