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Miscellaneous

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By: Joseph Jacobs

July 2007

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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum 415.863.3330
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe 505.946.1000
High Museum of Art, Atlanta 404.733.4400
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 011.35.31.6129.9000
Los Angeles County Museum of Art 323.857.6150
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Humlebaek, Denmark 011.45.4919.0719
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 617.267.9300
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City, Mo. 816.751.1278
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. 978.745.9500
Saint Louis Art Museum 314.721.0072
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass. 413.458.2303
Tate Modern, London 011.44.20.7887.8888
The Jewish Museum, New York 212.423.3200
Victoria and Albert Museum, London 011.44.20.7942.2000
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore 410.547.9000

ART SHOWS
This summer will be a bonanza for aficionados of contemporary art because this is the year not only for the Venice Biennale but also for Documenta in Kassel, Germany, an exhibition that occurs once every five years. This means the two shows overlap only once every decade.

The Venice Biennale, also known as the 52nd International Art Exhibition, includes “Think with the Senses—Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense” (now through Nov. 21). The entire contemporary art world descended in early June, not only to be seen but also to see which 100 artists from all over the world Robert Storr, former contemporary curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, had selected for the Biennale’s curated show, “Think with the Senses.” The international pavilions will reach a record number of 77 this year, so budget several days to see everything.

The Venice Biennale is in the Giardini and in various venues in the city center. “Think with the Senses” is in the Corderie and Artiglierie Arsenals and the Italian Pavilion in the Giardini, through Nov. 21.

Held in the summer once every five years since it was founded in 1955, Documenta is the one art exhibition designed to have its finger on the pulse of the contemporary art scene, to the point of actually defining that scene for generations to come. The 1972 and 2002 Documentas are certainly must-mentions for any art book of the period.

This year the director of the exhibition is the German curator Roger M. Buergel who has written that “Documenta 12 is confronted to a great extent with Western middle classes whose standard of living is declining precipitously in the current wave of globalization ‘in the new spirit of capitalism.’” Do not expect to find any pretty pictures in Kassel; rather be prepared for videos and installations dealing with heady social issues, as this quote implies.

Venice Biennale. 011.03.53.1612.9900, www.labiennale.org.
Documenta. 011.49.5.61.70.72.70, www.documenta12.de.

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