After graduation, my wife and I decided to take what little money we had left after paying for grad school and spend it on a trip to Italy for amazing food, great wine, and a much anticipated, 2-year delayed honeymoon. While in Venice, we spent a day checking out all the Giardini and Arsenale exhibits at this year’s La Biennale.

It was great to see Christian Marclay’s The Clock again. Having seen it in the madness of the New York show, I felt spoiled to be able to pick an open couch, sit, and enjoy this amazing work. James Turrell’s Ganzfeld APANI was a massive draw with long lines of eager gallery visitors.

Featuring Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007) and Zahra/Farah (2007) as well as Han Hoogergrugge’s Quatrosopus (2011), I left Denmark’s “Speech Matters” exhibit staggering. With a wide range of artists from around the world, “Speech Matters” illustrated the true power of image as art and political message.

Haroon Mirza’s sound installation and Norinne Wasmuht’s painting were great escapes from the cold, stark environment of Greece’s Beyond Reform exhibit, which reminded us of the world’s unrest. The United States exhibit featured Track and Field (2011), which at first was humorous and then terribly out of place and flagrant, while Algorithm (2011) introduced the ATM machine as musical interface.

La Biennale runs until November 27th.