Was this year’s biennale good? Was it crowded? How much time do you need to see it? Questions we asked before we went, questions people are asking us now.
We enjoyed the biennale—and the ancillary exhibitions—there were at least 30 collateral events, like “Selva” by Eva Jospin that we favoured over biennale artists and will feature in a future blog.
Excluding the 27,966 visitors who attended the preview, 699,304 people visited the biennale over the course of its seven-month run—the second-highest turnout in its 129-year history. (The previous one in 2022 attracted more than 800,000 people.)
Going in November was brilliant, and I don’t mean just the weather; venues weren’t crowded, and the only exhibition we didn’t get to was “Holy See” at the Women’s Prison as you must advance book and it was full. However, getting into some of the small traditional restaurants I chose took some work and assistance from the hotel. Venice, we were told, has no off-season save a small slowdown for a few weeks in early December.
We saw the biennale art in two days and spent another three exploring art in Venice and lace in Burano. My advice is to give yourself six full days.
“I Will Follow the Ship,” Matthew Attard, Malta, Giardini
Historically across the islands of Malta, sailors engraved images of ships on the stone façades of buildings, fortifications, private homes and chapels. Matthew’s exhibition converges this historical graffiti from the 1500s to the late 1800s with digital eye-tracking, a technology in which he has has a PhD.
Wearing commercial eye trackers, Matthew followed the lines of ancient wall etchings with his eyes.
I wanted to draw a parallel between these historical happenings with our current blind faith in technology… I do not have a live feed of what the eye tracker is recording and it is not a tool for drawing, but it creates data. Once I go back to my studio, I download the data set and each data set I develop into a digital drawing.
The result is abstract line drawings of ships on blocks on a large wall—plus amazing large-screen replications. There was also a recording of his eye darting around paired with an image of an artificial eye displaying what the computer sees.


He views the eye-tracker as is an extension of himself, “a way to explore the hybrid territory between humans and machines and a smart collaborator in the production of contemporary art.”
Matthew has exhibited in Venice, Rome, London, Beijing and Los Angeles among other cities. He was featured at Ten Artists to Watch at LACDA (Los Angeles Centre for Digital Arts) three times, has participated in other digital art projects and had a solo show, Ship of Fools, in Venice last year
“The space in Which to Place Me,” Jeffrey Gibson, United States Pavilion
Jeffrey Gibson is the first Native American artist to represent the United States in its pavilion. Though trained as a painter at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Royal College of Art in London, in 2010 he began incorporating vibrant bead work in saturated psychedelic colours into sculptural art, the beads a reference to his heritage, the Pride colours a symbol of his sexuality. Popular music, fashion, literature and culture are big influences in his sculptures and massive outdoor installations, too.

Watching his pow-wow video was a hoot. Hauser & Wirth, the gallery that represents him, is spot-on in describing it: “his immersive multi-sensory installations invoke and interweave such disparate contexts as faith-based spaces of communion and night clubs.”
Jeffrey received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2019. His interdisciplinary art—paintings, sculpture, flags, video and beadwork—is represented in the permanent collections of more than twenty museums, including the Smithsonian.
“Monument eines unbekannten Menschen” (Monument to an Unknown Person), Ersan Mondtag, German Pavilion
You may wonder why we included this post-Holocaust dystopia, a three-storey house where every room is wretched with filth and ruin, clogged toilets and dust-filled air. (I wonder what they used to emulate the dust?) “One of my favourites, I must say,” said David, who was the only one of us who took photos of the house.”Very Powerful.”
Ersan, a theatre and opera director and set designer, created this “space of remembrance” based on the life of his Turkish grandfather, Hasan Aygün, a refugee who died from a severe lung condition after working as a poor immigrant in an asbestos factory in West Berlin for thirty years. At times, theatre actors mingle with visitors in this “walkable architecture” of “staged archeology.”
“The earth, as a contested site of territorial conflicts, becomes a migrant itself in Mondtag’s design,” reads the “Thresholds” brochure. Ersan brought soil from Anatolia, the birthplace of Hasan Aygün, mixing it with overburden from the Giardini and heaping it outside the German pavilion, a gesture “directed against the ideology of purity enshrined in tots fascist architecture.”
The title of the exhibition comes from the poem, “Guidance for the People on Top” by Bertolt Brecht, who confronted the practice of honouring unknown soldiers, the trace of their lives often lost in the anonymity of cities.
Ersan was one of several exhibitors in the German Pavilion, which we felt lacked overall congruity. (The “Light to the Nations Generations Ships”? Understanding the connection escaped us. Here’s a thought, though: Musk will take you to space for $60 million, while on earth, electric vehicles are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers labouring in slave-like conditionsfor a dollar or two a day in the Democratic Republic of Congo whose leaders gave the Chinese government access to mining concessions in exchange for development assistance.)
Only 37 years old, Ersan been the recipient of many awards in Germany for his direction and stage design in theatre, music, performance and installation, talents he has shared in other European countries.
“Tela Venezuelana, 2019,” Teresa Margolles, Mexico, Giardini
It was the last artwork we saw at the biennale.
To spare you from its lasting impression, we didn’t make it the last image on this list.
First, a bit about Teresa.
After studying art, communication and forensic medicine, she worked in a state-funded morgue and went on to found Grupo SEMEFO to address the violence in her country from drug wars, trafficking, femicide and forced labour and migration. (I can’t see it improving—next year, Mexico will become the first country in the world to begin electing all of its judges by popular vote.)
On a large white cloth, “Tela Venezuelana, 2019” is the human imprint of a young Venezuelan man who was killed as he crossed into Colombia, a victim of forced migration. An anonymous portrait that exposes the indifference and oblivion towards victims of violence.

