VENICE ART BIENNALE 2022
Venice Art Biennale
What is the definition of “human” changing?
What are the differences between vegetal,
animal, human and non-human?
Which responsibilities do we own towards our fellowmen?
How would life be without us?
“The Milk Of Dreams” was originally the name of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington’s little collection book, where she used to gather illustrations about mysterious fairytales. Her dreamlike representation model was nearly grotesque, terrifying both adults and children, but still enriched with deep and meaningful messages about our contemporary society, imagining a world full of endless possibilities but still not free from intolerable pressure on different (uncommon) identities.
Carrington’s report was the inspiration behind the 2022 Venice Biennale curated by Cecilia Alemani. Indeed, the curator named the international art exhibition after Leonora Carrington tale’s collection “Il Latte Dei Sogni”, taking under her wing artists willing to communicate the power of change and metamorphosis passing through creativity, always reinventing a new and magic vision of life.
The idea behind the 2022 Biennale was born from the dialogue between different contemporary artists, questioning and translating nowadays society issues into interpretable artworks.
The focus shifted from last year’s threats humanity had to face to questions about myths of our times.
Agnes Denes, Uffe Isolotto, Lillian Schwartz, Elyse Smith, Amy Sillman and Charline Von Heyl are just a few of the artists exhibiting at the Biennale, but art is not the only leading character of the event: science plays a crucial role too. Suffice to think about South Korea’s Pavilion greatest installation, “Gyre” by artist Yunchul Kim.
The artist and electronic music composer has transformed the Korean Pavilion with five large-scale kinetic sculptures and a site-specific wall drawing. This is just one of the examples of how technologies are one of the main topics of this year’s Biennale, where many of the installations and art pieces focus on artificial intelligence and how our relationship with technologic innovation changed due to the pandemic emergency we faced in the last two years.
2022 Venice Biennale wants us to remember our nature as “mortal bodies”, understanding that we are not invincible or self-sufficient. We are part of an always-existed equilibrium and we must respect our duty to preserve the divine balance of the world.
Photos: Veronica Torbi
Text: Erika Giulietti
Post coordination: Vincent Urbani