Five must-see works at the Venice Biennale, from human bells to demented screen puppets

VENICE – The city of dreams can be something of a nightmare during the Venice Biennale, arguably the world’s oldest, biggest and most prestigious contemporary art event. Here is The Straits Times’ curated game plan to help you navigate the 31 collateral events and 100 national participations on till Nov 22.

Plan at least a day, preferably two, to visit the two main locations – the Giardini park is host to veteran pavilions and is an eclectic tour of international architectural styles, while the former shipyard Arsenale is where you can catch Singaporean artist Amanda Heng’s A Pause.

Both host the main two-part exhibition, themed In Minor Keys, a poetic journey featuring overlooked contemporary artists.

As you amble along the canals, let serendipity be the guide and look out for the signs to the off-site exhibitions. Those who want a tour through South-east Asia’s especially strong presentation this edition can follow the guide here. Here are the five unforgettable, must-see works that are a cut above the rest.

1. Human bells and urine tanks at the Austria pavilion

The long queue to the two toilets at the Austria pavilion is one of the most revelatory experiences at the biennale. Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger’s appalling theme park Seaworld Venice submerges a performer in visitors’ treated piss while a naked jetskier performs stunts nearby.

A visceral piece of climate theatre that shocks, this is the most talked-about pavilion at a sinking Venice. If the queues deter you, wait outside before the strike of the hour – Holzinger hides a performer in the suspended bell outside the pavilion, who hourly sounds the ominous gong on a drowned world.

Info: str.sg/maiB

2. Destroyed monuments resurrected in Saudi Arabia pavilion

With close to 30,000 clay earth bricks, Saudi artist Dana Awartani worked with 32 other Saudi-based artisans to painstakingly recreate the gorgeous mosaic motifs under threat or destroyed by war throughout the Arab world. The floor becomes a makeshift archaeological stage, resurrecting images from a Syriac church in Aleppo, Syria, to a Byzantine-era floor mosaic in a Gaza refugee camp.

May Your Tears Never Dry, You Who Weep Over Stones – the title references the classical Arabic poet Abu Nuwas – is a moving monument to loss. It is that rare work that sings at the crossroads between conceptualism and craft.

Info: str.sg/MMxz

3. Demented screen puppets haunt the Taiwan pavilion

If ensh**tification had a look, it would be Taiwanese artist Li Yi-Fan’s perverse, animated Screen Melancholy. The word “ensh**tification” – Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year in 2024 – describes the deterioration of online platforms as a result of profit-seeking.

This is the weirdest thing you will see, but it is also eerily familiar. Li’s world of lecturing puppets is a palimpsest of addictive screens – filters, memes, PowerPoint slides – reflecting the wretched state of people’s sloppy brains.

The Palazzo delle Prigioni, near the Doge’s Palace, is littered with the fragmented ruins of an ancient statue, likely doomscrolling in repose. Visitors can charge their phones here too.

Info: str.sg/vuiv

4. Matchbox galore from a pioneer Uzbek conceptualist

Instruments Of The Mind is pioneering Uzbek conceptualist Vyacheslav Akhunov’s wonderful solo staged by the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent. Many of the works on show have only been dreamt up in sketches, and are realised in physical form for the first time.

There are good-humoured digs at Soviet life such as Triumphal Arch – trendy among some political leaders today – lined with scissors that mock state ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Another work brings together over 400 matchboxes in 1 sq m of a plinth, filled with small-scale reproductions of the artist’s works – a pocket-size exhibition of banned avant-garde artists.

Info: str.sg/nfPK

5. A cancelled South African artist mourns in a 7th-century church

After her pavilion was cancelled by South Africa’s culture minister for a “highly divisive” tribute to a Palestinian poet, South African artist Gabrielle Goliath has independently taken Elegy to Venice at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin. Not officially part of the biennale, its fringe existence is a testament to how contested this edition has become.

Elegy, which is on till July 31, commemorates the victims of violence from South Africa to Gaza. The single note that resonates through the Catholic church is a simple but powerful call for the mourning to continue, despite every contemporary distraction to look away.

Info: str.sg/DrUG