I was lucky enough to visit the Venice Biennale last Sunday and wentr to the Giardinio and Arsenale. It’s quite overpowering 5 and a half hours looking at art from names who are totally unfamiliar. I won’t go through them all but the tone was set with the Belgium display by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys. A display of automated puppets some of whom in the centre represent an ideal world (craftsmen, muscians etc) and other around them from the real world behind bars (poets, dropout, zombies etc). In additional each character is given a mini biography which made me think that we all live and are true to our own stories. It’s like an anthropological experience of an older and utopian Europe. https://artreview.com/previews/2019_venice_questionnaire_jos_de_gruyter_and_harald_thys_belgium/
Rodney Wood 