Trendspotting the Biennale: Venice Notes

The Venice Biennale brings together an enormous range and scope of international artists and as Massimiliano Gioni put forward in his opening essay, “concentrates infinite worlds of contemporary art in a single place.” Having had a chance to reflect this encyclopedic vastness, there are certain contemporary currents which the Venetian waters espouse.

At Artsy, the Art Genome team works to define art through the intricate study of its characteristics, collectively known as The Art Genome Project. Through this lens, one is able to grasp commonalities and threads which history occasionally flattens into movements or genres. In contemporary art such a study can become unwieldy and inherently reductionist, if taken as a finality but is a useful way for understanding the media and concerns of artists working today. Below are notes and observations of some of the themes that make up the language of the 55th Venice Biennale.

Venice Notes is a five part series which ties together Venice Biennale projects through Artsy 'genes'.

Images: aerial view of Venice and Entrance to the Giardini; courtesy of Elena Soboleva & Artsy