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The first visit was to La Biennale’s institutional headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian, where you can find the exhibition ‘Luca Massimo Barbero, A Friendly Devil’. A living archive that continues to be fed, showing the eye monochrome visions embellished with stories and suggestions. Just outside, you will be enveloped by the heart of the lagoon and a panorama unparalleled in the known world. Shortly afterwards, the bright sky that screamed spring began to become more cloudy and lose its blue until it recited cadenced roars of unheard sound. As if thunder was exploding in a funnel made of synaptic channels. Those explosions in the sky accompanied me as far as the Arsenale and Venice was surprised by water from below and above. Here, in the fortified corner of Venice, the International Exhibition begins to express its cultural power with pavilions dedicated to inclusivity, to strong social themes suffered in our decade (but also in previous ones). Where the sense of restlessness is not only given by the thunder but also by the purgatory of hidden souls and ‘foreign’ sorrows that, all too often, we do not know how to read in the right way or with the appropriate depth. A sequence of pavilions supported by the need for embrace and understanding. Where the queer universe, migration routes and nature harassed by overproduction introduce visitors to a more attentive sensitivity. These are the pavilions that caressed my soul the most. 
The Saudi Arabian pavilion ‘Shifting Sands: A Battle Song’ by artist Manal AlDowayan. Desertic suspended forms recorded in the voices of Saudi women, proclamations of female courage to have their strength recognised. The Italian Pavilion ‘To Hear’ by Massimo Bartolini which welcomes the human essence into an almost endless street and then transforms the space into a labyrinthine music box. Sound reverberates in the metal scaffolding until we ourselves become a sound. Musical voice that transmutes into oscillating form in the infinite wave of an artificial pool. An invitation, in my opinion, to pay more attention to what we hear inside and then bring it back outside. To listen to ourselves before we act. The China Pavilion ‘Atlas. Harmony in Diversity’. IMy favourite of the Arsenal. Because, after so much clutching of the stomach in reflections on how little we devote to understanding the diversity and strangeness that is geographically alien to us, one finds the gentle care of the soul. Made of simple balances, of peace for the spirit that even in the fog finds the dissolution of restraining thoughts. Liberating us in an immersive emptiness that binds us to nature and those we feel close to. (In this pavilion, I was interviewed by a Chinese broadcaster. Still overwhelmed by the peace of the senses given by that space, I replied with almost loverly eyes that I believe will earn me the People’s Republic merit badge or an endless supply of fortune biscuits. Or at least I think so, given the journalist’s enthusiastic and proud expression). 
Not to be missed at the Arsenale are the works of Omar Mismar, Xiyadie and Sabelo Mlangeni‘s shots. You will have no difficulty finding them on your way through the pavilions (as a hint, I’ll just tell you that they will soon welcome you). The first day floated by (or, contextualising, was forcefully kidnapped by a herring gull) and the second was already waiting for me on the Venetian rafts. The next exploration was completely dedicated to the densely populated Giardini della Biennale. The impact is as fresh as a lemon granita and as oxygenating as a breath of air after a 35° climb. But soon that idea of a generous oasis dissipates at the sight of the human tide visiting the international pavilions. So many national spaces to enter, so many serpentine queues to make in order to discover contemporary artistic interpretations. (But it is always worth it). Unlike a visit to the Arsenale, here – it has to be said – you find yourself in a colourful, often even fluorescent world. As announced by the central pavilion, whose façade has been transformed into a gigantic mural by the indigenous collective Mahku. And here, too, are tips for a visit to the many pavilions. (Although they must all be seen, with calm, curiosity and patience. Lots of patience). Hungary Pavilion ‘Techno Zen’ by Márton Nemes. Nomen omen, The revolutionary and subversive power of techno music is the frame on which the low tones of a music to be observed and not heard are pushed. Hallucinogenic iridescences moving bright colours on a journey with no necessary arrival. It is the journey that is important. (As demonstrated by researchers at Canada’s McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, ‘bass tones play a crucial role in our perception of the rhythm we love most’). 
