What to see in Venice during the Biennale 2022: the guide to exhibitions

Kicking off the Venice Biennale 2022, the 59th International Art Exhibition, titled The Milk of Dreams and curated by Cecilia Alemani, will animate Venice from Saturday, April 23 to Sunday, November 27, 2022. But as with every edition of the great exhibition, the most important contemporary art event in the world, there are many exhibitions taking place around the city, among major museums and galleries. We have selected 20 of them: so here is Finestre sull’Arte’s guide on what to see in Venice during the Biennale for a total immersion in art.

1. Surrealism and Magic. Enchanted Modernity.

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, April 9 to September 26.

From April 9 to September 26, 2022, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice will present to the public the exhibition Surrealism and Magic. Enchanted Modernity, curated by Grazina SubelytÄ—, Associate Curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. On display will be works by Victor Brauner, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Maya Deren, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, Wolfgang Paalen, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea Tanning and Remedios Varo. The exhibition is organized by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, in collaboration with the Barberini Museum in Potsdam. After Venice, the exhibition will in fact go to the Potsdam museum from October 22, 2022 to January 29, 2023.

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2. From Donatello to Alessandro Vittoria, 1450 - 1600. 150 years of sculpture in the Republic of Venice

Giorgio Franchetti Gallery at Ca’ d’Oro, April 22 to October 30, 2022

From April 22 to October 30, 2022, Galleria Giorgio Franchetti at Ca’ d’Oro in Venice presents a major exhibition dedicated to Venetian sculpture, entitled From Donatello to Alessandro Vittoria, 1450 - 1600. 150 Years of Sculpture in the Republic of Venice. Curated by Toto Bergamo Rossi, director of Venetian Heritage, and Claudia Cremonini, director of the Giorgio Franchetti Gallery at Ca’ d’Oro, the exhibition is organized and financed by the Venetian Heritage Foundation, in collaboration with the Veneto Regional Museums Directorate.

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3. Anselm Kiefer. These writings, when burned, will finally give some light (Andrea Emo)

Doge’s Palace, March 26 to October 29.

It opened on March 26 and will be open to the public until October 29, 2022 at the Scrutiny Room of the Doge’s Palace in Venice, the exhibition Anselm Kiefer. These writings, when burned, will finally give some light (Andrea Emo), curated by Gabriella Belli and Janne Sirén. Tied to celebrations of the 1,600th anniversary of the founding of Venice, the installation is at the center of the fifth edition of MUVE Contemporaneo, a biennial exhibition of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia that aims to reflect on the relationship of current art to museums. The title refers to the writings of Venetian philosopher Andrea Emo.

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4. Sabine Weiss. The Poetry of the Instant

Casa dei Tre Oci, March 11 to October 23, 2022.

For the first time in Italy come the works of French-Swiss photographer Sabine Weiss (Saint-Gingolph, 1924 - Paris, 2021), in an exhibition entitled The Poetry of the Instant at the Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice, from March 11 to October 23, 2022. It is also the largest retrospective ever devoted to Sabine Weiss, who figures among the major representatives of French humanist photography, along with great artists such as Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Brassaï and Izis. The only female photographer of the postwar period to have practiced this profession for so long and in all fields of photography (from reportage to portraits of artists, from fashion to street shots with a focus on children’s faces, to numerous world travels), Sabine Weiss, who passed away last Dec. 21, actively participated in the construction of this exhibition, opening her personal archives, kept in Paris, to tell her extraordinary story and present her work in a broad and structured manner. The exhibition is the first and most important international tribute to his career, featuring more than 200 photographs.

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5. Marlene Dumas. Open-end

Palazzo Grassi, March 27, 2022 to January 8, 2023<>/em>

Marlene Dumas (Cape Town, 1953) is featured in a major solo exhibition at Palazzo Grassi in Venice. Curated by Caroline Bourgeois in collaboration with the artist, the exhibition titled Open-end intends to trace her pictorial production through more than one hundred works, including paintings and drawings, ranging from 1984 to the present and unpublished works created in recent years, from the Pinault Collection, international museums and private collections.

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6. Anish Kapoor

Gallerie dell’Accademia, April 20 to October 9.

A major exhibition dedicated to Anish Kapoor (Mumbai, India, 1954) that traces the highlights of the celebrated artist’s career; new works are also presented. In fact, for the first time, highly innovative new works, created using carbon nanotechnology, are exhibited, in addition to recent paintings and sculptures that testify to the vitality and visionary drive of the master’s current artistic output. The exhibition, curated by Taco Dibbits, is set up at the Gallerie dell’Accademia and in the historic Palazzo Manfrin, in the Cannaregio district of Venice, to whose collection originally belonged a significant nucleus of masterpieces now on display inside the museum.

