The Venice Biennale is more than just the national pavilions and the central exhibition. Venice’s museums and galleries host major exhibitions to coincide with the main event, and smaller shows pop up around the city. Here is our list of the key ones that have been announced so far.
Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies
Punta Della Dogana, until 27 November
Opened last year, this show has been extended to allow the Biennale crowd to see it. It brings together some of the American artist’s most important video works.
Alongside the exhibition, a group of top international choreographers have developed work in dialogue with Nauman's exhibition at Punta della Dogana. Dancing Studies stages pieces by William Forsythe, Lenio Kaklea, Ralph Lemon and Pam Tanowitz at various venues from April to June.
Sabine Weiss: The Poetry of the Instant
Casa dei Tre Oci, 11 March-23 October
With over 200 photographs, this will be the largest retrospective ever held of the Franco-Swiss photographer, who died recently at the age of 97.
Marlene Dumas: Open End
Palazzo Grassi, 27 March-8 January 2023
A major monographic show of the South African artist whose raw and intimate paintings and drawings are often inspired by found images. She says: “I am an artist who uses second-hand images and first-hand emotions.”
Leonora Carrington has inspired the main exhibition at Venice 2022, and her painting The Pleasures of Dagobert, 1945, is also on show the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 9 April-26 September
Riffing off the theme of the International Art Exhibition, this museum show will take a deeper dive into the world of surrealism. It features around 60 works, with a focus on the movement’s interest in magic and the occult. Artists include Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Leonor Fini, René Magritte and Dorothea Tanning.
Image from research trip to the Portuguese Savage Islands by Diana Policarpo Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned and produced by TBA21–Academy.
The Soul Expanding Ocean: Dineo Seshee Bopape & Diana Policarpo
Ocean Space, 9 April-2 October
Two new commissions from artists who have taken part in TBA21-Academy’s programme of ocean research trips.
Penumbra
Ospedaletto and Santa Maria dei Derelitti, 19 April-27 October
Fondazione In Between Art Film, which supports artists and institutions experimenting with film, video, performance and installation, presents their first exhibition. Artists include Karimah Ashadu, Jonathas De Andreade, Aziz Hazara, He Xiangyu, Masbedo, James Richards, Emilija Škarnulytė and Ana Vaz.
Ugo Rondinone: burn shine fly
Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, 20 April-17 September
Swiss-born, New York-based artist Rondinone is creating new sculptures which will respond to the 13th century setting of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. They will be shown alongside some of his previous work: Rondinone is perhaps best known for his teetering towers of painted stones.
Mary Weatherford with her work The Flaying of Marsyas—3500 Spectra, 2021–22 Photo: Elena Durham Courtesy Gagosian
Mary Weatherford: The Flaying of Marysas
Museo di Palazzo Grimani, 20 April-27 November
A series of paintings inspired by one of the last – and most shocking works – of the great Venetian painter Titian. The Flaying of Marysas paintings were made at the beginning of last year by Los Angeles-based artist Mary Weatherford, and like many of her works feature added neon tube lights.
Joseph Beuys
Palazzo Cini, 20 April-2 October
The Palazzo Cini is a museum-house which opened in 1984. The historic works from the collection of Italian industrialist Vittoria Cini will be joined by an exhibition of Joseph Beuys.
Anish Kapoor's exhibition will take place across two sites Portrait: George Darrell, 2021
Anish Kapoor
Gallerie dell’Accademia and Palazzo Manfrin, 20 April – 9 October
Spread across two venues, this exhibition will bring together old and more recent work by the London-based sculptor, including the long-awaited premiere of his work using the "world's blackest black".
Danh Vo, Isamu Noguchi, Park Seo-Bo
Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 20 April-27 November
Danh Vo co-curates this exhibition , which brings together his work with that of pioneering sculptor Isamu Noguchi and painter Park Seo-Bo, one of the leading figures in modern Korean art.
Afro 1950-1970: From Italy to America and back
Ca’ Pesaro, 21 April-23 October
Forty-five works by mid-20th century Italian painter Afro Basaldella, showing his exchanges and collaborations with American artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky.
Personal Structures
Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora and Giardini della Marinaressa, 23 April-27 November
With more than 200 international artists, the sixth edition of Personal Structures, organised by the European Cultural Centre, is themed around the idea of “reflections”.
Anselm Kiefer has created site-specific paintings for the Palazzo Ducale Photo © Georges Poncet
Anselm Kiefer
Palazzo Ducale, 26 March-29 October
Anselm Kiefer is making a site-specific installation of paintings that responds to the Sala dello Scrutinio in the Palazzo Ducale. It was the place where Venice’s Doges were elected and is richly decorated with scenes of the city’s heyday.
Detail from Raqib Shaw's La Tempesta (after Giorgione), 2019 – 2021 Image courtesy of the artist and White Cube. Photo: White Cube (Ollie Hammick)
Raqib Shaw
Ca’ Pesaro, 22 April-25 September
New paintings by the London-based artist. Conceived for Ca' Pesaro’s galleries, they draw influence from Italian and Venetian pictorial traditions and with inspirations from Tintoretto, Giorgione, Panini and others.
Human Brains
Fondazione Prada, 23 April-27 November
An exhibition focused on studies of the human brain, part of a multidisciplinary project launched in November 2020. The show at the Ca 'Corner della Regina will "attempt to translate the history of the study of human thought and the current state of research in neuroscience into an immersive exhibition form."