Do you know about the Venice Biennale?   The first Biennale was held in 1895 and it is still one of the major international exhibitions of contemporary art.  It is happening right now in its 55th iteration.  This year’s version was curated by Massimiliano Gioni.  He entitled it “The Encyclopedic Palace” (Il Palazzo Enciclopedico) and it includes 88 “national pavilions” with 158 artists.  Several countries are participating in the important Biennale for the first time, including Angola, the Bahamas, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Ivory Coast, the Republic of Kosovo, Kuwait, Maldives, Paraguay, Tuvalu and, perhaps most surprisingly, the Holy See!

If you’d like to know more about this year’s exhibition, here is a link:

http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/

I haven’t been to this year’s exhibition (nor would I want to be in Venice in the summer heat and crowds, but that’s just me!). I was there one August for the Biennale.  It was the 1980s and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where I was a curator, lent a painting to the exhibition. I had the great privilege of being sent from the Museum to Venice to oversee the packing up of the painting and I got to accompany it back to Boston.  This is a major perk of being a museum curator!  I have some crazy ass stories to tell about that entire episode, which I will tell some other time.

But, even though I don’t want to rush over to Venice for this year’s Biennale, I still am interested in what’s happening there.

One of the most interesting looking installations–although not an endorsed inclusion in the actual Biennale–is this:

Artist and optical wizard Rudolf Stingel took over three stories of the wonderful Palazzo Grassi (which is owned by billionaire art collector Francois Pinault) and covered the interior walls, and floors with the pattern of one kilim carpet.  I hear that the crowds are loving the installation and there is much buzz about it.