Light installation by Spencer Finch
and Buddha’s hand sculptures by Huang Yong Ping
(Fare Mondi/Making Worlds at Arsenale)

Latex sheet used for the cleaning of a wall at the Doge’s palace in Venice
by Jorge Otero-Pailos, theorist of architecture and contemporary preservation
(Fare Mondi/Making Worlds at Arsenale)

Arsenale spaces

To perceive such a mass of artworks as in the Venice Biennale, one will have to do some coding – consciously or not. The simplest way is perceiving by like or dislike, and it’s not a bad one. However, I try adding some more categories, like: does this artwork express critique, or is it an act of celebration? Do I perceive it mainly as communication – horizontally – or does it open to the vertical dimension as well? Is it conceptional, or… what?
Much contemporary art springs from concept. Only a few works succeed in transcending it; like few sperms ever reach an egg.

Tomas Saraceno’s Black Widow spider web
in the large, enlightened central space of the international pavillion;
Nathalie Djurberg’s inverted Garden of Eden in the dark room underneath
(Fare Mondi/Making Worlds at Giardini)

Good curating, though, can provide meaning also to what otherwise might appear abortive. At the Biennale’s international exhibition venues – Fare Mondi/Making Worlds – there is rhythm and lightness to the curating, bringing the works in tune.
I add rhythm as another coding category.

How do these categories coincide, overlap or differ?
Do I, for instance, always like those pieces made in celebration of something which I can attach myself to – like humanistic values? No. Can I keep disliking a work when the curating connects it to some other in a meaningful way? No. Now, this is fun…

Styrofoam sculpture by Carsten Höller at Arsenale, above;
two photos from Giardini, below

And then, suddenly, something seizes me and I leave all questions behind.
It’s art.

Ttéia I; gold thread in square forms, by Brazilian artist Lygia Pape