Not an Architect? 9 Personal Picks of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 for Curious Minds

Intelligens Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 curated by Carlo Gatti 
Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) On May 8, 2025, I walked out of the Venice Architecture Biennale pre-opening press conference and into the spring sunshine. I judged that the line stretching down Ramo de la Tana to enter the exhibition at Arsenale to be a wait of at least a half hour. I frowned. What to do?

One of those pretty girl-art-groupies scooted over to me, waving a flyer. "Go visit Iceland's pavilion! It's right outside the entrance!" The flyer had the word "LAVAFORMING" scrawled across the top of a volcanic eruption.

I liked her style. 

The Iceland Pavilion - Outside Arsenale

So, I found the Icelandic Pavilion, which I didn't even know existed (national pavilions that aren't permanent constructions in Giardini pop up in all sorts of places around Venice). 

Inside, a film was already playing. I sat down just to kill some time, but the clever animation and compelling narration pulled me in:

"...According to local folklore, Iceland was inhabited with two populations -- humans (mannfòlk) and the hidden people (huldufòlk). The hidden people lived in rocks and cliffs, and only a few humans could see them or their prosperous and magically bright abodes and shiny halls.

After we mastered Lavaforming, people began wondering if this folklore had been a branch of the future that wandered off. A past memory of a distant future.

Iceland lies on top of one of Earth's great mantle plumes, channeled by the movements of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Icelandic volcanoes frequently erupt and some are notorious -- such as Mt. Hekla, considered the gate to Hell in medieval times.

During a series of eruptions in 2021, known as the Reykjanes Fires, we had to monitor and understand the flow of lava, and eventually learn how to divert the magma away from critical infrastructures..." 

Lavaforming - Icelandic Pavilion

The film went on to explain how molten lava can be harnessed as a valuable resource and used as a sustainable construction material to build everything from homes to entire cities. 

I was confused. Was this fact or fiction? I knew Iceland had real volcanoes. I remembered when the Eyjafjalljòkull volcano shut down air traffic all over Europe back in 2010.

Perhaps....It slowly dawned on me that maybe the film had been written by a novelist. That would explain the compelling narrative voice. If so, what a clever idea! 

Architecture is such a difficult concept to convey to the average person -- all sorts of diagrams and mathematical equations and models that make your eyes glaze over. By using the storytelling skills of a novelist, the technical information was transformed into language a child could understand.

I wanted to know if my theory was correct. I dashed around the pavilion trying to find someone who knew the answer until I stumbled on a woman with a microphone. 

Sure enough, the author's name is Andrew Snær Magnason, one of Iceland's most prominent contemporary authors. He’s not only a novelist, he also writes plays, short stories, essays, and poetry. He's received the Icelandic Literary Prize in all categories: fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature. 

Magnason also wrote an obituary for the first glacier Iceland lost to climate change.

Geldingadalir, 2021 © Thrainn Kolbeinsson

I wish more architects would use novelists to write their descriptions. One of the main complaints in the reviews I've read about this year's Architecture Biennale is how complicated and time-consuming the project descriptions are. There were QR codes, which I (and others) found annoying that utilized AI to condense the descriptions. I prefer the human touch.

The film Lavaforming takes place 100 years in the future, but the experiments to harness lava as a sustainable construction material are taking place in Iceland today. Created by Arnhildur Pálmadóttir and her team, I thought Lavaforming was one of the most exciting concepts at Architecture Biennale, so don't miss it. 

First, Some Basics

Necto, 3D knitted natural fibers by SO - IL, Mariana Popescu, and The Green Eyl - Photo: Cat Bauer

The Biennale Architecture Exhibition is divided across two venues, Giardini and Arsenale. The Giardini was a public garden created by Napoleon in the early 1800s. The Arsenale was Venice's main naval shipyard where the Republic could crank out a ship a day. 

You can walk from the exit of one venue to the entrance of the other in about 10-15 minutes. But once inside, both the Arsenale and Giardini are vast spaces that can be overwhelming. 

 
Each venue is made up of two sections. 

 

One section is dedicated to the International Exhibition curated by Carlo Ratti titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. These projects are chosen by Ratti and follow his theme. This year there are more than 750 participants. 

Normally the curator's projects are located in the Cordiere in Arsenale, and in the Central Pavilion at Giardini. But this year, the Central Pavilion is under reconstruction, so they're all jammed into Cordiere, and other venues around town. 

The other section is dedicated to National Participations. These are installations presented by different nations across the globe. This year there are 66 National Participations -- 26 permanent pavilions at Giardini (Israel, Russia, and Venezuela are closed); 25 at the Arsenale, and 15 in the city center of Venice. 

The National Participants can follow the theme of the curator if they want to, or they can do whatever they like. This year Ratti's theme seemed like it had a solid impact that influenced the projects of many nations.

 

ENTERING THE ARSENALE

 

The Third Paradise Perspective - Corderie

The 19th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale -- the world's largest and most important event for architecture -- is summed up by these opening words of the curator, Carlo Ratti at the entrance to the Corderie, a vast structure -- more than 1,200 feet long -- where the Republic of Venice used to make rope for its ships:

Architecture has always been a response to climate -- an act of shelter, survival, and optimism. From the first primitive huts to the submerged foundations of Venice, human design has evolved in dialogue with nature.

