They're Back... Visitors Embrace the 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition

How Will We Live Together? Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Yes, the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale has actually opened. About the same time, Italy relaxed much of its COVID restrictions, and humanity suddenly appeared in Venice again, as if on cue. Where did they all come from?

Biennale Architecture demands an answer to the question: How Will We Live Together? That theme had been announced in July 2019 by Hashim Sarkis, the Lebanese architect and director of Biennale Architecture, way back when a global pandemic and worldwide lockdown sounded like the premise of a Hollywood film.

And just like a Hollywood film that had merely stopped rolling the cameras for a lunch break, Venice is back in motion, with tourists wheeling suitcases and snapping selfies on bridges; outdoor tables full for lunch; travelers perusing the shops; tour guides cluttering up the calli waving rubber duckies on sticks, surrounded by clumps of followers; day-trippers sitting on church steps munching on sandwiches -- thousands of extras moving through town as if the director had just hollered: "Action!" and set the background atmosphere rolling again.

How will we live together? Tourists on the traghetto - Photo: Cat Bauer

Yesterday on the traghetto at San Tomà some tourists actually told me to sit down! (I was standing -- which is something perfectly normal to do on the traghetto -- because I wanted to hop off quickly to go to an appointment.) I said, "Wait -- you are telling me to sit down on the traghetto? Why?" They said, "So we can take photos of each other." I burst out laughing, and the gondoliers grinned. I said, "You're back! The tourists are actually back! Venice has returned to 'normal.' I'm going to take a photo of you with your smartphones and put you on my blog."

How Will We Live Together? - Photo: Cat Bauer

HOW WILL WE LIVE TOGETHER?

 

The Biennale Architecture normally takes place in even-numbered years, and the Art Exhibition in odd-numbered years, so that is an another reset for the archives: 2020 - The Year There was No Biennale due to a Global Pandemic. There are more installations than architectural projects this year, which makes visiting the current Biennale more interesting for the average visitor without a background in architecture -- like me.

It makes me happy just to be able to stride through the Corderie inside the Arsenale once again and marvel at how the ancient shipyard has been transformed into a massive exhibition space with architects from all over the planet pondering How Will We Live Together? 

I love that dignitaries arrive in Venice from different countries to open their national pavilions, like mini embassies ready for diplomacy. (Unfortunately, there are no prosecco corks being popped as there are still many regulations in place -- wearing a mask inside and out is strictly enforced.)

 

Hashim Sarkis, Director of Biennale Architecture - Photo: Cat Bauer

If you read the articles that have been written about the exhibition, it seems to have gotten mixed reviews. Here are some of the diverse headlines, with links to the stories:

• Architectural Record - Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 Opens with Signs of Optimism

• Architectural Review - Outrage: the Venice Biennale makes a mess
  

• New York Times - The Venice Biennale, Twice Delayed, Takes on New Relevance

• Associated Press - From Gaza to Chile, Biennale Asks How We Will Live Together

• The Guardian - Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 review – a pick’n’mix of conceptual posturing

In conjunction with the opening of Biennale Architecture there has been a slew of other openings in museums, palaces, foundations, galleries and institutions -- so many that it will take some time to cover them all. 

Venice is bursting with art right now. Fortunately, many exhibitions will run for the length of the Biennale, until November 21; others even run into 2022. You could spend weeks in Venice this season and still not see everything, there is so much on show. It is impressive how much creativity occurred behind the scenes during the pandemic. 

ISRAEL PAVILION - Land. Milk. Honey: Animal Stories in Imagined Landscapes

Israel Pavilion - Photo: Cat Bauer

Israel was one of my favorite pavilions because it told a vivid story and packed an emotional punch. Following the lives of five different types of animals -- cows, goats, honey bees, water buffalo and bats -- Land of Milk and Honey - The Construction of Plenitude examines the impact that aggressive urbanization and mechanized agriculture had on the natural environment of Palestine-Israel when man literally tried to turn a Biblical promise into reality in the 20th century. 

From the Israel Pavilion Biennale description:

...the environment was reshaped by urbanization, infrastructural projects, mechanized agriculture, intensive afforestation, and the manipulation of animal bodies into food-producing machines. The preference of yield and the transformation of the land came at the cost of irreparable damage to natural habitats and to the local fauna and flora, as well as the disruption of human ways of living. 

