Strolling from the Arsenale to the Giardini, wind in our hair, we witness a London gallerist gesticulating towards an avenue of giant bland hand sculptures and boldly pronouncing them the work of Marc Quinn to a handheld group of clients. While most know that the works are the signature of Italian sculptor and former actor Lorenzo Quinn (no relation), we couldn’t help but enjoy this moment of derangement, and reflect on how most of our week living cheek by jowl with the entire international art world on this sinking island has been similarly coded.
From overhearing hushed conversations about artworks getting lost in transit (“Easyjet aren’t returning my calls!”) to traipsing 42,000 steps in Amazon ‘vegan-leather’ heels, we were on the ground carrying out ethnographic research and listening to everything, so that we could report back to you, dear Reader, on the highs and lows of life on the canals at the 60th Venice Biennale.
The steady weekend trickle of writers, gallerists, artists and curators became a deluge by Monday afternoon, noted by reports of planes stuffed with art people wearing sunglasses and pretending not to see each other (As one journalist observed: “I couldn’t help but think that if this flight goes down over the Adriatic, there won’t be a single PR left in London”.)
Over their third Spritz-on-the-Garibaldi of the afternoon, one writer confided that there had been a glitch in the Biennale’s system and they were being constantly emailed VIP passes – 58 in fact. When it was suggested that they should flog them on one of the many mass “Venice” Whatsapp/Instagram groups started by (notably absent) gallerist and scene-maker Jonny Tanna, the writer shuddered “I’ve got two bosses who don’t know I’m here, and I’m on deadline. The last thing I need is more admin”.
There was talk of new haircuts (“I had my head shaved after the solar eclipse”) and of sightings of Hans Ulrich Obrist seen jumping up and down waving at a group of confused people outside the opening of Italian painter Guglielmo Castelli’s new show at Palazzetto Tito, an opening swarming with museum directors and Castelli-hungry collectors. Evidently not understanding the muted reaction to his wild gesticulations, HUO leaned harder into it and nearly crushed global treasure Michèle Lamy who was making a swift exit – presumably from second-hand embarrassment.
Popping in to preview ‘Nebula’ by the Fondazione In Between Art Film at the Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti and adjoining Ospedale, we scalded our throats on espressos and ducked into darkness for a disquieting group show of video of works by the likes of Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Cinthia Marcelle and Basir Mahmood. Diego Marcon’s contribution was one of the most haunting works we saw all week: a huge CGI video installation of a young boy hanging with a rope around his neck, soundtracked by yodelling.
Building up to what would eventually be 15 miles of walking that day, we shuffled off to another corner of town to visit the gorgeously dilapidated (we’re talking decaying silk wallpaper and lamp-lit courtyard vibes) Palazzo Tiepolo Passi for curator / theatre-opera director Fabio Cherstich’s group exhibition ‘Amigos y amigas’. Pairing a group of East Village artists from the 80s with a group of contemporary Milanese artists, the show is a triumph with highlights including Marlboro carton paintings by Roberto Juarez (pictured with Cherstich), horny drawings of naked men in platform heels by Patrick Angus, and a new discovery for us: Arch Connelly, whose spider web faux pearl work stole our hearts.
Of course, we made a beeline for the show on everyone’s lips (because nobody can quite pronounce the artist’s surname): Pierre Huyghe’s solo ‘Liminal’ at Punta della Dogana, Pinault Collection. The presence of a sleeping visitor in front of one of the moving image works and a group of Chanel-clad HNWIs using their phone torches to ruin everyone else’s pitch-black and anxiety-inducing experience aside, this was a sublime show exploring post-humanism while grappling with super intelligence.
Later that day, the British set stormed Santa Maria della Pietà for a Peter Hujar solo backed by Pace. We ate shards of aged parmesan washed down with prosecco in cheap plastic cups alongside Frieze’s Andrew Durbin, Maureen Paley, Independent Art Fair’s Elizabeth Dee, The Art Newspaper’s Kabir Jhala, writer Lisette May Monroe, Plaster’s Harriet Lloyd-Smith, and collectors Roland and Jane Cowan.
