From the Publisher
I love the Biennale de Arte, Venezia. Each Biennale seems to consider the state of the world, presenting by members of each nation’s artistic community, acknowledging that, although we differ in nationality, we recognize the common necessity to protect our world, coming together to present work that illustrates and brings to the attention of all problems and solutions mutually considered, to protect and save our common world.
We also, in this issue, consider visions of humanity, and look for purpose and emotion portrayed in the work of artists of all persuasions.
At the Nauman/Pondrick/Bellmar exhibition at Nunu Fine Art (New York), reviewed by Elaine King, Nauman’s Thighing Blue face us, displaying only machine-like physical action, not emotion. Pendrick’s back-to-back figures accentuate legs with no purpose, supporting a seat with no one on it. Are we to assume that these wooden legs are only for visual display, since no human is seated on the chair? Like the breasts, there is no purpose, no human function.
Belmar’s visages of disjointed bodies seem violated; Bellmar’s numerous breasts have no purpose, certainly not to feed an infant, nor to provide comfort or sexuality as do Lisa Yuskasavage’s Barbie-like, painted artificial bodies (not in this show) that entice and show off hourglass figures, and it is that consideration that makes emotion and touch and feeling, portrayed by artists, all the more important and necessary in our present world.
Like Pendrick’s figures, the Venice Biennale’s Japan Pavilion exhibition included dolls that had no purpose, nor emotion, with those carrying them not concerned that they were mere fakes of human babies as I discuss in my review of the exhibitions at the Venice Biennale de Arte in this issue.
As pointed out by Mark Bloch, John Zieman questions whether capitalism, and its quest for money and capital strips the human soul, (credit to The Day the Music died) and the creativity of the artist, and, like Bellmar’s work, for no purpose. Opposing the darkness of possibilities for the planet and the display of artificiality and Ai solutions, John Zieman’s “Weaponized Beauty” made a valiant attempt to rescue me from the dark and emotionally devoid. Reviewed by Mark Bloch, Zieman opposes nature with sounds of the made environment, allowing the music to lead in nature, and sounds of manufacturing to lead the symphony of “arc welding and cops in riot gear,” as Mark Bloch writes. It leads me to wonder if there is beauty in those metallic and martial sounds or if they attempt to drown out the sounds of nature. Can industrialization take over the natural world, and its music? As Zieman asks, as noted by Bloch, if workers are stripped of their creative souls, Zieman the video artist triumphs with a loud, demonstrative No, giving hope to those, including me, who hope that Ai and its attendant computerization will not take over artistic vision and arts produced with and eliciting emotion.
Richard Humann envisions a scenario in which the heroes and demigods of the Apollonius of Rhodes’ poem, Argonautica return to the Venetian Lagoon on a quest for the Golden Lion, only to find themselves as a part of the ongoing spectacle of the Giardini della Biennale.
I’m happy to share this issue’s review of the 2026 Venice Biennale de Arte with Rudi Zydagio , Elga Wimmer, Rina Oh and others from Art Lantern who saw the Biennale, each finding their own views of the exhibitions, because Koyo Kouoh, the Curator, wanted us to come together to each find our own minor view and merge them into a major composition, considering and protecting our common world. Art Lantern continues that tradition of cooperation and multiple voices and visions of Biennales, art fairs, exhibitions, performances, film and musical composition, so in that vein, we come together to offer this review.
Titled “In Minor Keys”, this Biennale de Arte, Venezia, like those that have come before it, allows each country, in its own pavilion or curated space, to build a community of artists who contribute their own minor forms a major, polyphonic composition to come together to support our common world. The Curator of the 2020 Biennale refused to label the Arsenale’s rooms, removing the demarcation of borders at a time when border crossing over the seas, which realistically, had no borders forced all to merge, exhibiting together. This biennale, by virtue of its theme, enables all to be minor keys in a performance that all belong to, turning out a sound that all can hear above their own singular voice.
Rina Oh, herself an Asian artist, curator, chef and writer felt a connection to the Asian-faced baby dolls at the Japanese pavilion, at the Biennale de Arte, Venezia 2026, where more than one hundred baby dolls were given out to those who waited for them, with instructions to hold them close, change their diapers, caress them, and then, before leaving, abandon them. Not only was there no reason to change their diapers, as they did not defecate or pee, but caressing them and holding them close produced no satisfaction nor contentment from the babies, as they lacked emotion. It was difficult to find a place to abandon them once the tour of the pavilion was done, and indeed, Rina noticed and reported to the Pavilion curators that a few remained with their “parents” carried outside the pavilion, in effect kidnapped or saved from abandonment depending on your view. This total lack of emotion emitted from the dolls, though elicited from the parents could not satisfy any emotional bond as there is with human parents and babies, nor did the “babies” demand anything from the parents for a day, or register their contentment once satisfied. This exhibition seemed statementless without purpose.
Next door to the Japan pavilion, the Korean Pavilion sees its nation, and any nation in the process of becoming, as Goen Choi’s Liberation Space displays piercing, rupturing pipes that connect, mimicking the sounds of reconnection and healing after wars and devastation. No metaphor is more appropriate although we look forward to the healing phase.
Like the vegetative border between the Korea and Japan Pavilions, so many of the Pavilions in Venice are concerned with water, forests, and environment. That concern is entirely appropriate as this biennale is a compendium of efforts by the nations of the entire world to preserve our planet, questioning and proposing solutions. The Austrian pavilion, showing how recycled water can be used, discussed by Elga Wimmer featured long lines showing the immense interest in the processes used.
The collateral exhibit by Dia Art Foundation at the San Marco Art Centre features the work of Lee Ufan, a longtime favorite of mine, who exhibits rocks and stones, alone or in multiples, often with water features that corroborate the beauty and steadfastness of these marks of time and earthly presence, local to everywhere.
There was more at the Biennale with an emphasis on water, as a trajectory for commerce from ancient times to the present, and a liquid that we depend on for life, for love, for existence, as a connection between nations and civilizations. Water, worldwide, wild and calm, was the subject of the Romanian Pavilion that presented a history of Black Sea surrounding nations, proving both beautiful and challenging. We learned how the Black Sea no longer supported life in its depths, but also saw a beautiful woman being overtaken, and emerging from the sea, indicative of our submerging cultures and civilizations overtaken but bravely standing again as the waves of controversy wash over but do not submerge her.
At the Egypt Pavilion, as I wrote in the last issue, we were urged to be quiet, to listen to our own heartbeats, the stirring of each of our souls, and to touch the cool stone monolithic, six-foot-tall arrow points, curved as a bow, created and polished by the artist, the cool stone challenging our hot tempers dominating the international news in a dark and silent space. Photographs accompanying the sculpture, on black grounds, showed singular threads, vertical lines of color that when I turned, formed an edge, showing that when viewed from a different point, a hard line became an entrance.
Although controversy, as noted and discussed by Elga Wimmer, enveloped the first few days of the Biennale, it was quite civilized with artists and viewers and the Biennale committee considering various ways to make sure all were heard, and finding mutually agreeable solutions, proving that creative solutions by artists and those involved in the arts can triumph.
