As the solar dips behind the canals and crowds spill out from the Giardini and Arsenale, Venice transforms into one thing else completely: half mental salon, half social theatre, half glamorous endurance take a look at. “The opening week is very different from simply visiting the Biennale. You’re not just seeing art. There are lunches, dinners, previews, performances and conversations happening constantly around the city,” shares Vazirani.
One of the earliest gatherings of the week was a lunch at Londra Palace hosted by gallerists Priyanka and Prateek Raja, Roshni Vadehra and Aparajita Jain, bringing collectively the South Asian artwork group alongside worldwide collectors and museum management. Around the desk sat curator Amin Jaffer, Kiran Nadar, members of the KNMA management staff, authorities officers and main patrons from throughout the artwork world. “It was a wonderful way to bring everyone together before the Biennale truly began, and there was already this energy building around India’s presence.” Much of the chatter throughout the week centred round NMACC’s sponsorship and the scale of the occasions surrounding it, together with a personal dinner hosted by Isha Ambani and a lavish after-party at La Scuola Grande della Misericordia.
One of the week’s most vital moments for the Indian artwork world unfolded at Ocean Space, the place Kochi Biennale Foundation president Jitish Kallat formally introduced French-Algerian artist Kader Attia as curator for the seventh version of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. “When Kader Attia’s name was announced, the audience erupted into applause,” recollects Vazirani. “The discussion that followed between Kallat and Attia touched on migration, colonisation and post-colonial identity, and everyone was interested in seeing how he would translate those ideas into the Indian context.”
Yet a few of the week’s most memorable moments unfolded away from the official programme altogether. On May 7, Vazirani and her husband Dinesh co-hosted Kiran Nadar’s seventy fifth birthday celebrations at the Cipriani Hotel, which drew practically 350 company from throughout the international artwork group. Guests arrived sporting masks impressed by Venice’s legendary masked balls, many embellished with feathers, pearls and dramatic thrives of their very own. “People really leaned into the spirit of it, and the masks became a way of putting aside identity for an evening and simply coming together.” Paris Select performed late into the evening as company danced beneath chandeliers inside the historic ballroom. “There were speeches, videos, an enormous cake! But more than anything, there was genuine affection for Kiran and everything she’s done for Indian art.”
Elsewhere throughout Venice, vogue homes, foundations and galleries hosted their very own gatherings. Vazirani attended a dinner hosted by Golden Goose and Kalyani Saha Chawla, the place artists, collectors and gallerists from South Asia gathered at the model’s Venetian headquarters. “Celebrity spotting at the Biennale is very different,” she laughs. “People get excited about seeing curators and artists rather than film stars.” And then there have been the moments that captured Venice at its most surreal: Indian musicians performing fusion music on gondolas drifting via the canals as a part of Serendipity Arts Foundation’s programming round the India Pavilion.
But beneath the glamour and celebration, the political tensions shaping the world exterior Venice have been by no means too distant. Protests erupted round a number of pavilions throughout the week, whereas conversations round battle, nationalism and migration filtered into each exhibitions and social gatherings. “There were moments where you felt the tension very directly. At one point, the entire Biennale jury walked out in protest over certain countries being represented.” Outside Marina Abramović’s exhibition, she recollects seeing an artist sporting a coat spray-painted with the phrases ‘No Genocide’. “It was impossible to separate the Biennale from the reality of the world outside it.”