In Venice, the 55th International Art Biennale began today

The Encyclopedic Palace of the World

Venice (Italy) - The gates of the 55th Biennale of Contemporary Art are opening today in Venice for journalists and experts. The exhibition, with a tradition of over a century, will open to the public on June 1. This year, nearly two hundred artists from around the world will be showcased at the Biennale in this Italian city, with newcomers such as the Vatican and the United Arab Emirates having their own pavilions.
    Czechs have a joint pavilion with Slovaks, but they will also exhibit in the displays of other countries that have selected them as curators - for example, for the Vatican, where Josef Koudelka will showcase his photographs; Kateřina Šedá's work will be a part of the Taiwanese exhibition.
    Czechoslovakia had its exhibition pavilion since 1924, and after its division, both successor countries alternate in organizing the exhibition. This year, the program is organized by the Slovak side, but from a competition of two dozen proposals, the jury selected the project by Czech curator Marek Pokorný and artists Petra Feriancová and Zbyňek Baladrán titled The Same Place. The vernissage is on Thursday.
    The Biennale mainly consists of two extensive exhibitions - in the garden area on the outskirts of the city, there are three dozen national pavilions, and in the spaces of the former Arsenale dock, there is an exhibition that is managed by a different curator each time. This year, it is the thirty-nine-year-old Massimiliano Gioni.
    Among the main stars of the Biennale will likely be the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has prepared his own exhibition and will also be represented in the German pavilion. Attention will certainly be drawn to the 3.5-meter-high model of the futuristic skyscraper from the 1950s called The Encyclopedic Palace of the World.
    Its author, self-taught architect Marino Auriti, believed that a museum of the greatest achievements of humanity would be built according to his design. The model is at a scale of 1:200; if the building were constructed, it would have 136 floors and, at a height of around 600 meters, would have been the tallest building in the world at the time when the architect conceived it. According to Gioni, this concept can also characterize the dimensions of the Venice Biennale and the ambitions and imagination of the artists.
    The curator conceived the exhibition as a cabinet of curiosities, making it possible to find older works among contemporary art, but in a new context. Among them will also be the second key object of the Biennale, the legendary and long-hidden Red Book of Carl Gustav Jung.
    Photographer Cindy Sherman created a bizarre photographic dollhouse, while the British have given space to former Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller, who wants to dedicate his work to the 1984 miners' strike. The Spaniards dedicated their pavilion to the late painter Antonio Tapies.
    Israel will be represented by Gilad Ratman's video, in which he travels from his hometown Haifa through the desert and water to Venice. This references, for example, Brooklyn artist Swoon, who arrived at the Biennale in 2009 on a boat made of trash, or Czech artist František Skála, who undertook a walking pilgrimage to the Biennale 20 years ago and then exhibited artifacts he collected along the way.