Venice biennale 2022

I wrote this back in 2022, and somehow I forgot to publish it. In a few days I’ll put up my review of the 2024 Biennale.

Sunset on Giudecca, one of Venice’s islands, is the same colour as my Aperol Spritz, the alcopop version of Campari.

I’m sitting waiting for the water ferry, the vaporetto, back to the main island.

I’m beginning to get the hang of the boat system. A pass for all transport in the area is 25 euros for 24 hours. You must wear a mask, and you must validate the pass before using it. I saw an inspector and they take pleasure in fining unwary tourists. It’s worth buying a pass as one way on a boat costs 9.50. A gondola or taxi costs 75 euros nowadays.

I’m here for the Biennale, the art exhibition which takes over the whole of Venice every two years. I can’t believe I haven’t done this before.

This is a great way to explore Venice. You get access to buildings you wouldn’t normally never see. The inside of Venice rather than just the exterior.

Venice is chocolate box beautiful. A relentless series of picture postcard views of swooping humped bridges, gondolas manned by men in straw boaters and striped T-shirts, apricot hues, arabic windows, glinting water, archways, iron work, candlelit tables al fresco. 

It’s not cheap. I stayed in a shared room, shared with two others, a shared bathroom and no breakfast, which cost 70 euros a night, per person

I lived on cicchetti, the Venetian mash-up between Danish open sandwiches and tapas. These cost between 1.50 and 3.5 euros each. 

The food in the restaurants is not great, unless you have the money to eat at some of the posher places like Harry’s Bar, where a pasta primo (starter) will cost you over 40 euros. I finally forked out at one trattoria for a hot dinner. I got the Venetian speciality, bigotti alle sarde; thick spaghetti pasta with sardines and onions. It was horrible. I like salt but this was inedible. There was only one flavour and that was overwhelmingly sardine.

The biennale is like Disneyland for intellectuals. Every exhibit or installation is a ride. The theme this year is ‘The milk of dreams’ something thought up by Leonora Carrington, a British female painter. Most countries in the world have a pavilion where a chosen artist is shown. Russia’s pavilion is empty and shut though, for obvious reasons. Must suck to be Russian right now. Years of waiting for your chance to be the artist, or the Olympian, and you don’t get to go because of the war.

Refreshingly, most artists are women. Other themes are virtual reality; Greece and Georgia are of note. I’ve done a bit of VR before, with goggles and headphones, and frankly it was a bit crap. Now though, VR is growing up and will only get better. It felt like being in a waking dream, floating along, flying, skating across a lagoon, picking letters off trees, or in the case of Greece, skidding effortlessly into a refugee landscape of old blind men, saucer-eyed children, women in headscarves, like a folk fairytale. 

Venice consists of dozens of islands, Giudecca is a break from the – Oxford street on a Saturday afternoon – nightmare of the main part of Venice – the tourist track to Piazza San Marco. I visited Murano, famed for coloured glass but extremely expensive. I’ve seen cheaper in London.

Burano is the island of coloured houses, San Severino features an old monastery now a university campus. 

It’s nice to see the working city side of Venice; rush hour is a sweaty show of commuters shoving each other aside after a long day, to get onto the boat.  The boat/ambulance, urgently flashing blue as they race down the canal to an emergency; a crane on a barge; a funeral casket on a black gondola; market traders prepping artichoke bottoms (6 for 5 euros) while bobbing on the canal. 

The Rialto market has some unusual fruit and vegetables, attractively presented: bouquets of flame coloured pepperoncino; green citrus with Campari -coloured interiors; green, purple and white cauliflowers, so pretty you want to put them in a vase. 

The fish section reveals large neat netted balls of shellfish, squiggles of squid, upended Octopus, anus revealed in porno sucker splendour. Swordfish gasp in shock, agape, nose parried into the air. Cellophane sausages of herb mixtures with I love Venice wooden spoons attached for the souvenir crowd.

You can smell the saline sea in the air, at times you are obliged to splash through deep puddles in the Piazza San Marco. Children have fun there, a paddling pool in a historic site.

The hand blown pink glass in street lights is fancy and aesthetically gorgeous, while the midges and mosquitoes feast on my sweet blood from four pm onwards.

The merchants of Venice must be making a small fortune: buy glasses and velvet slippers, ruffs and leather gloves.

For years I always ordered the Veneziana pizza from Pizza Express, no cheese plus pine nuts, black olives, capers and sultanas, to help shore up Venice. One of my favourite films is set in Venice: Don’t Look Now, the ghostly atmosphere is drawn directly from the mists, water, reflections.

On my last night, it rained so hard I was soaked to the skin; and my laptop, in my day pack, malfunctioned, neccessitating a new one.

The Art:

There are two main sites, the Giardini and the Arsenale. A ticket is 25 euros for these two main halls while the rest of the exhibits and national pavilions are scattered around and are free. I loved the work of South African self-portrait photographer Somnyama Ngonyama below.

Here is a selection of works from different artists across the biennale. I wasn’t methodical in documenting names of artists and titles. Just to give you a flavour.

The journey:

This trip from London to Rome, Sicily and Venice, then back to London was all by train using the Global pass with Interrail. It’s a lovely way to travel. I took several sleepers. I was there in peak season in August so some bookings were difficult. At other times of the year, it’s easier.