Art Biennale, Venice

The Venice Biennale (la Biennale di Venezia), an international art exhibition, was founded in 1895 and became a godsend for a city desperate for some modern significance. It takes place every two years, and lasts six months. Although the opening week may be an opportunity for the art-dealers and artists to party, spend other people's money and compete with each other, over subsequent months it also attracts thousands of 'normal' visitors and brings neglected bits of the city to life.

It's an international event with countries organising their own shows. The original base of the Biennale was in the Giardini, a park near the waterfront in the Castello district. Over the years various countries built permanent 'pavilions' here to host their shows, some of great architectural interest. Venice's old naval shipyard, the Arsenale, also houses part of the present-day event. A ticket for these two bases costs €15 - you can enter one section one day and the other on a different day. Both include extensive exhibition areas so you'll need to allow a lot of time. Other shows, hosted by pavilion-less countries, are held around Venice and give you a chance to explore private palaces for free - see the bottom of this page for more about these exhibitions.

Various other events take place under the Biennale umbrella organisation, including the prestigious Film Festival, and a modern dance festival. On even-numbered years there is now an Architecture Biennale, which follows much the same pattern as the art one.

The 2007 (52nd) Biennale

The title this year is 'Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense' (it has a slightly better ring to it in Italian, although it probably doesn't make much sense in any language). The show lasts from 10th June until the 21st November, although some affiliated exhibitions are of shorter duration.

The British press are obviously preoccupied with Tracey Emin's show in the British Pavilion, but have also cast an eye over the other offerings. Here's what some of the UK newspapers have to say about the 2007 Biennale:
Guardian: Venice takes flight - Adrian Searle casts a critical eye over the range of art on show.
The Times: Tracey Emin brags about her posh hotel, her party (with guests Jerry Hall and Naomi Campbell, for some reason), the amount of money spent on her by others, the amount she's spent herself, and what a great investment it is to make her more famous and more rich.
Guardian: Lynn Barber writes a 'friendly' article about Tracey Emin: her demands, her luxury hotel, the amount of money spent, her private jet ... one wonders what an enemy would have written.
BBC: Venice Biennale opens to public
Independent: What is the Venice Biennale?
Telegraph: bad review of Tracey Emin - in 22 years Richard Dorment has 'never seen such thin material at the British Pavilion'.
The Times: This year’s Venice biennale is bigger, but not better
Telegraph: a whole feature on the Biennale

Giardini

The historic base of the Biennale is at Giardini, the public gardens in Venice's Castello district. This is where the national pavilions are located. Even without the art, the pavilions themselves, constructed over the last 100 years, are interesting. A couple are built around trees, and the buildings reflect changing architectural fashions, along with nods to national characteristics (see the Hungarian Pavilion in particular). There are shady places to sit under trees and eat a snack. The nearest vaporetto stop is Giardini.

Arsenale

Be prepared for a lot of walking. This former shipyard (now largely abandoned) covers a massive amount of space - it was the grand military and industrial achievement of the Venetian Republic, building the ships which kept her merchants and her navy so dominant.

Most of the art is housed in a long building once used for making rope. There are so many video installations that if you watched each one you'd probably not leave until the Biennale closes in November. Unhelpfully, some (both here and in the Giardini shows) are very long and based around repetition and looping, undermining the audience's concentration for those that may actually have interesting linear content.

Helpfully, there are several spots outdoors for resting, with chairs and refreshments. The covered dock is one of the most photogenic parts of the great waterbasin; for the Biennale it's being used for an equally photogenic installation.