Today, that evolution is no longer a choice but a necessity: climate change is not a future scenario, but a present reality.

We must adapt. Adaptation demands every form of intelligence -- natural, artificial, collective. Not individual genius, but collaborative insight. Nor rigid solutions, but flexible ecosystems.

In the face of an altered world, architecture must adapt itself -- venturing into uncharted terrain.

When you step into the first room, that uncharted terrain smacks you right in the face. The room is dark. First, you are hit by the heat and humidity. Your eyes adjust. You realize you are surrounded by thigh-high pools of inky, black water. Air conditioning units and fans hang overhead. The path forward is not straight. You must walk around the edge of a circle.

I was completely disoriented, and almost fell into the black water.

Now, after doing some research at Cittadellarte, it starts to make some sense -- the actual level of the thigh-high water in "The Third Paradise Perspective" installation is 70cm, the projected sea level in Venice by 2100. 

In fact, once you understand some of the thought behind the opening room, then Carlo Gatti's title for the entire architecture exhibition -- Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. -- becomes clearer.

Third Paradise

Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, a founder of the Arte Povera movement and creator of the non-profit Cittadellarte organization, turned 92-years-old in June. In 2003, he created the Third Paradise based on a reconfigured infinity sign.

What is the Third Paradise? Pistoletto explains:

It is the fusion between the first and second paradise.

The first is the paradise in which humans were fully integrated into nature.

The second is the artificial paradise developed by human intelligence to globalizing proportions through science and technology. This paradise is made of artificial needs, artificial products, artificial comforts, artificial pleasures, and every other form of artifice....

The Third Paradise is the third phase of humanity, realized as a balanced connection between artifice and nature. The Third Paradise is the passage to a new level of planetary civilization, essential to ensure the survival of the human race. To this purpose we first of all need to re-form the principles and the ethical behaviors guiding our common life.

The Third Paradise is the great myth that leads everyone to take personal responsibility in the global vision.

The term "paradise" comes from the Ancient Persian and means "protected garden." We are the gardeners who must protect this planet and heal the human society inhabiting it.

As I've said, to me, Biennale Architecture always has difficulty in manifesting the architect's concept into something tangible that the average person with no background in architecture (like me) can understand. 

I wish I had had some knowledge of the "Third Paradise" before I visited the exhibition. Now, in retrospect, I think it was a intriguing idea to open the exhibition with the "The Third Paradise Perspective" -- if only the typical visitor knew what Pisoletto's symbol meant. 

Sadly, only after the date had passed did I realize that I had been invited to the official presentation of "Scanno, Terzo Paradiso" on May 10th at Querini Stampalia, and would have had the opportunity to actually meet Maestro Michelangelo Pistoletto, as well as the crew from the Cittadellarte Pisoletto Foundation. 

If you are planning to visit Biennale Architettura 2025, my advice would be to first brush up on Michaelange Pisoletto's the “Third Paradise." It holds the key to understanding Carlo Gatti's Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. Many other pavilions and projects (like Iceland) have variations on that theme as the foundation for their installations. 

Am I a Strange Loop? - Corderie
    

ALTER3 - Photo: Cat Bauer

There was so much chaos going on inside the Cordiere with 760 contributors(!) that the only project that stood out to my non-professional eyes was a creepy humanoid robot named ALTER3 that had no sense of humor. In the Am I a Strange Loop? installation you could have a conversation with it as it soaked up information about how humans behave when talking to a robot at an architecture festival. 

I would like to witness the robot's behavior near the end of Biennale Architecture to see if it has become more humanized. 

MORE NATIONAL PAVILIONS

The Holy See Pavilion - Venice Historic Center in Castello

The next day, before heading to Giardini where the permanent national pavilions are located, I went to have breakfast at the pavilion of the Holy See, which is based in the Ex Casa di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, a complex that dates back to around the year 1171. Back then, it was a hospice that accommodated pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. 

The complex has undergone many transformations over the centuries. In 2001, it was sold to the Comune of Venice, which has some sort of agreement with the Holy See that allows the building to be restored and turned into a community center. All kinds of organizations are participating in the project curated by Marina Otero Verzier and Giovanna Zabotti. 

During the six months of Biennale Architecture, the Holy See Pavilion will be repaired, reinvented, and revitalized with a special focus on young musicians. Feel free to stop by and see what they're up to.

The Qatar Pavilion - Giardini & Venice Historic Center at Accademia

Qatar temporary pavilion, Community Center, designed by Yasmin Lari - Photo: Cat Bauer

In February of 2025, a few months before Qatar gave President Donald Trump a luxury jet to use as Air Force One, it was announced that Qatar would build a permanent national pavilion in Giardini. It was a bold stride onto the global cultural stage.

There have only been two permanent pavilions constructed in Giardini during the last 50 years -- Australia and the Republic of Korea. All together, there are 29 other permanent national pavilions in Giardini. The Qatar pavilion will bring the number up to 30.

