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The Giardini: The Venue of the Venice Art Festival
By Bob Bruno
The Giardini hosts an international art festival every second year which forms part of the city's cultural biennale. The Giardini is an area of Venetian parkland adjacent to the narrow stretch of water known as the Bacino di San Marco which divides the city's public gardens from St.Mark's Square and the heart of Venice.
The Giardini is not only famous for the art festival but also for the dozens of feral cats which live in its grounds and are protected by law. Despite the risk of rabies, they are regularly fed by the locals.
The gardens were created by Napoleon who ordered the draining of the surrounding marshland. Today much of the site is occupied by the thirty permanent pavilions which host the city's biennale.
The festival is organised on a strictly national basis with each nation being allocated a pavilion where only its nationals may exhibit their work. This segregated approach owes much to the Italian nationalist movement and the inter-war management of the festival by the Fascist Council.
When the Biennale was reopened after the Second World War many nations demanded the allocation of a permanent pavilion as a matter of national prestige and so the pavilions were allocated according to diplomatic rather than artistic considerations. This meant that several nations acquired a permanent pavilion without being able to muster sufficient artists to present a credible exhibition.
Many of the pavilions were designed by famous architects and their concentration within a relatively confined space effectively transforms the area into an architectural museum. It is easy to guess the nationality of each pavilion from its exterior. The American pavilion looks like a miniature Capitol while Germany has opted for a northern Gothic style and Brazil's post-modernist design is exactly what you would expect to find in Brasilia. The Italian pavilion is obviously inspired by the Pantheon; it is easily the largest and is the focal point of the leafy approach to the gardens. The American, Canadian and Israeli exhibitions are grouped around an adjacent clearing.
The Australian pavilion is perched on a hill near a stream beyond which the pavilions become increasingly scruffy. For example the Serbian, Rumanian and Egyptian pavilions are grouped around a broken fountain and stagnant pond, and many visitors only venture this far to view the popular Brazilian exhibitions.
The festival was formerly criticised for being a piecemeal jumble of national exhibits which interfere with the appreciation of artists of diverse nationality and an understanding of the styles which they represent. The pavilions were also said to promote narrow-minded chauvinism rather than the liberal arts.
In view of these criticisms, the organisers abandoned the Grand Prizes awarded to the pavilions in 1968 and opted for a more thematic approach based on contemporary radical issues. Thus in 1974 the entire festival was effectively transformed into a cultural protest against the Chilean dictator, General Pinochet.
About the Author
Bob Bruno is a frequent visitor to Venice and a regular contributor to the Venice Sights Blog at http://www.venice-sights.co.uk
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/34713.html
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