Notes on the Venice Biennale, 2022

The 59th Biennale is a biennale of firsts: the first black women to represent the UK and the US, the first main exhibition to overwhelming consist of female artists, and the first curated by an Italian woman. To walk through miles of art, to see colossal works both in scale and in historical value (“Milk of Dreams”, the main exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani, features works by Leonora Carrington (from whose work the title of the show comes from) and Paula Rego among others), was breathtaking and strangely intimate. Like in a casino, time stopped existing and the season was only indicated by the layers worn by visitors.

The work, across the board, was resilient, and determined, drawing on extraordinary histories and stories to weave together vision and clarity for a better future. There was a boldness, in the Korean pavilion’s exploration of kinetic technology and infinite creation, a poignancy in the empty Russian pavilion abandoned by the artist and curators who withdrew sparing the Biennale from a moral dilemma, and a feeling of fruition as so many works and collaborations have been realised after years, sometimes decades, of refinement (Latvia’s pavilion is an international collaboration born in 1999 between Inguna Skuja and Melissa D. Braden.)

In a post-pandemic world, a world increasingly affected by (and in tune with the effects) of the climate crisis, and one in which desperation and frustration have led to outpourings and explosions of grief, desire, passion and creativity, the very geographical location of the Biennale felt as much part of the art as anything else. The sinking city of Venice welcomed dolphins briefly during the lockdowns, and as I walked along those same canals, hopping and skipping over puddles and waves that flooded the pavements, I mused at the 1,500 year old city built on thousands of wooden piles sustaining an epicentre of art and culture. Canvas originated in Venice, it was the birthplace, school, and playground of Titian, Tintoretto and Basaiti, as deep as the wooden piles are sunk into the mudflats, so deep is art entrenched into the city. Where better to showcase the defining spirits, thoughts, complexes and narratives of generations of artists, to simultaneously mirror, predict, and critique the age?