Syrian Community
The Venice Art Biennale, an international celebrations of human culture so renowned it hardly needs introducing, opened its gates to curious minds on May 10.
There is a lot to experience and everyone will have their own, perhaps very different, personal highlights. These are my personal Top Ten:
Giardini
A walk through the country pavilions in a huge park area is still the heart of the show, a place to meet people’s minds and their artworks:
1) German Pavilion
Natascha Süder Happelmann shows us, in the German pavilion, a gigantic model of a hydroelectric power plant without any water in it; she lets us experience the absence of our life essence, water, through a lack of fluidity and suggests that the idea of separation is nothing but a construction of the still-dialectic mind.
2) French Pavilion
Laure Prouvost, in his country’s pavilion, presents a video that shows the connectedness of all people in the French society. Connected through consciousness of magic, oneness and awareness of the extraordinary in everyday life.
3) Russian Pavilion
Alexander Shi
shkin-Hokusai adds a new quality to the classical timelessness of sculpture in the Russia pavilion: By pouring sand over their surfaces he introduces the aspect of the relativity of time.
4) Polish Pavilion
Roman Stanczak turns an airplane inside out in the Polish pavilion; by showing us this twisted reality, the title “Flight” suggests that there are no inanimate things and that there is no separation in between within and without if the mind is in movement.
5) American Pavilion
Azo Oke’s work “Bronze,” in the American pavilion, shows an enlightened understanding of the transparency of space; this building structure is more a membrane of connectedness than a solid object.
6) Danish Pavilion
In the Danish pavilion, a huge sphere fills the space and suggests a black hole that is materialized by a black materialized object – giving a very surprising reverse experience of matter to all that see it in person.
Arsenali
The former ship factory offers a breathtaking space and the most exciting individual artworks.
7) Robert Henry Lawrence Junior
Tavares Strachan: The artist’s neon sculpture of astronaut Robert Henry Lawrence Junior‘s body shows the fluidity of bodily spirits in an amazingly lively way.
8) Market
Zhanna Kadyrova shows us the same and the different and makes clear that what we know is just one part of what is imaginable.
9) Trojan
Yin 
Xuizen presents one moment before a plane crash with a hollow sculpture you can walk inside; the title suggests that the feeling of losing everything contains a space for new potential.
10) This Is the Best Artwork
This performer proudly presents her pregnancy at a relatively advanced age, showing the blessings of life; the title supports this celebration. I hope you will get to see this in person.
Biennale Arte 2019
May You Live In Interesting Times
Venice, Italy
May 11—November 24, 2019
(labiennale.org)