Until the dust settles, right now there is a temporary Qatar pavilion on the site where the permanent one will go. I was curious to see what was going on so I stopped there first. I loved the energy from the moment I stepped inside. 

I said, "This has female energy!" 

The man in charge said, "You are exactly right. In fact, the woman who created the pavilion has just arrived. Come. I'll introduce you to her."

Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan's first female architect - Photo: Cat Bauer

At age 84, Yasmin Lari is dynamic and inspiring. There's a phrase in Arabic, "Bayti Baytak," which translates to "My Home is Your Home," and that is what it the pavilion feels like. The temporary installation is a bamboo structure, created with bamboo that was sourced in Italy. 

Yasmin Lari is not from Qatar. She is Pakistan's first female architect, best known for using architecture for social justice. In 2023, she won the Royal Gold Medal for architecture awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2023.

For the design of her Community Center, Lari used techniques that she deployed as part of relief efforts prompted by the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, an organization she co-founded in 1980.

Events inside the Community Centre throughout the duration of the Biennale Architettura 2025 focus on traditional Qatari forms of welcome, including the serving of coffee and dates. 

I had the most delicious dates I've ever tasted, washed down with a delicious cup of coffee. In fact, I had two helpings. The fellow in charge of preparing the treat said he had tried to get dates from Italy, but couldn't, so he ordered them from Iran. 

Remember, this was in May, before the 12 DAY WAR between Iran and Israel. I hope we can still get them!

The pavilion was commissioned by the 42-year-old Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who is the Chairperson of Qatar Museums, and the sister of ruling Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. 

The two-part exhibition explores how forms of hospitality are embodied in the architecture and urban landscapes of the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA).

The other and more formal part of Beyti Beytak is over at Palazzo Franchetti at the foot of the Accademia Bridge.

The permanent Qatar pavilion will be designed by Lina Ghotmeh, a Lebanese-born architect and founder of Lina Ghotmeh Architecture in Paris.

If the goal is to advance cultural diplomacy, Qatar is off to a good start. 

The US Pavilion - Giardini

Folks having fun on The Porch at the US Pavilion during Biennale Architecture pre-opening
Photo: Cat Bauer

The first permanent pavilion at the Venice Biennale was, naturally, Italian, opened in 1895 in the presence of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita di Savoia. The next national pavilion was Belgium in 1907. Then came Hungary (1909), Germany (1909), Great Britain (1909), France (1912), and Russia (1914). 

The countries built and owned the buildings. And then came World War I, and the Biennale was cancelled between 1916 and 1918.  

The US Pavilion was built in 1930. It was privately owned, unlike other pavilions that were built by governments. According to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection:

In 1986, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, purchased the US Pavilion from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, with funds provided by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Advisory Board. Since 1986, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection has worked with the United States Information Agency (USIA), the Fund for Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, and currently with the Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State in the organization of the visual arts and architecture exhibitions at the US Pavilion. Prior to 2002 the architecture exhibitions were organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

The USIA was a US government agency devoted to propaganda. Although it was dismantled in 1999, it has an interesting history and has since morphed into other agencies. Throughout my years in Venice, the US Pavilion has remained active in trying to influence the global narrative. 

This year, PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity was delightfully propaganda-free, unless the message was that Americans like to live life outdoor on their porches and watch the world go by. I grew up with a fantastic porch on our summer property in Upstate New York, so I loved the message, which was very Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

During the pre-opening festivities, there was dancing and banjo playing and folk singing and kids swinging on porch chairs -- a welcoming atmosphere, full of good old-fashioned American charm.

The Austrian Pavilion - Giardini

The Austrian Pavilion - Agency for Better Living - Photo: Cat Bauer

I was fascinated by the Austrian Pavilion. Did you know that most people in Vienna live in rented homes? 

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Vienna has been growing rapidly. Yet life is affordable. Viennese social housing is a success story. 

While the housing market in other cities has been handed over to the private sector, Vienna has chosen a different path. The city deliberately combats land speculation and produces affordable homes. Vienna still has enough land reserves for inexpensive social housing. 

Today, the city faces new challenges like an aging population and increasing poverty. Here's a 2024 article from the Guardian that discusses both the good and the bad, The social housing secret: how Vienna became the world’s most livable city. 

The second story examined by the pavilion is that of informal housing in Rome, which has produced unique forms of housing and living by reusing rundown buildings and other elements. 

Agency for a Better Living imagines a future of better living for all with alternatives to speculative house building. I wish Venice would follow Austria's lead, and make more social housing available to its residents. 

The Bahrain Pavilion - Arsenale

The Bahrain Pavilion - Heatwave - Photo: Cat Bauer

I had an extended pass, so I went back to both the Giardini and Arsenale after the Biennale Architecture Exhibition opened to the public. The atmosphere was much less hectic and intense. I was glad that I could spend more time at the installations, but I also missed the festivities and excitement that are part of the pre-opening crowds.

By then, the Kingdom of Bahrain's Heatwave had won the Golden Lion, the top prize for best national participation. I had just dashed through the installation before, so I went back to see what it was all about. 

The "pavilions" inside Arsenale are not separate structures like they are in Giardini. You can drift from one space to another, not really knowing what pavilion you're in unless you make an effort to focus, which is sometimes difficult during the crowded pre-opening days. 

