Venice Biennale sets sail
Plus: Florence Nightingale Museum to reopen
Good afternoon.
To all my readers currently outside of Venice: I hope you have had a good week. To all my readers currently in Venice, I know you’ve had a good week as I’ve seen it wall-to-wall on my social channels. (Not jealous at all). So instead I hope the hangovers have been good to you.
From here in London, it looks like the pandemic-delayed Venice Biennale 2022 is absolutely stellar. Amongst the national pavilions that have caught my eye, the theatrics - and expanse - of the Italian pavilion makes it look like a must-see, as is the ambitious French pavilion, with its film-set reconstructions and message on colonialism in Algeria. Although what do I know, because, the New York Times critic has said “the national presentations are the worst collection I have seen in 20 years of attending” and that it is full of “half-warmed conceptualism, vapid jokey sculpture, [and] leaden political point-scoring.” Sonya Boyce’s British pavilion has received mixed reviews, with the Guardian calling it “a glorious cacophony of Black female voices” but the Telegraph saying it lacked the X-Factor and doesn’t soar. To be fair, it is the fringe (or bizarrely titled ‘collateral’) exhibitions which have received the highest praise. Anselm Kiefer has brought vast apocalyptic floor-to-ceiling paintings for the Sala dello Scrutinio in one of Venice’s most iconic landmarks, the Doge’s Palace. While Anish Kapoor brings some familiar big-hitters and a body of new sculptural work coated in what has been called “Kapoor black.” (Do take time to read this excellent interview with him about it). The Times calls his show “an engrossing takeover that’s profound as well as fun.”
The biggest moment of the opening week came last night, when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Biennale, imploring the watching artists and visitors to “support this fight with your art.” His speech was shown at the opening of an exhibition of Ukrainian and international artists. "I am sure the exhibition will allow people to feel what it means for Ukraine to defend freedom," Zelensky said.
I very much hope to get to Venice to see many of these shows later in the year. And of course, if anyone wants to invite me to 2024, I’d be happy to pencil it in ;)
Till next week!
Maxwell
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This week’s news
Some good news. London’s Florence Nightingale Museum will reopen next month after two years of closure and a tough fight for its survival during the pandemic. It’ll return to five-days-a-week opening, and its first day open to the public coincides with International Nurses Day. (I’ll be interviewing the Museum’s Director in this very newsletter v soon so keep your eyes peeled). Evening Standard
A previously unseen Christmas card sent from John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Prime Minister Harold Wilson has gone on show for the first time at the Liverpool Beatles Museum. The card reads "War is Over! If you want it" and Wilson simply wrote ‘no’ on it, marking that he didn’t want to respond (which tbh I think is a sensible answer to all Christmas cards, from a Beatle or otherwise). RTE
Hard drives destroyed by the Guardian to protect Edward Snowden’s leaked classified documents are the highlight of a major exhibition on the media opening today at the British Library. The paper destroyed the computers after the government explicitly threatened them with an injunction to return the material, citing national and international security. They are shown alongside other items charting news media and society over the past 500 years. The Guardian (of course)
Visitors returning to the new multi-million dollar M+ gallery in Hong Kong this week - which has been closed for months as authorities try to battle a surging wave of coronavirus - found that a controversial Tiananmen painting had been removed from display, plus eight other pieces. CNN
Officials in Iraq are proposing to convert Iraq's presidential palaces - which were built for former dictator Saddam Hussein - into public museums. There are over ONE HUNDRED of them. Interestingly, the plans are being justified by claiming that the Iraq Museum in Baghdad can “no longer accommodate” most of its expanding collection and that establishing a new museum in the capital is the solution. The National
Even (former) royalty can’t escape the period of unpaid slog to get a foot on the museum career ladder. The ex Princess Mako of Japan - who gave up her title and a $1.3 million payout to marry a 'commoner’ - has been doing volunteer work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she’s been helping in the Asian art collection. She’s actually got a degree in art history from the University of Edinburgh, and master's in Art Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of Leicester. But like most early career professionals, degrees don’t get you paid. Although most people don’t have a luxury Manhattan apartments 10-minutes from the museum so I won’t feel too sorry for her. People
And finally
Vanity Fair have been knock-knock-knockin' on the door of the new Bob Dylan Museum, and they get an exclusive first look.
The National Poo Museum has just opened in a permanent home for the first time, on the Isle of Wight. And some people say museums are going to sh…
All the content in this newsletter is provided to you for free. Why not buy me a digital coffee if you enjoy it?