Our favourites

We visited the British Pavilion first, but were unimpressed by Tracey Emin's offering. The best part was the irony of all the shrugging visitors being confronted with a sign saying 'I know I know I know' - or maybe this was the whole point and the show is a big joke? Next door the French Pavilion kept us interested for about twenty times as long: a show that is rich in both idea and content. Sophie Calle was dumped by email (genuine, we hope, believable anyway), and has collected lots of female readings of said email: scathing opinions from lawyers, pyschologists, translators and critics; short stories from authors; portrayals in sign language and ballet. A schoolgirl studies the text and is confused by the writer's hypocrisy. A parrot shreds the paper. Singers sing the email. It's cathartic, interesting and sometimes very funny. Parts of the show are in English, and even with limited French you'll get the gist.

Outdoors in the gardens some Brazilian artists have created a model of a favela shanty town, complete with toy guns. In some pavilions you can participate (presumably health and safety officers haven't been around): throw darts, climb rickety staircases, enter wooden huts. In others the attendants bark 'No touch!'. In another: 'It's already been sold to a museum so we have to keep it perfect'. The Belgian Pavilion houses a glass/mirror labyrinth, along with an earnest and utterly spurious lecture by artist Eric Duyckaerts; a welcome bit of light relief.

Advice

We'd recommend you take a bottle of water, find a programme with a map on it, and allow time to wander and take breaks. Visiting the two main parts of the show on separate days will allow you to pace yourself. Outside the British Pavilion we picked up a useful leaflet with a good map of all the locations and details of other UK shows around town. We've actually enjoyed some of the free exhibitions more than others within the ticketed areas.

Free stuff and open palazzi

One of the best things about the Biennale is the chance to nose around inside buildings whose doors are usually firmly closed. Countries without purpose-built pavilions at Giardini often put on shows in other spaces around town, and admission is usually free. Frequently the exhibitions are in interesting palazzi, enabling you to see views of Venice that would otherwise be secret. Official Biennale shows are listed on the website and on the maps displayed around the Biennale area, signs and posters will direct you to other affiliated art shows.

In 2007 the Iceland show is in Palazzo Bianchi Michiel on the Strada Nova in Cannaregio. The display by Steingrimur Eyfjord, featuring an invisible sheep obtained from the elf-people, is housed on the ground floor of the palace, and you can admire views of the Grand Canal and Rialto from the doorways and jetty outside.

For a combination of art and surroundings, the Mexican Pavilion is better still. Housed in the gorgeous old Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, near the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, the show gives you the chance to wander around and admire the building's faded grandeur as well as getting involved in the interactive art on display by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: a Mexican wave of chairs; silhouettes activating radio frequencies; heart-beat lightbulbs. Open 10am-6pm, closed Mondays. If the building takes your fancy, and you have millions to spare, you could even buy Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel.

Just around the corner is one of the collateral events, Paradise Lost: The First Roma Pavilion, in Palazzo Pisani Santa Marina. The show includes the work of several Roma artists, and is housed in a series of rooms ranging from a rickety attic to elegant halls. Open 10am-6pm, closed Mondays.

Up to the north on the Fondamente Nuove is another of the collateral exhibitions, entitled The Storm and the Harbour. We are waiting for the change. This Russian show is laid out in the rather bizarre courtyard-like ground floor of Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, apparently one of the last historic palaces still in the hands of the family for whom it was built. Open 12 noon-7pm, closed Mondays. Only until 15th July.

Over the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro is another of this year's highlights. Visit Palazzo Zenobio on Fondamenta Soccorso (near the Church of the Carmini) and you'll see a grand Baroque palazzo and gardens, including a gloriously-frescoed ballroom, and several exhibitions as well. And it's all free. In the palace's gardens you'll find Valhalla, part of Australia's offering, by artist Callum Morton. This is an interesting installation, of especial appeal on hot days (enter and you'll see). Rather surreally, the New Forest in England has its own 'pavilion' here, with work by a number of artists including an interactive installation. Armenia and Scotland are also represented on Palazzo Zenobio's ground floor, while upstairs the piano nobile houses a display by the Istituto Italo-Latino Americano, with rooms of work from different Latin American countries. The Bolivian exhibition has a sweetness which is unusual at this Biennale.