The Bahrain Heatwave installation was designed to provide cooling in public spaces for people who work outdoors in places like construction sites. It's a modular unit with seating made of sandbags. There are detailed descriptions of how the system functions, which I'm sure is fascinating if you're an engineer, which I am not. 

But I did enjoy lying on the sandbags and sharing the space with a community of other visitors, feeling the cool air on my face. 

The Luxembourg Pavilion - Arsenale

Luxembourg Pavilion - Sonic Investigations - Photo: Cat Bauer

My favorite pavilion turned out to the be last one. I almost didn't visit the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Pavilion because it's located in Arsenale up an escalator in a separate structure apart from the Cordiere.

The above image would be completely black if I hadn't I cranked up the photo with every filter on my iPad.

Outside the entrance of the Luxembourg Pavilion, Sonic Investigations describes itself as "an immersive, joyful and radical invitation to shift focus from the visual to the sonic." 

You enter a dark room. You can't see, and your eyes don't really adjust. After trying to figure out where you are and what you are supposed to do, you realize there is a large bed-like structure in the center of the room with people lying on it.

You fumble over. You lie down. Close your eyes. Slowly you realize that you not only hear sounds, you also feel vibrations.

"At the centre of the pavilion is a sound piece by field recordist Ludwig Berger. Entitled Ecotonalities: No Other Home Than the In-Between, the composition weaves together recordings from distinctive locations across Luxembourg."

Instead of visiting the landscape of Luxembourg with your eyes, you visit it as a soundscape. It is an immersive space. A sonic experience. You hear whispers and sounds of nature and sounds of man and machines while feeling matching vibrations. Your imagination lights up and provides the visual images.

Sonic Investigations fulfills its goal and is: "an immersive, joyful and radical invitation to shift focus from the visual to the sonic." I could have stayed in there for hours.

Inside Arsenale - Photo: Cat Bauer

Practical Information

We are only about halfway through La Biennale di Venezia 19th International Architecture Exhibition, which will close on Sunday, November 23, so you have plenty of time to see it, or revisit it. 

Pay attention to the opening hours:

The Venice Architecture Exhibition is always closed on Mondays in both venues, Giardini and Arsenale, EXCEPT on September 1, October 20, November 17.

Biennale Architecture 2025 is open on Tuesdays through Sundays from 11 am to 7 pm through September 28, EXCEPT at ARSENALE ONLY, which is open until 8 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

From September 30 to November 23 opening and closing hours are an hour earlier. Both venues are open on Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 am to 6 pm. 

Go to La Biennale for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog 

One Big Beautiful Billionaire Bezos Wedding in Venice

Bezos Wedding Base: The Aman Venice, set inside Palazzo Papadopoli on the Grand Canal
Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) It is astonishing to witness the almost non-stop English-language news about the Bezos wedding unfolding right in front of our eyes here in Venice. The media has taken frenzied reports about the Bezos wedding to a new level and warped reality into something unrecognizable. You would think nothing else was happening on the planet these days (like the US bombing Iran's nuclear sites, war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, etc.). 

Reality check: the average person walking the calli of Venice would not know there was a celebrity wedding going on. It is not impacting everyday life in Venice the way over-tourism and the lack of affordable housing does. 

Besides, everyday in life in Venice often includes yachts and celebrities arriving for events like the Venice Film Festival and the opening of the Venice Art and Architecture Biennale. Throughout the decades, every major Hollywood star from Clark Gable to Paul Newman to Timothée Chalamet has been in the lagoon. Weddings take place every day in Venice -- getting married in the lagoon is the dream of many couples. 

Paul Newman in Venice, 1963
Photo:Vittorio Pavan 

And the venues that Bezos is using are not exclusive. You can visit wedding venues like the Giorgio Cini Foundation on your own, you just couldn't barge into the Cini Foundation during the wedding celebration. But you can't barge into the Cini Foundation during many private occasions.  

In 2014, the Clooney wedding took place in the same place as the Bezos wedding, at Palazzo Papadopoli. Instead of protests, a group of locals used the extra media attention to form the Unlock Your Love project. We went around Venice snapping off hundreds of "love" locks that ignorant tourists had attached to Venice's bridges. 

In 2011, Lanza & Baucina, the same wedding planners that did the Bezos wedding, designed the billionaire Agarwal wedding, complete with elephant and Shakira, and no one said a word. 

In 2009, Salma Hayek had her big second-wedding bash with billionaire husband François-Henri Pinault and a bunch of celebrities, including Bono. The week after, the then-Prince Charles and Camilla arrived, with Charles contemplating "living like a Venetian" for a time.  
 

Ten years ago in June 2015, when Michele Obama, her mother, and daughters visited Venice, Les Wexner's notorious superyacht Limitless appeared in the lagoon at the same time. . 

The point is that celebrities and dignitaries and billionaires arrive in Venice all the time, and it's been that way for millennia. It is a significant venue on the world stage. In 1433, Cosimo de' Medici, then the world's richest man, stayed in the Benedictine monastery on the very Island of San Giorgio Maggiore where the Bezos wedding took place when he was exiled from Florence. Medici was so rich that he was credited for kickstarting the Renaissance. 