After being rejected from Jago Rackham’s favourite restaurant, Cantina Do Spade, we ended up at ‘I’m Not Afraid of Ghosts’, a group show curated by recently departed Phillips chairwoman Svetlana Marich and Goldsmith CCA’s Sarah McCrory, as well as assistant curator and one half of Kollectiv Collective, Sash Shevchenko. The free-flowing champagne and cocktails were apparently catered by Chiltern Firehouse, which “makes a change from Ottolenghi” as we overheard one guest mutter on the stairs… not that we’ve actually ever seen Ottolenghi cater a party – quite a fab idea?
Bumping into Michael Ho with High Art’s Jason Hwang, artist Gray Wielebinski, curator and writer Nimco Kulmiye Hussein, Frieze’s Matthew Mclean and Vanessa Peterson, Art Monthly’s Chris McCormack, Gagosian’s Harry Thorne, Ilenia Rossi, Tate’s Polly Staple, Sam Talbot with Louisa Buck, and curator-foodie Livia Nervi, we lurked in the smoking area where chat inevitably turned to plans for the week ahead and why no one from the London scene had been invited to Mendes Wood DM’s “Pirate Party”…
The week’s hottest accessory was undoubtedly the Burberry print bags for John Akomfrah’s British Pavilion (subject of the hottest magazine/editorial launch this week, Plaster’s Venice special print issue). In the hopes of acquiring one of these coveted totes, we attended the ribbon cutting event / Rastafarian libation blessing on the pavilion steps, alongside a congregation of around 500. With ululations, drums, shell shakers and rhythmic polyphonic song interspersed with cries of Rastafari! we were having a brill Wednesday morning until someone from the Ministry for Culture came on and proceeded to talk about global affairs, mentioning “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine” but strangely omitting to mention the genocide in Palestine… John Akomfrah himself brought the mood back from the brink, shouting out Trevor Mathison and comparing the exhibition’s journey to an African parable “about help and care and love and support”, while curator Tarini Malik shed a tear.
Prominent people seen foot tapping to the libation in the crowd included artist Sola Oluode, Black Blossoms’ Bolanle Tajudeen – both awe-struck by an ethereal Diane Abbott who materialised at the end – previous Golden Lion winner Sonia Boyce, curator Andrew Bonacina, BBC’s Mike McKenzie and collectors Raimund Berthold and Paul Ettlinger.
Despite it being the press view, where presumably press are supposed to be able to easily bop between the pavilions and see actual art, the queues were insane – probably because the Biennale was flogging VIP tickets to collector-adjacent individuals for the crazy sum of €500. Tempted to see at least one pavilion before ditching, we persevered – in part inspired by a young collector who told us they were determined “to vape in every pavilion I go to”. Sadly never catching this in the act, we did notice a faint scent of Watermelon Bubblegum in several pavs – most notably South Korea, mingling not unpleasantly with the “scent journey” promised by artist Koo Jeong A. It was at this pavilion where we bumped into one of the most stylish biennale attendees – we’d been eyeing up his Richard Prince x Louis Vuitton bag on the Easyjet flight two days prior. We couldn’t help but compliment the archive purse. “Oh this?” he said. “I introduced Marc Jacobs to Richard [Prince]”. Turns out it was Anthony Fawcett, a legend of the avant-garde scene, previously personal assistant to Yoko Ono. Slay!
We would be remiss not to mention some other highlights from the Venny B: WangShui’s gorgeously otherworldly hand-etched metal panels blocking light from the last room of the Arsenale’s main exhibition; Aleksandra Denić’s ‘Exposition Coloniale’ in the Serbian Pavilion, which included a Louis Vuitton-print toilet and our favourite hippie Coca Cola ad on repeat; the small white Dean Sameshina work reading Anonymous Homosexual that was IG storied many times; Iva Lulashi’s ghostly, sexy paintings representing Albania; tactile hand-carved wooden sculptures by Chaouki Choukini in the main show; Șerban Savu’s array of tender paintings in the Romanian Pavilion, elegantly flush-mounted in a grey wall; and young Libyan artist Nour Jaouda’s rich wall-based textile works, watched over by proud mammas Grace Schofield and Nigel Dunkley, strategically holding court nearby.
