Walton Ford, Culpabilis, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York. {Photograph} by Charlie Rubin.
I contact down at Marco Polo on Wednesday afternoon, one among the many many who’ve come for the preopening days of the Venice Biennale. The airport—with its collection of shifting walkways shepherding passengers towards the dock—will become the one place within the metropolis the place I handle to not get misplaced. The road for the water-bus into town is straightforward to identify, and as we watch for the subsequent boat to reach I depend fifteen Rimowas, 5 pairs of Tabis, and several other head-to-toe outfits of Issey Miyake. The boat journey, unaccountably, takes an hour. I alternate between warding off seasickness and watching the Instagram Story of a microinfluencer who’d been on my flight and is already flying down the Grand Canal in a personal water taxi.
My first cease after depositing my baggage and downing two espresso is Walton Ford’s Lion of God. The present takes up the 2 full tales of a church-like constructing in the identical sq. as town’s opera home, which my boyfriend is telling me—with the type of walleyed zeal that means it’s one in all a handful of info he memorized for the journey—burned down within the nineties. Inside, it’s surprisingly darkish, the primary ground minimize up by non permanent exhibit partitions painted black, the lights so dim that the small print of the constructing, and the historic work spanning the remainder of the room, are nearly fully obscured.
In different phrases, you haven’t any alternative however to show your consideration to Ford’s 4 huge watercolors, which, regardless of the most effective of intentions, strike me instantly as in some way “dorm room.” Perhaps it’s the richness of their colour set towards the black of the room, however I momentarily understand these objectively spectacular works (not less than on a technical degree) as velvet work. The topic is at all times the identical—a lion with a cranium in its mouth; a lion with a guide in its mouth; a pentaptych of a thorn-impaled paw. Every portray appears to be a special scene from one unified narrative. It’s one thing biblical, clearly, and the identify Jerome pops into my head, together with the truth that Venetian iconography is clearly lion-obsessed, however I can’t fairly match the whole lot collectively.
Upstairs, an enormous Tintoretto has been moved into the house particularly for the exhibit. It takes up the central wall, and exhibits Saint Jerome (I used to be proper!) in a state of ecstasy as Mary descends from heaven. I stand earlier than it, a sophisticated-looking group close by. Because it seems, Ford himself is in attendance, and he strikes up a dialog with one of many girls within the group. “I noticed you taking a look at this one,” he says. He factors out a faint, shadowed lion within the portray’s backside proper nook, which I’d did not see, then gestures to the perimeter of the ceiling, the place a couple of work have been rigorously spotlit, highlighting the animals usually buried in in any other case busy canvases. “I believed, what if you happen to took all of the individuals out,” Ford says, “and centered on the animals?”
That night time, I plan to attend a celebration celebrating Frank Auerbach. I obtain an e mail within the early night, explaining that some company are having hassle discovering the Palazzo da Mosto and reminding me that the doorway is “truly down a really slim, unmarked alleyway.” I handle to bump into the doorway, nearly by pure luck—I see a propped picket door within the distance, leaking yellow mild.
In the primary room, I be taught that the palazzo, which has housed the identical household for 4 generations, can be the positioning of the scene in The Proficient Mr. Ripley the place Matt Damon kills Philip Seymour Hoffman with an ashtray. I’m not precisely stunned—as anybody will inform you, Venice is a metropolis of layers, a palimpsest. The room is lit, so far as I can inform, by rows of scented candles, the shadows they create giving the whole lot a type of unreal high quality. I spot a couple of associates in line on the vodkatini bar, the place overzealous company are leaning ahead and rocking the desk. The bartender strikes the desk forwards and backwards as a warning, sloshing a full vodkatini within the course of. My associates and I watch as the group grows extra boisterous, converging, ultimately, on a vat of risotto and a tray of mini omelets which have materialized in a aspect room. “Germany is excellent this yr,” everyone seems to be saying, “Germany is basically wonderful.” I ponder if Eurovision is on, or if there’s some wild financial information I’ve managed to keep away from, earlier than slowly gathering that that is in reference to the pavilion on the Giardini.
Extra individuals present up; extra meals emerges. A lady in a geometrical hat spills her cocktail down my gown. I search in useless for the toilet. I search in useless for water. One other spherical of vodkatinis. Somebody says one thing about Auerbach’s impasto. Somebody compliments my gown. I’m advised the pope is coming. Because the get together wraps up, a lady clutches my arm, a smile on her face like a full moon. “It’s so excellent right here,” she says, gesturing broadly, as if she means to embody in all the metropolis. “I don’t suppose it’s attainable to get sick of a spot like this.”
The following day I head dutifully to Germany. An extended line has already fashioned, and as soon as inside, I’m disillusioned to find there’s one other, longer line to enter somewhat home inside the pavilion. This, I take it, is the center of the exhibit, and I be a part of the sub-line, which has managed to develop within the meantime, looping across the little home. Admittedly, home is perhaps the incorrect phrase. It’s an ominous-looking, multistory curved construction, manufactured from darkish, claylike materials. It’s speckled with home windows, although they’re oddly reflective or perhaps simply tinted, and I can’t actually see inside. After twenty minutes or so it’s my flip to enter the construction, and I discover myself standing inside what seems to be an deserted dwelling. A number of mute performers stroll about aimlessly. A machine blows mud round. A spiral staircase leads me to the roof, the place a unadorned man is mendacity corpsed towards the wall. I’m uncertain what to make of this. Again outdoors, I really feel lined in a movie of mud. I attempt to google the which means of the little home, hoping for some early overview that can piece all of it collectively, however uncover solely that its partitions are lined in actual asbestos.
There’s extra, after all, nevertheless it seems like extra of the identical—and perhaps, I feel, that’s the character of an occasion just like the Biennale. It’s surfeit; you’ll be able to’t assist however really feel overindulged. You’re at all times doing an excessive amount of, and never sufficient. By the top of the week I’m listless and drained. On my final night time within the metropolis I’m shuffling dwelling from dinner within the rain, stalled behind an aged tour group, when the siren signaling acqua alta sounds. Employees start establishing elevated walkways, and I watch a vacationer take off her trainers and wade barefoot into shin-deep water. My telephone is useless and, satisfied I’ve been strolling in circles, I flip down a random alleyway and, for the primary time in days, I’m fully alone. I proceed on because the siren fades into silence after which there it’s: San Marco’s basilica, the sq. fully flooded, brilliant and nonetheless as glass.
Camille Jacobson is The Paris Overview‘s engagement editor.