And Jakob Fugger (1459-1525), also known as Jakob the Rich, came of age in Venice at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Fugger's wealth adjusted to 2015 was estimated to be around $400 billion. Fugger was so rich that he loaned the Vatican the money to build St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.

Random tourists kiss for Unlock Your Love project during 2014 Clooney wedding
Photo: Cat Bauer

Last week, before the Bezos wedding, a few small groups of anti-Bezos protestors with handmade "No Space for Bezos" banners gathered to protest something -- I was not sure what, and I don't think they were, either. The handful of protestors were suddenly splashed across the international news as if there was a major upraising in Venice. It was blown up all out of proportion, and seemed very weird and manufactured.

A few days later, the locals were joined by professional outside activists, who know a good protest opportunity when they see one. The outsiders brought professional banners to promote their own causes. The media mistakenly reported that those outside protestors were locals, which they were not. 

When I told one Venetian woman, a hotel owner, I was going to write something about the wedding, she said, "Tell them that Venetians are used to aristocrats shopping next to them at the market. After the flood in November 2012, everyone helped each other, rich and poor. I don't know a single Venetian who agrees with the protestors. They are only two people and basta. We don't care."

Personally, I think there is plenty of space for Bezos, and I am glad that the lagoon is still a crucial spot on the global chessboard. Venice knows how to host popes and emperors, kings and queens, sheiks, high-level forums, and G7 summits. A bunch of billionaires already own a bunch of property here. 

It seemed that Bezos wedding suddenly was the topic of every podcast. The only pundit who appeared to have some wisdom and know the significance of Venice as a venue was Walter Kirn, on The Meghan Kelly Show. Kirn said:

"It was a Las Vegas wedding held against the backdrop of a civilized European city. It probably should have been held in the Las Vegas version of Venice, rather than the real version...

"Venice is a city of great commercial enterprise. It was a very rich city. All the ships of the world went out from Venice. The banking of the world was centered there. So, this is an attempt to take over with a new class the sort of old world charisma of this wonderful place. 

"...Everybody looked tacky. As you say, the guest list seemed to have been chosen by a PR firm...

"The great irony, and it's only known to some people over-educated like me, is that the ruler of Venice and the great palace of Venice was called the Doge. Remember that? The Doge Palace. The Doge of Venice. Where have we heard that word? ...I think that Elon and Jeff, as they are in space, are engaged in a coded confrontation...uh, competition with each other beyond all of our heads to be the world's billionaire..."

Another interesting note is that the reason that the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas even exists is because the late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, "the prolific pro-Israel donor" who gave $100 million to the Trump campaign, had their honeymoon here in Venice. They went back to Las Vegas, imploded the Sands Hotel, and completed the Venetian Resort in 1999. I remember at the time there was a lot of commotion about Las Vegas wanting to exploit the revered Lion of San Marco, the powerful symbol of Venice, for commercial purposes. 

Michelangelo river boat & Were Dreams yacht in Venice lagoon
Photo: Cat Bauer

I think yachts liven up the lagoon and am happy to see them here where we can keep an eye on them. There are yachts in Venice all the time. And it is not true that the yachts were taking up all the berths. Docked in front of the Were Dreams yacht was the riverboat Michelangelo. You regulars will remember that a similar riverboat, the River Countess, was slammed by the massive MSC Opera Cruise ship five years ago back in June 2019. Now, the River Countess has transformed into the S.S. La Venezia, completely redesigned with custom Fortuny fabrics and Murano glass elements, and the cruise ships are no longer barrelling down the Giudecca Canal. 

In fact, I've always supported the No Grandi Navi movement and Tommaso Cacciari, one of the protest leaders, as did masses of locals. I first covered the No Grandi Navi protests back in 2012, which felt organic and true. In 2015, I translated photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin’s open letter to the mayor of Venice when his cruise ship exhibition was forced to change venues. Back then there were real outside forces that latched onto the protests and tried to create division in Venice.

These days, Cacciari seems to be part of the No Space for Bezos protests, which, to me, seem engineered and manufactured. Again, I feel that Venetians are being used by outside forces to create a narrative. It wouldn't be the first time that happened. I mentioned this to a prominent Venetian Friday evening at a local event, and he said that he agreed and could not wait for the wedding to be over.

 

The anti-Bezos protestors claimed victory when one of the wedding venues was changed from the Scuola Grande della Misericordia to Arsenale. The protests may have had something to do with it, but I don't think that was the main reason for the venue change. 

On June 22, 2025, the US bombed three of Iran's nuclear sites as part of the Iran-Israel war. That same day, Bezos had a pre-wedding foam party on his yacht, Koru docked off the coast of Croatia. 

On June 23, in response to the US attack, at about 7pm local time Iran launched missiles at the US military base in Qatar, a neutral country. 

Did you know there are two military bases about an hour outside Venice? The US Army Garrison is in Vicenza, and the US Air Force base is in Aviano. Fun fact: B61 nuclear bombs are stored in underground storage systems inside aircraft shelters at Aviano. 