Readers, you won’t believe the hoops we had to jump through to attend the 80th birthday party Rick Owens threw for Michèle Lamy on Weds eve. Affectionately known as ‘hun’ because she reminds Rick of Atilla (obsessed) the party was branded as HUN80 and boats were said to be leaving from the “San Marco area” from 10:30pm. After an hour’s wait in the elements on a rickety pontoon with about 200 others, we found ourselves sitting next to Martine Syms in a vaporetto travelling at speed across the open water. Pulling into the waterway in front of an abandoned airport on the Lido we saw… two more enormous queues. Noticing a few solitary figures looking suspicious in the dark, we left the group and found someone slipping unnoticed through the iron railings on the perimeter. Following suit, and having skipped the 500-strong queue (sorry to anyone who queued and didn’t make it in… it’s dog eat dog out here), our elation quickly dissipated as we found ourselves in yet another queue.
Was this a cruel joke?! Ready to pack it in and swim back to the mainland, we were saved by a moment of weakness on the part of security who let a handful of us into a smoke-filled warehouse filled with revellers – we are talking, with sincerity, fully Boschian apparitions. Topless tatted skeletal men in beanies, all completely fucked, wrestled with each other behind a bar that had run out of beer and was just serving shots and HUN80-branded red bull. Iconic. Naked white-painted androgynous dancers in long black wigs gyrated on top of platforms while subculture icons Fecal Matter let loose raging techno mixes of Smells like Teen Spirit.
Moshing front right, Rick suddenly appeared next to us – ethereal and benevolent – beaming with joy to see Hun herself grinding on stage with a ghoulish dancer in a tiny thong. While Honey Dijon warmed up for their set we noted Emergent magazine’s Albert Galceran and Lore Alender, artists Hannah Tilson and Billy Parker, and The Toe Rag’s Sophie Barshall in the crowd, swimming in and out of focus. A glowing red aluminium branded truck outside was serving scrambled egg and caviar sandwiches; grabbing a couple we dodged an ambulance and police boat to pile into a vaporetto back to Earth… ready to catch a couple of winks before the dawn of a new (working) day.
“By Thursday”, one battle-scarred gallerist told us, “biennale week is just about survival” – and boy oh boy dear readers, we were feeling it. The vibes were uncouth to say the least, with one PR, espresso in hand, brazenly announcing, “I’m so done, I need to have sex tonight” while an editor, watching their videographer pack up and lighting up a Marlboro, said “God, I filed my Venice review after blitzing round in 20 minutes last night, it’s utter shit, but hey-ho, I’m getting fucked UP tonight”. Classy!
Stories of bosses catching hard-working employees “smoking in pyjamas at a random hotel at 5 am… networking” were rife, with many unfortunate individuals falling foul of the inescapable inaccessibility of Venice, i.e. “I accidentally slept with someone on the wrong side of the island and had to make it 40 mins across town for 9 am to meet an Italian art dealer dropping off some collages”. We noted that mindlessness was in full effect as one hot young artist popped over for a cappuccino to ask advice (“I can’t remember if I took my PREP? Would it be bad to take four in one day?”) and a collector vacantly picked up and polished off our pistachio croissant from the cafe counter, forcing us to purchase another to avoid confrontation. On the street, we caught the words “It’s not giving Golden Lion, it’s giving golden shower” drifting on the wind… we would truly give anything to know what this was about.
We decided to ease into the day by visiting one London gallerist’s “favourite place to smoke in Venice” – the tranquil Peggy Guggenheim Collection and its plethora of works by modern masters like Jackson Pollock, Leonor Fini and Alexander Calder – not to mention Guggenheim’s iconic earrings with dangling micro paintings by surrealist Yves Tanguy. But it was their temporary Jean Cocteau survey that enlivened the crowd in the (smoke-filled) outdoor cafe. Featuring a plethora of unashamedly erotic drawings, the show charted Cocteau’s fascinating bohemian life in full detail – including a Coco Chanel-funded spell in rehab after a spell of opium addiction. His self-portrait drawings depicting the effects of withdrawal are standouts from the week.
And that brings us to Friday, dear reader, and a mere two and half days left in Dante’s inferno before we can breathe London smog and take public transport again. We wish we could tell you about the plentiful chaotic biennale-adjacent events catering to the hangers-on and general public sashaying into Venice for the weekend, but we have a deadline to meet and Biennale belly to treat… until we meet again kiddos xx
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