USA Pavilion “Lo spazio in cui collocarmi” by Jeffrey Gibson. Here, too, vivid tones tell the story and identity of the Native Americans in a contemporary dance intertwined with hypnotic meditations. A central note is the reference to the ‘foreigner’ sought by this art biennial. Where the foreigner is not the Native American but those who came after him. A call to the search for freedom and recognition for having been centuries-old custodians of a land that has become a symbol of the privilege of independence. Yet the artist remains true to the community spirit of welcoming and sharing by visually professing the idea of dedicating oneself to others in order to be better (“if you want to lift yourself, us lift up someone else”). France Pavilion “Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon” di Julien Creuzet. Martinique, the artist’s place of origin, is the geographical escape that France has chosen to represent itself. Multimodal expressions to find oneself in a fluid way, moved by the waters, poetically stirred by divine connections and imaginary worlds, made of the very detritus (what we have been) that the sea has brought to our feet (what we are). You will often keep your eyes upwards as you cross the pavilion and the roof will only be an illusion that will not limit your capacity for interpretation and internalization. This art event, the most important of the year in Italy, is not enclosed in official exhibition spaces. It comes to life with self-preserving independence among the canals of Venice and in the leaps and bounds that ramify the city. There are many other collateral exhibitions in which subjective aesthetics are proposed that deserve your observation. Here too, there are some marvels to lose yourself in on your Venetian journey. “Venice 3024” by Daniel Arsham at St Catherine’s Church. Here we will be overtaken by contemporary myths that crystallise – literally – to revise popular culture into a fossil predestined for eternity. An unlimited second life for what we thought was only a momentary tale. Sculptures alive despite being the spectre of the age in which we breathe but have already begun to forget. “Trascendence” by Wallace Chan at the Church of Santa Maria della Pietà. The multidisciplinary artist has created a technique for modelling large-scale titanium sculptures. In this site-specific exhibition, he uses this experimentation to create a life cycle from suspended human torment to the regeneration of oneself firmly planted in the ground like a flower. A cycle of metamorphosis that has always chased us. Each time it allows us to savour our soul resurrection. 
‘Nebula’ by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi with the presence of several artists at the Ospedaletto complex. The video-installations are gracefully and introvertedly hidden in the numbered path in which you will be guided. Nebula (from the Latin cloud/fog) requires the use of other senses for the full understanding of the works presented. It also requires you to mute your thoughts for a while to allow yourself to be reactivated in neuronal movement by installations that are both soft and raw at the same time. Admirable location, valuable temporary content. Those that have been proposed are the suggestions that struck me most powerfully. In a Venice that is impossible not to love for what it will continue to give us even when we are no longer with it. But it is a case of giving equal importance to all the other exhibitions. Everyone must value what touches their sensory chords with a new communicative power. (There are indeed so many guides, so many tips on what to see. Ours is the result of the sensitivity that we have always proposed). After all, this is exactly what we were talking about at the beginning: what is art? It is the individual ability to find one of the many forms of ourselves in what someone else has been able to create. As, since time immemorial, the human being pursues in the divine, in nature, in closed eyes immersed in dreams. Biennale di Venezia 2024 20/04/2024 – 24/11/2024
Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition 2024.
Written by Ermanno Ivone The word ‘art’ leads anyone to associations. Visual, sonic, sometimes tactile or olfactory. A conceptual duel between what one remembers as a work of art and the context in which that work was observed. A coexistence of memory pairs that allows us all to relive an emotion from the ego in space and the ego stimulated by a work. This is why the definition of art doesn’t have a locked classification. But it finds its inclusive nature in the interpretation and absorption that everyone can make (or undergo). Together with the question ‘was the egg or the chicken born first?’, ‘what is art?’ is a question to which, in the universe of human multiple thinking, it is difficult to give an unambiguous answer. Probably because, unlike the egg, art and its conception take on ever broader meanings. The chicken, on the other hand, has slowed its evolution compared to art. (Science tells us that the egg was born first). This year I was asked by Art & Glamour Magazine to visit Venice for the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale ‘Stranieri Ovunque/ Foreigners Everywhere’ curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Three days of pre-opening for journalists in which it was possible to preview the concept of art in the contemporary interpretations of different countries on our blue planet.