On June 23, the wedding venue was changed from Misericordia to Arsenale, which, to me, is a much nicer (and safer) location. The ancient shipyard is funky and full of life because La Biennale is always doing something interesting inside the space, like dance, theater, and music performances. It converts to a press room during Art and Architecture openings. In fact, last year, Diane von Furstenburg had her DVF Awards at Arsenale, complete with excellent dinner -- I ran into Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King in the ladies room!

Very early on June 24, President Donald Trump negotiated a rocky ceasefire between Israel and Iran. He declared that the official end to what should be called "THE 12 DAY WAR" would occur in approximately 6 hours.

Later on June 24, the ceasefire had been violated by both Israel and Iran. Trump was furious, and told reporters, "We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing." 

About midnight on June 24, 2025, THE 12 DAY WAR between Israel and Iran ended with a ceasefire. 

On June 25, the Bezos wedding guests started arriving, including President Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and their three children. A gaggle of Kardashians arrived. Jerry Seinfield(?!). Leonardo DiCaprio. Bill Gates. The eclectic list of wedding guests went on and on. With so many prominent potential American targets concentrated in one space, security needed to be top level — especially with the protestors adding an extra challenge.

Media covering Bezos wedding - Photo: Cat Bauer

I was curious about the reason for the global frenzy, so I visited some media people (not paparazzi) who were set up across the Grand Canal from Palazzo Papadopoli, where the Bezos are based.  I asked a fellow with a mike where he was from.

"Germany. Where are you from?"

"I'm American, but I live here. I'm a writer. Why are you here? Why all the media attention?"

The fellow chuckled. "Good question. They sent me here for three days and put me up in a very nice hotel, which is not cheap. This is not something that I usually cover. I'll talk to you in a second because right now I'm going on air and need to focus."

I waited.  

After a few minutes, he took a breath. "They're coming back to me so I still can't talk."

"Just two quick questions, and then I'll leave. How long ago did they give you this assignment?"

"A day, but that's normal."

"What do you usually cover?"

"The war in Ukraine. Bombing in Iran. Gaza. Stuff like that."

"That's what I thought. Thanks. Have fun!"

Aman Venice, prime location: Grand Canal at Rialto
Photo: Cat Bauer

Something I do agree with the protestors about is that Bezos has way too much money. That is not the fault of Venice -- it is up to the United States to regulate him. The US must change the laws so that one individual cannot accumulate so much wealth. Bezos must pay tax and give back to the country that made him billions. And not just Bezos... 

The problem with the protests was that it seemed like someone had come up with the tagline “No Space For Bezos” and then they tried to jam the narrative to fit that framework. "They booked all the water taxis." Not true. "They booked all the 5-star hotels." Not true. The initial protest narrative was just not true -- the wedding did not disrupt everyday life in Venice. However, the international news coverage of the Bezos wedding was a distraction from THE 12 DAY WAR going on in the background. 

After the protests managed to focus on the vast discrepancies of wealth between the few and the many, and how billionaires spend their money (does one really need a sailing yacht longer than a football field?), the global conversation became more interesting, and we can thank Venice for that.

Gondola in front of Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Photo: Cat Bauer

The government of the Republic of Venice was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy, a group of noble families, headed by a Doge. For the most part, they were extremely wealthy merchants and all had the same equal title of "Nobleman." The title was abbreviated N.H., Nobilis Homo for men, and N.D. Nobilis Domina for women. 

The Venetian nobility not only set the rules for the Republic, they also kept each other in check. Legend says that the reason that gondolas are black was because they had become too ostentatious when families tried to outdo each other with their wealth.

From the book, Venice, A Documentary History 1450-1630, edited by David Chambers and Brian Pullan:

"English travellers were impressed by the tendency of Venetian...nobles to go in for conspicuous investment in building or parks, in things that lasted and could be kept in families, rather than for conspicuous consumption on clothing, feasting and large retinues of servants." 

Since 1299, laws had been issued to restrain ostentation and lavish spending. By 1515, things had gotten so far out of hand that a special magistracy was created by the Venetian Senate to enforce them. 

"A MAGISTRACY TO ADMINISTER SUMPTUARY LAWS, 1515

It can be plainly seen, and it has come to our attention, that in the city of Venice there is much gross and unnecessary expenditure on meals and banquets, on the adornment of women, and on the decoration of houses, so that fortunes are squandered and a bad example is set to those who seek to live modestly. It is proper, therefore, especially in these hard times, to make every effort to put these matters right, and so do honour to the majesty of God."

By 1562, wedding feasts themselves were regulated by the Venetian government. 

"THE REGULATION OF BANQUETS, 1562
From a Senate decree of 8 October 1562

BE IT THEREFORE DETERMINED that, at nuptial feasts, at banquets for public and private parties, and indeed at any meal of meat, not more than one course of roast and one of boiled meat may be provided... Wild birds and animals, Indian cocks and hens, and doves shall be strictly forbidden... Oysters may be served only at private meals for twenty persons or less, and not at larger banquets or feasts..."

The impossible city of Venice was born over 1,600 years ago in the middle of a lagoon, the product of the powerful creativity and ingenuity of humankind. 

