56th Venice Biennale

Of the external events, the magazine recommended the collaboration between Shilpa Gupta and Rashid Rana (of India and Pakistan, respectively), the installation by Simon Denny (New Zealand), and the exhibitions of Peter Doig and Cy Twombly.

[1] Most of the Biennale's art, she described, was "flat" in the Giardini and thematically "straight into the heart of darkness", highlighting international issues such as work conditions, pollution and ecology, arms trade, prisons, and asylums.

Sarah Lucas in the British pavilion, for instance, stood out for her lack of political themes but also signaled "the end of the YBA revivals at Venice".

[1] Cumming wrote that the Biennale was steeped in its contradictory dependence on and criticism of capitalism, which she felt was embodied by British artist Isaac Julien's participation in both the Rolls-Royce pavilion and the Arena Das Kapital live reading.

[1] The Japanese pavilion, an installation of red nets carrying thousands of keys, was Cumming's "clear winner, by general consent".

[1] In comparison, Cumming described the Das Kapital performance's audience as nearly empty and likened the other pavilions to Commonwealth Institute lectures.