Dispatch from Venice

The actual artworks, of which there is not an overwhelming number, include the usual suspects, from Cy Twombly, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons, to Maurizio Cattelan, Rachel Whiteread and the Chapman Brothers. But there are also some striking figurative works by the likes of Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans. And the architecture is so pleasing that even those who do not share Pinault’s tastes will find a visit rewarding.

Nearby, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection has put on well-timed and varied special shows, contrasting the sculptures of Robert Rauschenberg made of scrap-metal and found objects and the Belgian artist Wim Delvoye’s amazingly intricate Gothic spires constructed from laser-cut corten steel, while marking the 100th anniversary of Futurism by highlighting the important Gianni Mattioli Collection, which they have on long-term loan, with additional pieces from elsewhere.

The British Pavilion in the Gardens at Castello is presided over yet again by ‘Commissioner-for-Life’ Andrea Rose (the norm is to appoint a new commissioner for each event). The sole offering is a half-hour split-screen film of the boarded-up pavilions in Biennale Gardens in winter by Steve McQueen. It would not be spoiling the ending to reveal that this more-sensitive-than-thou exercise draws to an end with a close-up of a snail crawling very, very slowly across a tree trunk. Infinitely more engaging and creatively composed are Shaun Gladwell’s videos at the Australian Pavilion, which include one of the artist ‘car-surfing’ on the roof of a replica of Mad Max’s V8 customised Interceptor as it rolls along a seemingly endless dead-straight road running through a majestically beautiful expanse of the outback.

Bold and arresting, too, is Peter Greenaway’s animation of the replica of Veronese’s ‘Wedding at Cana’ in the Palladian Refectory on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore (Napoleon carried the original off to the Louvre) with the help of computer graphics and a soundtrack of voices (in English and Venetian) against the electrifying musical backdrop of the Gabrieli Consort.