The first visit was to La Biennale’s institutional headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian, where you can find the exhibition ‘Luca Massimo Barbero, A Friendly Devil’. A living archive that continues to be fed, showing the eye monochrome visions embellished with stories and suggestions. Just outside, you will be enveloped by the heart of the lagoon and a panorama unparalleled in the known world. Shortly afterwards, the bright sky that screamed spring began to become more cloudy and lose its blue until it recited cadenced roars of unheard sound. As if thunder was exploding in a funnel made of synaptic channels. Those explosions in the sky accompanied me as far as the Arsenale and Venice was surprised by water from below and above. Here, in the fortified corner of Venice, the International Exhibition begins to express its cultural power with pavilions dedicated to inclusivity, to strong social themes suffered in our decade (but also in previous ones). Where the sense of restlessness is not only given by the thunder but also by the purgatory of hidden souls and ‘foreign’ sorrows that, all too often, we do not know how to read in the right way or with the appropriate depth. A sequence of pavilions supported by the need for embrace and understanding. Where the queer universe, migration routes and nature harassed by overproduction introduce visitors to a more attentive sensitivity. These are the pavilions that caressed my soul the most. 
The Saudi Arabian pavilion ‘Shifting Sands: A Battle Song’ by artist Manal AlDowayan. Desertic suspended forms recorded in the voices of Saudi women, proclamations of female courage to have their strength recognised. The Italian Pavilion ‘To Hear’ by Massimo Bartolini which welcomes the human essence into an almost endless street and then transforms the space into a labyrinthine music box. Sound reverberates in the metal scaffolding until we ourselves become a sound. Musical voice that transmutes into oscillating form in the infinite wave of an artificial pool. An invitation, in my opinion, to pay more attention to what we hear inside and then bring it back outside. To listen to ourselves before we act. The China Pavilion ‘Atlas. Harmony in Diversity’. IMy favourite of the Arsenal. Because, after so much clutching of the stomach in reflections on how little we devote to understanding the diversity and strangeness that is geographically alien to us, one finds the gentle care of the soul. Made of simple balances, of peace for the spirit that even in the fog finds the dissolution of restraining thoughts. Liberating us in an immersive emptiness that binds us to nature and those we feel close to. (In this pavilion, I was interviewed by a Chinese broadcaster. Still overwhelmed by the peace of the senses given by that space, I replied with almost loverly eyes that I believe will earn me the People’s Republic merit badge or an endless supply of fortune biscuits. Or at least I think so, given the journalist’s enthusiastic and proud expression). 
