Venice Biennale 2024

Q: Given that the Venice Biennale provides a platform for International voices, what did the Australian pavilion present, how does it approach the theme and why do you feel this was successful?

Hannah Abbott:

"This was my first visit to Venice and it was a momentous experience. The Australian Pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall is a striking black box surrounding a white box sitting like a piece of contemporary sculpture on a canal. This year Australia presented a large-scale installation by First Nations artist Archie Moore and QAGOMA curator Ellie Buttrose. The Australian Pavilion were awarded the most prestigious Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation. Megan and I felt proud to be Australians as we stood in the longest queue on the day to get into the exhibition.

 

The exhibition title  kith and kin, means ‘friends and family’. Archie Moore's interest in genealogy began six years ago when he started looking into his family archives, with a Bigambul and Kamilaro mother and British and Scottish father, Archie Moore discovered he has 3484 people in his family tree. The Indigenous Australian family tree goes back 65 000 and is one of the longest consecutive living cultures on earth and Archie Moore hand draws this family tree with white chalk onto black walls and onto the ceiling. A central moat surrounds a large plinth which holds official documents drawn up by the State and these reflect the high rates of incarceration of First Nations people. 

 

There was a restriction on the number of people allowed through the door, so the silence in this large pavilion accentuated the impact of this powerful narrative." 

It’s a giant leap from commercial art galleries as we know them to be to the art pavilions at the Venice Biennale! I don’t know of an International art event as critical and impactful to current global conversations.

 

Given my heritage I was moved by the South Africa Pavilion in the Arsenale entitled Quiet Ground—it presented a multidisciplinary sound installation by artist collaborative MADEYOULOOK. It was a simple evocative exhibition with an 8 channelled sound composition that foregrounds the power and place of rain and water in traditional South African society. This stand was possible to enjoy with your eyes closed … the field recordings of the natural landscape, interviews with generations of land workers, healers and family memory, were all framed within the structure of a Johannesburg thunderstorm. 

 

Another favourite was the Julie Mehretu exhibition - ensemble -  in the palazzo Grassi. Set across two floors of the Palazzo, the viewer gradually understands Julie Mehretu’s contemporary abstract painting rooted in social struggles, revolutionary movements and her sense of what it feels like to be displaced and connected. Mehretu invited fellow artists to exhibit alongside her which is a sincere testament to her attention to the power of woven relationships. The juxtaposition of contemporary art with the Venetian classical architecture of the Palazzo Grassi was outstanding."

Otomys artist, Simone Boon, exhibited alongside the Venice Biennale 2024. Boon's collective show presented itself not only as an exhibition, but also as a journey that crossed multiple boundaries – geographic, political, religious, cultural and artistic. While some physical and conceptual limits can mean comfort and safety – our own bodies, the walls of our homes, the lines on the road –, the exhibition aimed to shift these constraints, and to investigate what is beyond in order to see it from a different perspective.

View Simone Boon's Available Works

Otomys' Guide to Venice 

Stay: We loved San Marco for location

Tickets: Buy and book in advance!

Eat: Peck, Bar Luce, Osteria Oliva Nero, Al Mascaron … and so many more to discover!

Drink: Bellinis at Harry’s Bar

Visit: The Peggy Guggenheim Museum is extraordinary .

Watch: Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict before you go!