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7. Heinz Mack - Vibration of Light / Vibration of Light.

Marciana National Library, April 23 to July 17.

After turning 90 last year, the great German sculptor and painter Heinz Mack (Lollar, 1931) returns to the Venice Biennale, in a Collateral Event for the 59. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. He does so with Heinz Mack -Vibration of Light / Vibration of Light, a solo exhibition curated by Manfred Möller. Heinz Mack, among the world’s leading exponents of kinetic art, already represented Germany in 1970 at the 35th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. In 2014, the ZERO group artist, who had developed his own language in the light art of the 1950s, exhibited his installation The Sky over Nine Columns, consisting of nine immense golden pillars, in front of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in conjunction with the Architecture Biennale.

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8. Joseph Beuys. Finely Articulated.

Palazzo Cini Gallery, April 20 to October 2.

An exhibition dedicated to Joseph Beuys (Krefeld, 1921 - Düsseldorf, 1986): it is titled Finely Articulated and is the event with which the gallery, the house-museum that holds masterpieces from the personal collection of the great patron Vittorio Cini, reopens to the public. The exhibition, named after the main work on display in the Palazzo Cini itinerary, Support for a fine-limbed person’s back (hare-type) of the 20th century AD (Backrest for a fine-limbed person (hare-type) of the 20th century AD), presents a selection of about 40 works by the master of conceptual art, whose 100th birthday was celebrated in 2021.

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9. Hermann Nitsch. 20th Painting Action.

Oficine 800, April 19 to July 20.

A major exhibition of Hermann Nitsch (Vienna, 1938), the father of Viennese Actionism, at the Oficine 800 space at Fondamenta San Biagio on Giudecca Island. The event, titled 20th Painting Action is organized by Zuecca Projects in collaboration with Helmut Essl’s private collection and Galerie Kandlhofer. As part of the exhibition, 20th Painting Action, the only painting action by the artist whose works are entirely held in the same collection, will be presented, and through the exhibition it will be possible to see the works for the first time in Italy since their creation.

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10. Antoni Clavé. The Spirit of the Warrior

ACP Palazzo Franchetti, April 22 to October 23.

Antoni Clavé (Barcelona, 1913 - Saint-Tropez, 2005), among the artists who best interpreted the transition from figuration to abstraction, is the protagonist of a major exhibition at the Venetian venue of Palazzo Franchetti. The exhibition, entitled The Spirit of the Warrior, is curated by Aude Hendgen, art historian and head of the Antoni Clavé Archives, and Sitor Senghor, independent curator. On display are about fifty works including paintings and sculptures, some of them large in size, which aim to explore one of the artist’s most cherished themes: warriors. Through this theme, the exhibition offers an opportunity to investigate the Spanish artist’s research through the evolution of his style.

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11. Koen Vanmechelen. Burning Falls.

Berengo Art Space Foundation, April 8 to May 15

Fresh from their great success at the Uffizi Gallery with the exhibition Seduction, the thirty fantastic creatures made by Flemish artist Koen Vanmechelen with combinations of glass and Carrara marble are presented by Adriano Berengo on the island of Murano. Made in 2021 with the support of the masters of Berengo Studio for the glass part and Michelangelo Laboratories of Carrara for the marble part, the works will be housed inside the Berengo Art Space Foundation (Campiello della Pescheria 4) under the title Burning Falls.

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Burning

12. Last Whispers: Immersive Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and a Falling Tree.

Ca’ Foscari, April 21 to September 30.

From April 21 to Sept. 30, 2022, a site-specific immersive virtual reality installation will be placed in the courtyard of Ca’ Foscari in Venice on the occasion of Last Whispers: Immersive Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and a Falling Tree, an art project by American photographer and artist Lena Herzog on the world’s dying languages. Curated by Silvia Burini, Maria Gatti Racah, Giulia Gelmi, Anastasia Kozachenko-Stravinsky (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage - DFBC), the project is sponsored by UNESCO.

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13. On Fire

Giorgio Cini Foundation, April 22 to July 24.

The Giorgio Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio in Venice presents On Fire from April 22 to July 24, 2022, an exhibition entirely devoted to the use of fire as a means of artistic creation in the post-World War II avant-garde. The exhibition is curated by Bruno Corà in collaboration with Luca Massimo Barbero and is promoted by the Giorgio Cini Foundation and Tornabuoni Art.