Not to be missed at the Arsenale are the works of Omar Mismar, Xiyadie and Sabelo Mlangeni‘s shots. You will have no difficulty finding them on your way through the pavilions (as a hint, I’ll just tell you that they will soon welcome you). The first day floated by (or, contextualising, was forcefully kidnapped by a herring gull) and the second was already waiting for me on the Venetian rafts. The next exploration was completely dedicated to the densely populated Giardini della Biennale. The impact is as fresh as a lemon granita and as oxygenating as a breath of air after a 35° climb. But soon that idea of a generous oasis dissipates at the sight of the human tide visiting the international pavilions. So many national spaces to enter, so many serpentine queues to make in order to discover contemporary artistic interpretations. (But it is always worth it). Unlike a visit to the Arsenale, here – it has to be said – you find yourself in a colourful, often even fluorescent world. As announced by the central pavilion, whose façade has been transformed into a gigantic mural by the indigenous collective Mahku. And here, too, are tips for a visit to the many pavilions. (Although they must all be seen, with calm, curiosity and patience. Lots of patience). Hungary Pavilion ‘Techno Zen’ by Márton Nemes. Nomen omen, The revolutionary and subversive power of techno music is the frame on which the low tones of a music to be observed and not heard are pushed. Hallucinogenic iridescences moving bright colours on a journey with no necessary arrival. It is the journey that is important. (As demonstrated by researchers at Canada’s McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, ‘bass tones play a crucial role in our perception of the rhythm we love most’). USA Pavilion “Lo spazio in cui collocarmi” by Jeffrey Gibson. Here, too, vivid tones tell the story and identity of the Native Americans in a contemporary dance intertwined with hypnotic meditations. A central note is the reference to the ‘foreigner’ sought by this art biennial. Where the foreigner is not the Native American but those who came after him. A call to the search for freedom and recognition for having been centuries-old custodians of a land that has become a symbol of the privilege of independence. Yet the artist remains true to the community spirit of welcoming and sharing by visually professing the idea of dedicating oneself to others in order to be better (“if you want to lift yourself, us lift up someone else”). France Pavilion “Attila cataract your source at the feet of the green peaks will end up in the great sea blue abyss we drowned in the tidal tears of the moon” di Julien Creuzet. Martinique, the artist’s place of origin, is the geographical escape that France has chosen to represent itself. Multimodal expressions to find oneself in a fluid way, moved by the waters, poetically stirred by divine connections and imaginary worlds, made of the very detritus (what we have been) that the sea has brought to our feet (what we are). You will often keep your eyes upwards as you cross the pavilion and the roof will only be an illusion that will not limit your capacity for interpretation and internalization. This art event, the most important of the year in Italy, is not enclosed in official exhibition spaces. It comes to life with self-preserving independence among the canals of Venice and in the leaps and bounds that ramify the city. There are many other collateral exhibitions in which subjective aesthetics are proposed that deserve your observation. Here too, there are some marvels to lose yourself in on your Venetian journey. “Venice 3024” by Daniel Arsham at St Catherine’s Church. Here we will be overtaken by contemporary myths that crystallise – literally – to revise popular culture into a fossil predestined for eternity. An unlimited second life for what we thought was only a momentary tale. Sculptures alive despite being the spectre of the age in which we breathe but have already begun to forget. “Trascendence” by Wallace Chan at the Church of Santa Maria della Pietà. The multidisciplinary artist has created a technique for modelling large-scale titanium sculptures. In this site-specific exhibition, he uses this experimentation to create a life cycle from suspended human torment to the regeneration of oneself firmly planted in the ground like a flower. A cycle of metamorphosis that has always chased us. Each time it allows us to savour our soul resurrection. ‘Nebula’ by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi with the presence of several artists at the Ospedaletto complex. The video-installations are gracefully and introvertedly hidden in the numbered path in which you will be guided. Nebula (from the Latin cloud/fog) requires the use of other senses for the full understanding of the works presented. It also requires you to mute your thoughts for a while to allow yourself to be reactivated in neuronal movement by installations that are both soft and raw at the same time. Admirable location, valuable temporary content. Those that have been proposed are the suggestions that struck me most powerfully. In a Venice that is impossible not to love for what it will continue to give us even when we are no longer with it. But it is a case of giving equal importance to all the other exhibitions. Everyone must value what touches their sensory chords with a new communicative power. (There are indeed so many guides, so many tips on what to see. Ours is the result of the sensitivity that we have always proposed). After all, this is exactly what we were talking about at the beginning: what is art? It is the individual ability to find one of the many forms of ourselves in what someone else has been able to create. As, since time immemorial, the human being pursues in the divine, in nature, in closed eyes immersed in dreams. Biennale di Venezia 2024 20/04/2024 – 24/11/2024 
