This Year’s Venice Biennale Breakout? The Culturemogger
Nick Cave’s Amalgam (Origin) at the Venice Biennale.
Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg
The world of contemporary art is like Prospero’s enchanted island, “full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.” But when news happens, it’s babel or bedlam or both. On the enchanted archipelago of Venice, I was always a step — actually whole days — behind events as they unfolded at the prestigious 2026 Biennale for the arts. It was harrying.
A week before I arrived for previews of the 61st edition of the world’s premier arts show, the five-person jury that traditionally decides the gathering’s Golden Lion awards resigned over the participation of Israel, Russia and the US. Pussy Riot — the Russian punk protest collective — joined Ukrainian feminists in pink balaclavas in front of the Russian Pavilion on May 6th, the first day of a three-day press preview. I missed that too because my plane landed two hours late.