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14. Présence

ACP Palazzo Franchetti, April 22 to May 15

After the success of the exhibition Le lien des mondes in 2017, French artist Claudine Drai (Paris, 1951) returns to Venice to coincide with the 59th Art Biennale with an unprecedented project involving Wim Wenders with a film dedicated to the artist being screened at the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi and ACP - Art Capital Partners Palazzo Franchetti, in the spaces of the second piano nobile, which now also houses the Morandiana Library.

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15. Louise Nevelson. Persistence

Procuratie Vecchie, April 23 to September 11.

From April 23 to September 11, 2022, the Procuratie Vecchie in St. Mark’s Square in Venice will partially open to the public for a major exhibition dedicated to Louise Nevelson, an official collateral event of the 59. Venice Biennale’s International Art Exhibition. In fact, the Louise Nevelson Foundation is announcing a major exhibition project celebrating one of the most significant figures in American abstractionism. The exhibition is intended to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the artist’s participation in the 1962 Art Biennale.

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16. Take your time

Green Salon, April 23 to September 27.

Francesca Leone presents the Biennale’s collateral event Take your time, curated by Danilo Eccher, with the scientific direction of Nomas Foundation. It is proposed as an unprecedented installation path, which comes to life starting from reflections around the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and the suspension of collective and individual time during the health emergency, questioning the relationship between human, time and matter. The artist breaks down, forges, molds, sculpts, paints the marginalized, thrown, discarded matter until giving it back a poetic life and a new moral relationship with the human.

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17. Marc Quinn. Historynow

National Archaeological Museum, April 21 to October 23.

On view at the National Archaeological Museum in Venice from April 21 to October 23, 2022 is Marc Quinn’s exhibition entitled Historynow, curated by Francesca Pini and Aindrea Emelife, a new chapter in his 10-year History Paintings project. Forty-eight new paintings and one sculpture, Stele, will be on display in dialogue with the museum’s collection of classical antiquities. The artist’s works originate as iPhone screenshots and replicate the digital portals through which humans absorb, consume and share news. Through the screens, society witnesses world-changing cultural events: accidents, human tragedies and natural disasters, interspersed with moments of pop cultural levity in an incessant stream of content.

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18. Trees. 30 Fragments of Italian History.

M9 Museo del ’900 in Mestre, March 11 to August 10.

An exhibition on the history of Italy told through trees, the testimonial value they hold and the emotional relationship these living beings have with people. It is about Trees! 30 Fragments of Italian History, the exhibition curated by landscape architect Annalisa Metta, arboriculturist Giovanni Morelli and popularizer Daniele Zovi, enhanced by the drawings of illustrator Guido Scarabottolo, organized and produced by M9 - Museo del ’900 in Mestre. The exhibition, accompanied by a volume published by Marsilio Arte, uses trees to talk about the country’s histories through the eyes of these silent witnesses of the fragments that make up the multifaceted mosaic of Italy’s history, recent and past.

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19. Paolo Gioli. The Venice Years (1960 - 1969)

Galleria In Corte, April 14 to September 17.

Galleria in Corte, a new exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art in Venice, presents the exhibition Paolo Gioli. The Venice Years (1960 - 1969), curated by Nico Stringa, dedicated to the early creative experiences of Paolo Gioli (Rovigo, 1942 - Lendinara, 2022), an important and multifaceted artist who was a painter, photographer and experimental filmmaker. The exhibition stems from the desire of friends and collectors, Venetian and otherwise, to organize an anthology of pictorial and graphic works by the future film-maker and photographer, making available to all drawings and paintings made during the 1960s in the lagoon, works that still today, more than half a century later, do not cease to enchant and amaze.

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20. Danh Vo, Isamu Noguchi, Park Seo-Bo

Fondazione Querini Stampalia, April 20 to November 27.

The Fondazione Querini Stampalia, in collaboration with White Cube, presents an exhibition curated by artist Danh Vo (Ba Ria, 1975) together with Chiara Bertola, head of the institution’s contemporary art program. The exhibition, titled Danh Vo, Isamu Noguchi, Park Seo-Bo, places Danh Vo’s artistic practice in dialogue with the work of Park Seo-Bo (Yecheon, 1931), widely recognized as the initiator of the Korean art movement Dansaekhwa (monochrome painting), and Isamu Noguchi (Los Angeles, 1904 - New York, 1988), a prominent Japanese-born American sculptor, architect, designer and set designer.

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What to see in Venice during the Biennale 2022: the guide to exhibitions

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