Our zoocentric exhibition offers a sober look at a land radically transformed by the combined powers of ideology and technology, and emphasizes the need to establish a new contract between humans, animals and the environment, thus addressing the Biennale Architettura 2021’s key theme – How will we live together?

The Pavilion is divided into five acts: Mechanization, Territory, Cohabitation, Extinction, and the Post-Human, which tells the story of human impact on the land and the animals. The ground floor features art installations, models, videos and other documentation. 

I was riveted by the image of one of the last hunter-gatherers of the region before the agricultural revolution kicked in -- a young woman who died 14,500 years ago at about age 35 and was buried in a fetal position with a puppy curled up near her head. 

On the top floor, the full impact of the installation hits you as mechanized drawers open like those in a morgue, revealing bodies of the taxidermy animals from the region. What stunned me was when one drawer opened and revealed that actual skeleton of the 14,500-year-old woman and her puppy described on the ground floor. I asked if she had a name, and it seemed like she did not, so I called her "Anna" and the puppy "Toto." 

Anna & Toto - Israel Pavilion - Photo: Cat Bauer

From the Press Release:

Title: Land Of Milk And Honey: The Construction Of Plenitude
Commissioner: Michael Gov, Arad Turgeman
Curators: Dan Hasson, Iddo Ginat, Rachel Gottesman, Yonatan Cohen, Tamar Novick
Exhibitors: Dan Hasson, Iddo Ginat, Rachel Gottesman, Yonatan Cohen, Tamar Novick, Netta Laufer, Shadi Habib Allah, Daniel Meir, Apollo Legisamo, Adam Havkin

The exhibition investigates the relations between humans and animals: quoting a biblical line, “Land Of Milk And Honey” highlights the role of urbanization and technology in reshaping natural landscape with far-reaching environmental consequences in Palestine-Israel in the twentieth century. The exhibition aims to offer an overview on the matter and a call to action to establish new contacts between humans, animals, and the environment. 

LITHUANIAN PAVILION - Lithuanian Space Agency: Planet of People

Planet of People at Lithuanian Pavilion - Photo: Cat Bauer

Right now, a 3D scanned image of my body is floating around as part of a fictional planet made out of people over at the Lithuanian Pavilion, which is not in Giardini or Arsenale, but in the Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti Church in Castello close to Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo. 

Julijonas Urbonas founded the Lithuanian Space Agency (LSA), to venture into a fictional outer space. I tried having a conversation with the man, but it was sort of like talking to an alien. Here is his background:

Julijonas Urbonas is an artist, designer, researcher, engineer, founder of Lithuanian Space Agency, associate professor at Vilnius Academy of Arts, PhD student in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London. Former Prorector at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Former Director of a Soviet amusement park in Klaipeda.

From the installation:

The LSA is an organisation for research into space architecture and gravitational aesthetics. It is an astro-disciplinary initiative that aims to advance the extraterrestrial imagination. 

...Instead of sending humans to colonise other planets, what if we catapult them into empty space to create a new celestrial formation from their bodies -- a planet of people? What architectural, cultural and socio-political implications would the realisation of the project have on humanity? 

...The prototype consists of a 3D scanner that scans the participants of the experiment and 'sends' them into space as animated simulations. As more and more people participate throughout the trial run in Venice, their scanned bodies begin to form a planet....

3D Cat - On my way to the Planet of People

You walk into the church and get a ticket from the machine as soon as you enter. The ticket is a sheet of paper more than three feet long with a number on it, as well as a description of the installation and several other projects that Urbonas has worked on, including an Euthanasia Coaster "engineered to take the life of a human being with elegance and euphoria."

You wait until your number comes up, then step into the center of the scanner and strike a pose. The next thing you know, you're floating into outer space to join other participants at the Venice Biennale in creating a Planet of People. 

From the installation:

PLEASE NOTE: by entering the scanner, you agree that your image will remain as part of the ongoing project Planet of People until the end of the biennial. Once scanned, your image cannot be deleted. Please talk to the agency's assistants for further information and instructions.

You are welcome to visit the installation without being scanned.

The 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition How Will We Live Together? sponsored by Rolex runs through November 21, 2021 and is closed on Mondays. Go to La Biennale di Venezia for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog