Posted by: Price Latimer Agah
From June 3 - 8, I attended The Venice Biennale – The 53rd International Art Exhibition titled Making Worlds. The Venice Biennale was born through a resolution by the City Council of Venice in 1893 to found a "biennial national artistic exhibition"; the first Biennale was actually held in 1895...

The event became more and more international in the first decades of the 20th century; from 1907 on, several countries started installing national pavilions at the exhibition. After World War I, the Biennale showed increasing interest in innovative traditions in modern art.


Elmgreen & Dragset installation at the Nordic / Danish pavilions


Lucas Samaras installation at the Greek pavilion

The 53rd International Art Exhibition, directed by Daniel Birnbaum, opened at the beginning of June and will run through November and take place in the Giardini (gardens in the east of Venice that have been the traditional venue since 1895 and house 30 permanent national pavilions, built at various periods by the participating countries themselves), the Arsenale (the old shipyards and warehouses that used to build and fit the fleets of the Venetian Republic), as well as various other locations around the city (churches, theaters, palaces, lagoons). This year a record number of 77 nations are participating, including a first-time presence by Montenegro, Principality of Monaco, Republic of Gabon, Union of Comoros and the United Arab Emirates.


Tomas Saraceno installation at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni


Gosha Ostretsov: Art Life or The Torments of Creation at the Russian Pavilion


Shaun Gladwell's MADDESTMAXIMVS at the Australian Pavilion

My only complaint was that, out of ALL of the hundreds or thousands of pieces of artwork that I saw at the Biennale, though beautiful on the surface, almost everything lacked soul. I mean, one would think that with everything going on at this moment, there would be one tiny little voice of dissent in there somewhere. However, the exhibit In-finitum at the Fortuny Museum, housed in a 16th-century Venetian-Gothic palazzo, was to die for. This insanely gorgeous, dark and eccentric space was transformed by Mariano Fortuny into his own atelier of photography, stage-design, textile-design and painting (it was donated to the city of Venice in 1956 by Mariano's widow). Fortuny lived, worked and experimented here for the last 50 years of his life, creating a universe that is now amalgamated with modern and contemporary artworks by Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Lucio Fontana and many others.


Museo Fortuny


Alberto Burri painting in the Museo Fortuny


Museo Fortuny


Donald Judd sculpture in the Museo Fortuny

I thought the Pinault foundation exhibition at the Punta della Dogana (designed by Tadao Ando) entitled Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection, curated by Alison M. Gingeras and Francesco Bonami, was pretty amazing. The Maurizio Cattelan, David Hammons, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Cy Twombly, Piotr Uklanski and Matthew Day Jackson works were stellar, in my opinion.


Maurizio Cattelan installation at the Punta della Dogana

Conclusion: everyone must attend the Venice Biennale at some point before they die; it is just spectacular to see a whole city devote itself so thoroughly to art.


View from the Museo Fortuny


Art Basel Messeplatz: Valentin Carron's Fosbury Flop, 2009

Afterward, from June 8 - 13, I headed out from Venice on a train through the Swiss Alps to Art Basel in Switzerland, which is the world's premier international art show for Modern and contemporary art. Art Basel features nearly 300 leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. More than 2,500 artists, ranging from the great masters of Modern art to the latest generation of emerging stars, are represented in the show's multiple sections. The exhibition includes preeminent works of art—paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, video and editioned works. The New York Times has called Art Basel the "Olympics of the Art World".


Art Basel Messeplatz: Untitled, 2009 by Mathieu Mercier

Basel was decent to good according to most. The opening day was quite busy and abuzz with people and what looked like sales. The fair is overwhelmingly huge and grandiose, but it is nevertheless super fun and endlessly exciting to stroll through everything. No matter what the political or economic climate, I always enjoy going to art fairs simply to look at so much art in one place; there is nothing else in the world quite like it.

The days following the vernissage, as is usually the case, tend to draw less serious collectors and more looky-lookers. Everyone wants a discount or deal these days and it seems like people are less interested in finding “the next big thing”, as they are in sticking with sure-bet names that they recognize. Apparently this year’s fair attracted 61,000 collectors, curators and art aficionados—more than ever before, which I thought was quite interesting, considering… Art Basel is much more serious than Art Basel Miami. Now whether or not that has to do with the simple intrinsic differences between Switzerland and South Florida, or if there is a concerted effort to present more significant, less playful work, I'm not entirely sure, though I think the answer lies somewhere in between.


Banks Violette installation


Sterling Ruby installation

Art Unlimited (the pioneering exhibition area for projects that transcend the classical art-show booth - including video projections, large-scale installations, massive sculptures and live performances) was by far my favorite part of Art Basel: the projects by Sigmar Polke, Sterling Ruby, Banks Violette, Marcel van Eeden, Bruce Conner, Matthew Day Jackson, Nathalie Djurberg, Nan Goldin, Xu Zhen, Daido Moriyama, Anthony McCall were all stunning. And as far as satellite fairs go, I was most impressed by VOLTA, which I thought had spectacular work overall.


Nathalie Djurberg video installation


Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency 1973-1986 original portfolio of prints


Farhad Moshiri's Converted Handmade Persian Rug into a One Bedroom Apartment, 2008

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