A storm through the Biennale

I had three hours free and my friend Kate Woods in town. We thought it might not be enough time to look around the Giardini (when entry costs 18 euros you want to be able to get around everything) but I was thrilled to have the company and so we decided to go anyway. It was excellent to finally get some context for the wider Biennale. On the way we stumbled across some other projects.
Here are some highlights, the ones that will perhaps provoke further reading when I have some time. 

Finland
The national institution of the Finnish Fire & Rescue Service is the subject of the Finnish pavilion. This small pavilion, designed by Alvar Aalto, has been transformed into an amateurish collection of memorabilia such as you might find in a small town commemorating local heroes. 
  

Denmark
The Danish pavilion is a modernist archetype in the early style of Oscar Niemeyer. The challenges of this loaded space have been met by the curators Elgreen & Dragset by their conversion of it into a Wallpaper magazine-like fantasy modernist home. The audience is implicated in a plot, entering the home of an erotic novelist who appears to have committed suicide. On our way out (gates to the Giardini close at 6pm) we happened upon the assistants removing the model cadaver on a stretcher. I thought they possibly could have waited until 6.10pm to ensure the illusion was kept in intact for departing visitors but I was glad to get these shots. 
       

Some Russian paintings
Watercolours of futuristic monuments by Pavel Pepperstein. All I need to do is include the titles: 
The Big Will of Reincarnation. (3033)
The Attack of the Old Houses
The Planet Mirror in the Year 2158
The Great Red Flag 2500

   

  
Mexico
Set in an exquisitely painted but eerily empty palazzo in the area of Castello, the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles presents ‘What Else Could We Talk About?’. A homeopathic quantity of blood mixed with water is used to wash the floors every hour. We missed the performance but were still affected by its residue. The wet floors and the slow passage through the residence was a powerful evocation of civil violence in contemporary Mexico.
  
 
Australia
Kate stands next to the 'Pursuit Special' from Mad Max, outside the Australian pavilion. Shaun Gladwell’s dystopic MADDESTMAXIMUS frames man’s dislocation with the landscape and is set in the Australian outback. Dead kangaroos and motorbikes.
 
   
Iceland
Our neighbouring pavilion. A work by the artist Ragnar Kjartansson consists of a live performance of a clichéd artist, replete with palette and painting smock, who will continuously paint canvases of his speedo clad model. This will happen for six months. There is also a lot of alcohol littered around the space. 
  
 
Macedonia
Unfinished(?) but looking good.