There is a sour tendency in cultural politics today — a growing gap between speaking about the world and acting in it. In the domain of rhetoric, everyone has grown gifted at pulling back the curtain. An elegant museum gallery is actually a record of imperial violence; a symphony orchestra is a site of elitism […]
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Last week at the Venice Biennale, the milliner Giuliana Longo wore gold earrings in the shape of hats as she showed off a hat sculpture made of natural agave. Ms. Longo, who has worked as a milliner since 1969, said through a translator that she fell in love with hats because “if you wear a […]
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Archie Moore, an Indigenous Australian artist who has created an installation including a monumental family tree, won the top prize at the Venice Biennale on Saturday. Moore, 54, took the Golden Lion, the prize for the best national participation at the Biennale, the world’s oldest and most high-profile international art exhibition. He beat out artists […]
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They used to call this waterlogged city the Most Serene Republic, but there is nothing serenissima about the opening days of the Venice Biennale. The world’s longest-running and most extravagant festival of contemporary art opens to the public on Saturday after a preview biathlon of fine art and financial profligacy that has grown more hectic […]
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The exhibitions have been installed. The artists have arrived. The city of Venice is prepared to welcome throngs of visitors from across the world. The 2024 Venice Biennale, featuring work by more than 330 participating artists from some 90 countries scattered throughout the city, opens to the public on Saturday. And before that come the […]
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Since February thousands of pro-Palestinian activists have tried in vain to get the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s most prestigious international art exhibitions, to ban Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza. But on Tuesday, when the Biennale’s international pavilions open for a media preview, the doors to the Israel pavilion will […]
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An American institution sponsors an exhibition by a Chinese artist in collaboration with a Japanese architect at a centuries-old Venetian building. This is the kind of far-flung constellation that can only come together during the Venice Biennale, when the historic Italian lagoon city turns into contemporary art’s grandest stage. While the Biennale itself is famed […]
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People in Venice might hear the jingle dress dancers before they see them. On April 18, some 26 intertribal Native American dancers and singers from Oklahoma and Colorado will make their way through the winding streets and canals of the Italian city. Wearing brightly colored shawls, beaded yokes and dresses decorated with the metal cones […]
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People in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, are hardly shy. The stereotype runs toward boisterousness, worn as a point of pride. But when the artist and poet Precious Okoyomon recorded interviews with some 60 city residents in January for an art project, the unusual questions — like “Who was responsible for the suffering of your mother?” […]
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