This is Part II of our October 3 adventure. After the amazing exhibit at the Fondazione Dries Van Noten, we took the vaporetto to the Giardini of the Biennale. The Venice Biennale is held every two years and 2026 is the 61st International Art Exhibition. There are two major sites for the exhibit-- the Arsenale, which we will attend on October 4 and the Giardini, which we visited on October 3. One can purchase a ticket (amazingly only 20 euros per senior), which gets one an entrance to both sites. One can enter one site on one day and then the other on another day- but only one visit per site. There are also a number of satellite events and exhibits in churches, galleries and museums around Venice.
The Giardini has been the traditional site of the Biennale since the first edition in 1895. The Giardini (the gardens) were established by Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century. The Central Pavilion was initially built in 1894 and expanded and restored several times. It reopened this year, following an extensive restoration. The success of the first editions of the Biennale triggered the building of foreign national pavilions which started in 1907 with the opening of the Belgium pavilion. There are now 29 foreign pavilions, some of them designed by famous architects such as Josef Hoffmann's Austria Pavilion and the Finland pavilion designed by Alvar Aalto.
The Canadian Pavilion opened in 1958. It was commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and financed with Italian funds owed to Canada for wartime relief. The funds could only be spent in Italy and the project had to be given to an Italian architect. Excavation was limited due to the site's historical significance and all major foliage had to remain intact. It has trees growing in the building. It underwent a major restoration between 2014 and 2018.
This year's theme is In Minor Keys. The Central Pavilion is curated by the team lead by Koyo Kouoh (1967-2025), the first African woman to have been appointed to this position, who died on May 10, 2025. The team continued the project that was already fully defined at the time of her untimely death. The 111 artists, collectives and organizations were chosen by Koyo Kouoh "to tune in to the frequencies of minor keys, to the songs of those who generate beauty despite tragedy; to the melodies of the fugitives who rise again from the ruins, to the harmonies of those who heal wounds and words."
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At the Giardini grounds
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| Near entrance |
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| Just after entry to the grounds |
Our first stop was the Belgium pavilion, the oldest foreign pavilion which opened in 1907. Performance artist Miet Warlop "transformed the pavilion into a charged area where language and music collide". Words cast in plaster circulate through the space. It is a loop of music, dance and sculpture. The exhibit was entitled: It Never SSST.
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Outside of the Belgium pavilion
| | One could activate a drum sound near this display |
Lots of music and movement
Drums, fragments and plaster
We next stopped at the Finland Pavilion, a lovely small peaceful spot.
The exhibit was entitled: Aeolian Suite and it was a multi sensory environment that transformed the Finish Pavilion into a wind scape of sound and movement. Fuzzy kinetic sculptures resemble microphone wind muffs. There were recordings of winds from Venice. The writeup of the exhibit notes that "perhaps the answer has always been blowin' in the wind".
Fuzzy sculptures blowing in the wind
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We headed into the Central Pavilion which has approximately 5,450 square metres of floor space and is the anchor of the Giardini della Biennale grounds, which cover a total area of around 51,000 square metres.
I am just going to highlight some of the many artists and their works in the Pavilion. Exceptional contemporary art with information about the artists on plaques nearby.
Big Chief Demond Melancon is the Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunters tribe and a central figure in the Black Masking culture of New Orleans.
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| Kambui Olujimi, (b. New York City, 1976) explores self and blackness. The artist was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His series of watercolours, ink and graphite was entitled North Star. |
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Manuel Mathieu, (b. 1986, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, lives in Montreal and Paris.
Series of mixed media works. |
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| Leonida Gonzales (1923-2017, Uruguay) "developed her drive to affect social change through printmaking". She co-founded the Club de Grabado de Montevideo, a graphic arts collective and school). These works were from a series Revolutionary Brides, 1968. A few years later the prints would be read as images of opposition to the brutal military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985). |
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| Bonnie Devine (1952, Toronto), Battle of the Woodlands, 2014. "Devine restores a colonial map of Upper and Lower Canada that shows only Lakes Ontario and Erie. She depicts the Great Lakes in red oxide leaping off the surface, fugitives from the confines of being mapped". She is from the Anishinabe community of Genaabaajing, Serpent River First Nation |
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| Mohammed Joha (1978, Gaza, Palestine, lives in Marseille, France). He made the series No Shelter, 2025 while witnessing the near-total annihilation of Gaza on the screen. |
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Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, ( b, Burma, Lives in the Netherlands and Chiang Mai, Thailand),
Post-Apocalypse, 2024 |
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| Tammy Nguyễn, (1984, San Francisco, lives in Boston), Ah me, 2005 |
There were a number of works by Denniston Hill, an artist residency and cultural platform on 89 hectares of forested land in the southern Catskills. It was founded in 2004. The group returned to the Surrealist parlour game of Exquisite Corpse with 150 of their alumni. "Here creative life unfolds as a kind of living Exquisite Corpse- a collaborative act in which forms emerge from the convergence of disparate hands, voices and terrains.
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| Chimera, 2006 |
We had some lunch in the cafeteria and chilled for a few minutes.
After the Central Pavilion, which was very daunting, we decided to visit some of the National pavilions. There was one row of a number of the older pavilions.
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| United States pavilion (built in 1930) |
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| Work by Alma Allen: Call Me the Breeze-- interesting monumental pieces |
We then headed to the Nordic Pavilion- Finland, Norway and Sweden. The exhibit was entitled How Many Angels can dance on the Head of a Pin. There were works by three artists, Tori Wrdnes, Klara Kristalova and Benjamin Orlow.
