The 59th International Art Exhibition, “The Milk of Dreams”, postponed by a year due to the pandemic, is ready to start on 23 April. The Biennale is a much-awaited event for art enthusiasts and workers: Venice becomes an open-air museum of contemporary art, welcoming visitors from all over the world (no news for a city that experiences endless crowds of tourists all year round). It takes between two and three days to thoroughly explore the labyrinth of pavilions and collateral events, but there are plenty of options that do not necessarily require to purchase a ticket for the Biennale. The proposals in our gallery are not part of the Biennal's calendar of collateral events, but they aren’t to be missed. On the wave of the excitement around the major international event, numerous exhibitions are due to open in Venice in the coming weeks. From the major retrospectives dedicated to Marlen Dumas and Bruce Nauman at Palazzo Grassi, to the exhibition on surrealism and magic organised by the Peggy Guggenheim collection in collaboration with the Barberini Museum: scroll through our gallery for a list of appointments not to be missed during your stay in Venice. Art, after all, is never enough.
The best exhibitions to see in Venice during the Biennale 2022
From the major retrospectives dedicated to Kiefer, Kapoor and Dumas, to the exhibition on surrealism and magic at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection: these shows are not part of the Biennale’s official calendar, yet are not to be missed.
Image: Contrapposto Split, 2017, 4K 120 fps 3D projection (color, stereo sound), 289,56 cm x 515,62 cm, Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland, Installation view, Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts, 2018, Schaulager, Münchenstein/Basel, Photo: Tom Bisig, Basel, © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021
Image: Marlene Dumas, Betrayal, 1994, Private collection, Courtesy David Zwirner, Ph: Emma Estwic, New York© Marlene Dumas
Image: Leonora Carrington, The Pleasures of Dagobert, 1945, egg tempera on masonite, 74.9 x 86.7 cm. Private collection © Leonora Carrington, by SIAE 2022
Image: Diana Policarpo, Image from research trip to the Portuguese Savage Islands. Courtesy of the artist. “The Soul Expanding Ocean #4: Diana Policarpo. Ciguatera” is commissioned and produced by TBA21–Academy.
Image: Porte de Saint-Cloud, Paris, France, 1950. © Sabine Weiss
Image: Danh Vo studio, Guldenhof, photo by Nick Ash
Photo Courtesy MUVE
Image: © Anish Kapoor, Photo © Attilio Maranzano
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- Clara Rodorigo
- 22 April 2022
"Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies" is the title of the major exhibition dedicated to the American artist Bruce Nauman (Golden Lion in Venice in 2009), presented by Palazzo Grassi - Punta della Dogana, and open from 23 May 2021 to 27 November 2022. Curated by Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Caroline Bourgeois, curator at the Pinault Collection, the project will focus on three guidelines that characterise Nauman's production: the artist's studio as a space for work and creation, the performative use of the body and sound experimentation. The exhibition will feature video installations, including a reinterpretation of "Walk with Contrapposto" from 1968, works from the "Contrapposto Studies" alongside well-known works exploring sound, performance and space.
Inaugurated last 27 March, the monographic exhibition "open-end", dedicated to South African artist and painter Marlene Dumas, will be on view until 8 January 2023. Dumas is considered one of the most influential contemporary artists, known for her portraits created using images from newspapers, magazines, films and Polaroids, capable of capturing raw feelings such as despair, pain and fear on canvas. The exhibition project is part of a programme dedicated to celebrated contemporary artists, featuring monographic and themed exhibitions from the Pinault Collection since 2012. "open-end" is curated by Caroline Bourgeois in collaboration with the artist.
From April 9 to September 26, 2022, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents "Surrealism and Magic - Enchanted Modernity," the first international exhibition to explore the relationship between the Surrealist movement and magic, esotericism, and the occult. Within this framework, the Surrealist artist becomes "an alchemist, a magician, a visionary". Born out of the collaboration with the Barberini Museum, the exhibition presents over sixty works from more than forty international institutions and private collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the MET in New York and the Castello di Rivoli. The exhibition displays a vast array of works and scenarios, from the metaphysics of Giorgio de Chirico to the alienating atmospheres and grotesque, magnetic characters of Max Ernst, to the dreamlike universes of René Magritte, Salvador Dalì and many others.
The TBA21-Academy presents two new solo exhibitions dedicated to the artists Dineo Seshee Bopape and Diana Policarpo, both on view from 9 April until 2 October 2022 at the Ocean Space in Venice. The solo exhibitions represent the third and fourth episode of a two-year curatorial cycle entitled "The Soul Expanding Ocean" curated by Chus Martínez. The exhibition dedicated to Diana Policarpo, entitled "Ciguatera", has been realised in collaboration with the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM) and the Instituto Gulbenkian Cieência. Diana Policarpo presents a multimedia installation created after a research trip to the Ilhas Selvagens (Wild Islands) administered by the Portuguese in the North Atlantic Ocean to investigate the mapping of colonial histories through the monitoring of natural biodiversity. A journey is also at the origin of Dineo Seshee Bopape's work: from the Solomon Islands to the Mississipi plantations, to Jamaica and South Africa. The solo exhibition "Ocean! What if no change is your desperate mission?" reflects on oppression, colonialism and exploitation of resources, generating a "multiform presence" through video and augmented reality.
From 11 March to 23 October 2022, La Casa dei Tre Oci presents the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the French-Swiss photographer Sabine Weiss, a leading figure in French humanist photography. Curated by Virginie Chardin, the exhibition presents over 200 photographs, including unreleased material such as the series on asylums realised in France in the early 1950s. The retrospective is promoted by the Fondazione di Venezia, realised by Marsilio Arte in collaboration with the Berggruen Institute, produced by the Sabine Weiss studio in Paris and Laure Delloye-Augustins, with the support of Jeu de Paume and the International Festival Les Rencontres de la photographie d'Arles.
From 20 April to 27 November 2022, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, in collaboration with White Cube, presents an exhibition that brings together the practice of Danh Vo, contemporary of artist Vietnamese descent, with that of Park Seo-Bo, initiator of the Korean art movement Dansaekhwa, and Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese-born American sculptor, architect, designer and set designer. The exhibition, curated by Chiara Bertola and Danh Vo, invites the artist to "pervade the labyrinthine architecture of the Foundation". The project is part of the long-term programme "Conserving the future", conceived and curated by Chiara Bertola.
From 26 March to 29 October 2022 Palazzo Ducale presents "Anselm Kiefer - These writings, when burned, will finally cast a little light (Andrea Emo)", curated by Gabriella Belli and Janne Sirén. The exhibition project represents the fulcrum of the fifth edition of the biennial exhibition "MUVE Contemporaneo" of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia. Accompanying and contextualising the exhibition, organised also in view of the 1600th anniversary of the founding of Venice, is the seal of the Venetian philosopher Andrea Emo. The exhibition features a cycle of paintings created specifically for the Doge's Palace in 2020 and 2021.
From 20 April to 9 October 2022 the Gallerie dell'Accademia presents an exhibition dedicated to the internationally recognised name of Anish Kapoor, the first British artist to exhibit at the Gallerie. A project curated by art historian Taco Dibbits, curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. On display 60 works, including the artist's latest works using carbon nanotechnology, alongside recent paintings and sculptures. An exhibition that expands conceptually in the interaction between science and art, and physically, also occupying the rooms of Palazzo Manfrin, recently acquired by the Anish Kapoor Foundation.