I like to believe that the sacred majesty of Venice's architecture, built on the highest principles by enlightened beings, affects the souls those who visit. It's good for the spirit just to walk the twists and turns of the ancient labyrinth of Venice.  

Vintage Amazon Mouse Pad

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, back on July 5, 1994, when the Internet was tiny and squealy. The majority of the public wasn't online, but writers were, and MacKenzie Scott was a writer. When Amazon first starting selling books online back in 1995, many of its first customers were writers. We thought it was revolutionary and cool. 

Amazon was so small back then that it gave a Christmas present to all of us who had bought a book that first year: a mouse pad with a quote by Groucho Marx:

Outside of a dog,
a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

I'll bet the mouse pad gift was MacKenzie Scott's idea. Maybe it was Jeff's, but if not, he did go along with it. The good will of writers gave Amazon a strong foundation, and we loved being appreciated with a mouse pad. It was a novel gift back then.

Zaleti from Rosa Salva

Venice was told by the media how Bezos had used mostly local businesses to execute the wedding, including goodie bags for the wedding guests from the Venetian pasticceria, Rosa Salva. 

You know what I think would be a nice gesture of appreciation? If Bezos bought all the residents of Venice (less than 50,000 people) breakfast at any Rosa Salva in the historic center on July 5, the 31st anniversary of the founding of Amazon. Coffee, plus a certain selection of sweets, no takeaway. You must show your carta d'identità as proof of residency.

 

Venetians enjoy Rosa Salva, too.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog 

"In Minor Keys" -- Koyo Kouoh Curates the 2026 Venice Art Biennale from Beyond the Grave

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

(Venice, Italy) I was deeply moved by the beautiful and poignant presentation of Koyo Kouoh's In Minor Keys, the title of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, held on Tuesday, May 27, 2025 in Sala delle Colonne at Ca' Giustinian, headquarters of La Biennale.

On October 17, 2024, Koyo Kouoh accepted the invitation by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, President of La Biennale, to become the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Department for La Biennale's 61st International Art Exhibition in 2026. Her appointment as the first African woman to curate the Venice Art Biennale was publicly reported on December 3, 2024.

On May 10, 2025, Kouoh's sudden passing at the age of 57 due to recently diagnosed cancer was announced. The world of art and culture was stunned. 

Just the week before, in an excellent Q&A with Charlene Prempeh of the Financial Times, Kouoh looked very much alive in vibrant photos by Trevor Stuurman. With prescience, she said:

“I do believe in life after death because I come from an ancestral Black education where we believe in parallel lives and realities,” she said. “There is no ‘after death,’ ‘before death’ or ‘during life.’ It doesn’t matter that much. I believe in energies—living or dead—and in cosmic strength.”

Kouoh had nearly seven months on Earth to develop her curatorial project. She chose the profound and perfect title, In Minor Keys. The artists and artworks were selected, and her philosophical framework defined.

At the presentation on Tuesday, after an introduction by Biennale spokesperson Cristiana Costanza and President Pietrangelo Buttafuco, who said that Kouoh was "whispering from elsewhere," Kouoh's team took turns reading the text that she had sent to La Biennale on April 8, 2025. By the end, as the audience in the Sala delle Colenne rose to its feet, I had tears in my eyes.

In Minor Keys - The Team: Siddartha Mitter, Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira,
image of Koyo Kouoh, Rasha Salti, Rory Tsapayi
Photo: Cat Bauer

The philosophical framework that guides Koyo Kouoh's curatorship is simple and divine. Here is the text, in her own words:

La Biennale di Venezia
61st International Art Exhibition

Curatorial Text by Koyo Kouoh

In Minor Keys

[Take a deep breath]
[Exhale]
[Drop your shoulders]
[Close your eyes]

This is an invitation to encounter these words in the immediate physical, meteorological, ambient,
and karmic conditions in which they meet you. To shift to a slower gear and tune in to the
frequencies of the minor keys. Because, though often lost in the anxious cacophony of the present
chaos raging through the world, the music continues. The songs of those producing beauty in spite
of tragedy, the tunes of the fugitives recovering from the ruins, the harmonies of those repairing
wounds and worlds.

There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.

                                                                                                                            — James Baldwin, 1972

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

The minor key, in music, alludes both to the structure of a song and to its emotional effects. It is a
rich idea, so rich that it quickly overflows its technical definition and spills with metaphor. It
summons moods, the blues, the call-and-response, the morna, the second line, the lament, the
allegory, the whisper.

The minor keys refuse orchestral bombast and goose-step military marches and come alive in the
quiet tones, the lower frequencies, the hums, the consolations of poetry, all portals of
improvisation to the elsewhere and the otherwise. The minor keys ask for listening that calls on
the emotions and sustains them in return.

The minor keys are also the small islands, worlds amid oceans with distinct and endlessly rich
ecosystems, social lives that are articulated, for better and worse, within much larger political
forms and ecological stakes. Here, the evocation of the key and the island extends to an
archipelago of oases: gardens, courtyards, compounds, lofts, dance floors — the other worlds that
artists make, the intimate and convivial universes that refresh and sustain even in terrible times;
indeed, especially in terrible times.