During the autopsy, Teresa allowed the blood from his body, a large amount because of the violence and brutality of his death, to leave a lasting mark on the cloth.
For more than twenty-five years, Teresa has created sculptural installations, photographs, films and performance art imbued with material traces of death from violent crimes resulting from political corruption and social exclusion in Latin America and abroad. Her work is held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide and has been featured in many biennials.
“kith and kin,” Archie Moore, Australian Pavilion, Golden Lion Award
For the sheer painstaking work involved in this pavilion, dedicated entirely to “kith and kin,” Archie deserves the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.
Hand-drawn in white chalk across the Pavilion’s five-metre-high black walls is an expansive genealogical chart spanning 65,000+ years, an illustration of his Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage stretching back more than 2,400 generations.



Inscribed names on the black ceiling resemble a celestial map; they’re meant to evoke the ancestors’ resting place.
Suspended above a reflective pool in the centre of this serene and contemplative space are more than 500 stacks of documents, mainly redacted coronial inquests on the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody, Archie’s way of bringing attention to the over-incarceration of First Nations people.


His installation is also a way of showing how First Nations people in Australia see time—past, present and future as a single continuum.
Architecturally and artistically, the entire pavilion all in black and white, delivers a poignant and powerful statement. A monumental and timely reminder that we are all “kith and kin.”
A multi-media artist, Archie works in conceptual research-based portrayals of self and national histories. His artworks are held in major public collections across Australia and in Switzerland.
Navigation
Gross, Terry. “How ‘modern-day slavery’ in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy.” NPR. Februrary 21, 2023.
Pedrosa, Adriano. 60. International Art Exhibition Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere. La Biennale d’ Venezia. April 2024. You can check out all 332 artists online here.
Pierce, Barry. “Matthew Attard’s Malta Pavillion at Venice Biennale proves data is art.” Hero. April 30, 2024
Phillips, Tom, and Perlmutter, Lillian. “Femicide nation’: murder of young woman casts spotlight on Mexico’s gender violence crisis.” The Guardian. April 26, 2022.
6 Responses
Archie Moore’s piece….awesome.
While there, I thought you and Paul would likely love this piece…
Gloria and Kerry – Brilliantly captured!
We were so fortunate to join you both in Venice on this amazing adventure every day perfectly planned by Gloria and navigated by Kerry.
A truly rich experience full of art, culture, history and food.
Love Kiky and David
And so much fun for us to experience this jewel of a city with you two— when can we do it again?
Ah, Venice. Such a wonderful place to visit. I will be returning in September 2025 with my Sister, Niece and daughter. If you have any recommendations for restaurants and accommodation location, please share!
Hope you and Kerry have a lovely Christmas season. Cheers, 🥂
Ca Marie Adele hotel was perfect: 14 rooms, on the canal, great staff and sumptuous breakfasts. Restaurants we loved included Osteria alle Testiere, Al Covo, Antice Carampane, Venetika, Cantine del Vino già Schiavi and Osteria da Carla. Reserve in advance–we were told Venice no longer has a down season except for a few weeks in early December. Also, the New York Times has just done a “36 Hours in Venice” piece, accessible through your library account if you can’t get it online.