In this Venice Biennale special, we give you a flavour of the 59th edition of the Biennale which, as ever, brings a deluge of contemporary art to the historic Italian city.
Wonder women: curator Cecilia Alemani on what we can expect at the female-dominated Venice Biennale this year
We talk to four artists in the national pavilions—Francis Alÿs in the Belgian Pavilion; Sonia Boyce in the British Pavilion; Shubigi Rao in the Singapore Pavilion; and Na Chainkua Reindorf in the Ghana Pavilion—about their presentations and how, if at all, they relate to the idea of nationhood.
Clockwise from top left: The Nature of the Game by Francis Alÿs for the Belgian Pavilion; Room 1 in Sonia Boyce's British Pavilion; Shubigi Rao's Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book in the Singaporian Pavilion; Na Chainkua Reindorf's works in the Ghanian Pavilion show Black Star, The Museum as Freedom Belgian Pavilion: Roberto Ruiz; British Pavilion: Cristiano Corte © British Council; Singaporian Pavilion: Alessandro Brasile; Ghanian Pavilion: Aimee Dawson
Louisa Buck and Jane Morris join host Ben Luke to review the main exhibition, The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, and pick their highlights of the Biennale so far.
Giovanni Bellini's Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse (1513)
And while most visitors to Venice this week are immersed in contemporary art, for this episode’s Work of the Week, we take a look at a masterpiece that remains exactly where it was intended to hang. The art historian Ben Street joins Ben Luke in San Giovanni Crisostomo, a church near Venice’s Rialto bridge, to look at Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse, a late painting by the Venetian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini.
• Venice Biennale, 23 April-27 November
• Ben Street, How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone, Yale University Press, £14.99/$20.