Look at the creole garden, you put all species on such a little lick of land:
avocados, lemons, yams, sugarcanes …plus thirty or forty other species on this bit of
land that doesn’t go more than fifty feet up the side of the hill, they protect each other.
In the great Circle, everything is in everything else.

                                                                                                                        — Édouard Glissant, 1993

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: Mirjam Kluka

These are the cues for an exhibition; an exhibition tuned in to the minor keys; an exhibition that
invites listening to the persistent signals of earth and life, connecting to soul frequencies. If, in
music, the minor keys are often associated with strangeness, melancholy and sorrow, here their
joy, solace, hope, and transcendence manifest as well.

In the minor keys, sound and sensation are grounding, they hold the cadences, melodies, and
silences of resonant worlds that gather and create together a polyphonous assembly of art,
convening and communing in convivial collectivity, beaming across the void of alienation and the
crackle of conflict.

The 61st edition of the Biennale Arte is grounded in a deep belief in artists as the vital interpreters
of the social and psychic condition and catalysts of new relations and possibilities.
The exhibition’s composition is formed by artistic practices that open portals, that refresh and
nourish, that prompt relation and relationship, that advance concept and form through networks
and schools — understood freely and informally.

The intended effect scrambles cohesion and dissonance in the manner of a free-jazz ensemble, or
perhaps, at the scale of the Biennale Arte, a festival of ensembles with a common premise: that
poetics liberate and people make beauty together.

Through relation, sharing, and transcendence, the artists and practices that operate in this spirit,
like jazz, across methods, scales, senses and forms, propose to visitors an exhibitional experience
that is more sensory than didactic, renewing rather than exhausting, and fortifying for the work
ahead.

Through a visual and meditative procession, the exhibition prompts all senses to interconnect and
meander from one universe to the other, rendering visible the possibilities that reside in the in-
between spaces and beyond the portals.

...there is no choice but to tune in like jazzmen to these imperative mutations.
The jazzman constantly meditates on the unpredictable, stands within it according to the
laws of polyrhythm, and improvises breathtaking moments.
We small-island Caribbeans are not ready, but we have this resource.
The change will have to be so profound that we will no doubt have to add to the knowledge of jazz, the
old totemisms, animisms, analogisms, and other metaphysics too summarily discarded.
These old-world poems are already precious scores.

                                                                                                                    — Patrick Chamoiseau, 2023

Koyo Kouoh - Photo: @Mehdl Berkler

In this spirit, the international exhibition of the 61st Biennale Arte intends neither a litany of 

commentary on world events, nor an inattention or escape from compounding and continuous

intersecting crises. Rather, it proposes a radical reconnection with art’s natural habitat and role in
society: that is the emotional, the visual, the sensory, the affective, the subjective.

In Minor Keys are sequences of exhilarating journeys that address the sensate and the affective,
inviting visitors to marvel, meditate, dream, revel, reflect, and commune in realms where time is
not corporate property nor at the mercy of relentlessly accelerated productivity.

After all, it is clear by now that the enduring time of capital and empire maligned local,
Indigenous and terrestrial knowledges as chimeric, and dismissed co-constitutive artistic practices
as artisanal, intended for decoration or devotional rituals.

The ‘civilizing mission’ flattens all with condescending contempt, and in the contemporary era
entire societies and ecologies are regarded as collateral damage in the headstrong pursuit of
growth supported by ruthlessness and greed. In refusing the spectacle of horror, the time has come
to listen to the minor keys, to tune in sotto voce to the whispers, to the lower frequencies; to find
the oases, the islands, where the dignity of all living beings is safeguarded.

The exhibition posits that such radical shifts are taking place — indeed, have been underway all
along — in the minor keys, and the artists, poets, performers, and filmmakers whom the exhibition
will convene are grounded in their commitments to realizing them. Artists are channels to and
between the minor keys and listening to, rather than speaking for them is at the core of the
curatorial conceit.

The exhibition In Minor Keys stands as a collective score composed together with artists who have
built universes of imagination. Artists who work at the boundaries of form, and whose practices
can be thought of as intricate melodies to be heard both collectively and on their own terms. These
are artists whose practices seamlessly bleed into society.
Artists who accommodate daily life as part of a logical and aesthetically consistent relation of
parts. Artists who are exceedingly generous and hospitable to life.

In our myths, in our songs, that’s where the seeds are.
It is not possible to constantly hone on the crisis.
You have to have the love and you have to have the magic, that’s also life.

                                                                                                                            — Toni Morrison, 1977

1 James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (New York: Dial Press, 1972).
2 Edouard Glissant, Tout-monde (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 208; translated by Eric Prieto, 2010.
3 Patrick Chamoiseau, 'We Caribbeans are not ready but have the resources to adapt to unavoidable
climate mutations,' Le Monde, June 29 2023.
4 Toni Morrison interviewed by John Callaway, WTTW, Chicago, 1977. 

In Minor Keys, the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, will run from Saturday, May 9 to Sunday, November 22, 2026 with previews on May 6, 7, and 8. All the details of the project will be announced on Wednesday, February 25, 2026. Go to the Venice Biennale for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,

Cat Bauer

Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog