
I have lukewarm feelings on this year’s Venice Biennale, which contains two distinct exhibitions: The Encyclopedic Palace, a 1,000-artwork-plus exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni, and dozens of national, pavilion-based exhibitions organized by curators from each country. Despite the slightly confusing fact that the theme of the Biennale as a whole is The Encyclopedic Palace, historically, the two exhibitions don’t have much overlap. But something different happened this year.