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| Wrdnes-- headless figures formed from sails |
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| Kristalova's Lust for Life- creatures emerge from a fallen tree |
We checked out the Russian Pavilion.
There was a sign on the door stating that due to a EU regulation, access to the pavilion was not permitted. There was a video of a musical performance  |
| The Russian Pavilion, built in 1914. |
We headed to the Canada pavilion which is tucked away in a lovely landscaped area. It is a small pavilion. As noted it was opened in 1958 and renovated in 2014-2018.
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| Tree in the middle of the structure |
The featured artist is Abbas Akhavan, (b. Tehran, 1977, lives and works in Montreal and Berlin). The National Gallery of Canada oversees Canada's representation at the Venice Biennale.
His piece,
Entre chien et loup converts the pavilion into a greenhouse for Victoria water lilies. In collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, seeds were sent to the Orto Botanica di Padova, where they were germinated before being relocated to the Canada Pavilion to reach maturity. The title "between dog and wolf" evokes the indeterminate nature of twilight, when distinctions blur and a dog might be mistaken for a wolf. Both Alonso and I were rather underwhelmed with the exhibit.
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Entre Chien et Loup, 2016
We headed to the Great Britain pavilion, which was built in 1909. It featured the commissioned work of Lubaina Hamid entitled: Predicting History: Testing Translation. She explores what it takes for a place to become home in large, surreal and boldly-coloured paintings.
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| Outside the British Pavilion |
Hamid thinks of herself as a painter and cultural activist. Her practice established her as a leading figure of the Black British Art Movement in the 1980s. Over the past decade, she has earned international renown for her vivid portrayal of themes of race, feminism and cultural memory. She received Britain's Turner Prize in 2017 and was the subject of a major survey at Tate Modern in 2021. The artist states that the exhibition is about 'our real desire to belong and how difficult that is, whoever you are.'
The works feature chefs, architects, boatbuilders, tailors and gardeners who work intently in surreal settings, debating how to adapt to an unfamiliar place.
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| The gardeners |
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| The chefs |
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| The boatbuilders |
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| The sewers |
We really enjoyed Hamid's work--- people trying to adapt to new circumstances in creative ways.
Next we stopped at the outdoor section of the Japan pavilion which featured Grass Babies, Moon Babies, by the Japan-born American artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. In 2026, the Japan Pavilion celebrates the 70th anniversary of its construction. There are 200 baby dolls- symbols of the future. The work is born out of 'the nurturing-rearing experience of queer artist Ei Arakawa-Nash, who became a parent of twins in 2024'.
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| Babies are everywhere |
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| Just hanging' |
We said good-bye to the Giardini section of the Biennale. Overwhelming but inspiring. We decided to walk towards St. Mark's Square, where I wanted to check out a wonderful glasses store where I had bought a pair of glasses in 2012. Along the way, we noticed a sign:
This Exhibition is Not for You!!, which lured us into an exhibit about Marcel Duchamp called:
D is for Duchamp the Deep Dyed Deceiver.
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The sign lured us in!
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| Outside of the exhibit |
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| Another poster for the exhibit |
The exhibit featured books and art from his early beginnings, through his ready-mades in a series of books, articles and other sources. Duchamp believed that the spectator gives meaning to the artwork, while the artist is merely a "mediumistic being", not cognisant of what his intuition brings forth. The research exhibit was put together by the Arsenale Institute for the Politics of Representation, founded in 2006, an independent institution committed to researching the role of images in society.
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| Blue Rider group in Germany |
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Marcel Duchamp
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One of his most famous pieces-
Nude descending a Staircase, 1913
We chatted briefly with the staff person about the exhibit and another exhibit they had about Paris, 1968, where they featured photographs taken by the polices, newspaper photographers and the protesters.
We continued our walk towards St. Mark's Square. We are so fortunate to be staying in a quiet, more residential part of Venice. The area around St. Mark's is just jammed with tourists even in early October.
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| Large crowd gathered to visit a warship |
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| St. Mark's Square-very expensive cafés packed with people |
We checked out the glasses store, but the frames were a bit too large for my face. I had bought a pair of glasses there in 2012, but the same style didn't work today.
We headed back to our 'hood.
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| Quiet, narrow streets |
We decided to have dinner at nearby recommended Trattoria Bandierette. We shared a delicious plate of fried fish-- squid, scampis, octopus and other fish; a mixed salad and a plate of grilled vegetables. I had a Select Spritz and Alonso had a glass of red wine.
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The food arriving. Actually, it was just the right amount for two people,
as we only had one main course and two side dishes. |
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| The fish was lightly battered and there was lots of it. |
Saturday October 3 was an amazing day. The exhibit at the Fondazione Dries Van Noten was spectacular. The Biennale at the Giardini was also incredible, though overwhelming. We were there for almost four hours and there were a number of national pavilions we just didn't get to. The curation in the Central Pavilion in the context of
In Minor Keys theme worked well. Lots of art focusing on displacement, impact of climate change, violence, colonialism and oppression but with a focus on the incredible creativity that emerges from artists in these situations. The national pavilions featured work done by their own country artists. I can understand why people return every two years to attend the Biennale. It is definitely going into our calendar for 2028. The Biennale opened on May 9, 2026 and will end on November 22. The crowds were very manageable in early October with more visitors in the Central Pavilion than the national pavilions.
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