Tuesday November 5th, 2015, my classmates and I went to the Biennale in Venice. Venice is the capital of region Veneto in north-eastern Italy and this is a famous city because it is very peculiar and different from other metropolitan cities. The historic centre of Venice is situated in the middle of a lagoon, including also some islands such as Murano, Burano and Torcello that are very popular with tourists; moreover, , according to tradition, the town is divided in six districts and the most famous is San Marco where there are the representative city monuments like the Basilica and the Bell Tower of san Marco, the Clock Tower that marks the hours, the lunar phases and zodiac signs and the Ducal Palace that is an example of Gothic art. The main peculiarity of the town is that local people and tourists walk around the city on foot or by boat, but rich people can use a small boat called “Gondola”.
The landscape in Venice is really beautiful, especially when the sun goes down. For me the sunset is the best moment of the day, because the sky has a fantastic shade, turning from red to yellow, then to a violet-like colour, a miracle of nature. This is a very romantic time of the day, suitable for couples. This special moment is for me relaxing because it suggests that night is coming and it is the moment in which I think a lot about my life in the future and about the things that happen today around the world.
Biennale is a big exhibition of contemporary art. It compels us to imagine and to interpret reality. It is open every two years. It is divided in many pavilions in the “Giardini” and in the “Arsenale”. Inside every pavilion a different country is hosted. In my opinion the best pavilions are the “green pavilion” of Russia, because it connects Russian contemporary art with recent technology and traditional Russian architecture, then the Korean Pavilion that refers to the future and to hypothetical methods to reduce the distance and to realize the human desire to fly and travel across time and space. At the end, the pavilion of Japan was very unusual, because the room was full of red threads hanging from the ceiling with many keys, symbols of memory.
This is for me the most significant painting of the whole Biennale. It was created by Tetsuya Ishida, that is a Japanese artist who is best known for modern Japanese life. He convey themes like anxiety, isolation of ordinary school boys where the teachers are very stern and the pupils must study all day and they must reach high levels. These boys are represented in this painting as working machines.
Their glances are fixed and lost into space and the faces are impassible, this conveys a sense of sadness. The teacher’s hand on the “boy machine” conveys a sense of understanding, though sometimes pupils might be seen like household objects.
Alessia