SIGHTINGS

Cross-dressing, Turner prize-winning British ceramicist Grayson Perry, Biennale-bound, surrounded by hatboxes at Gatwick airport... Fashionista and collector Miuccia Prada going around the Biennale with video artist Pipilotti Rist... Video artist Isaac Julien spending a mere two minutes or so inside de Ricke and de Rooj's 36-minute video in the Dutch pavilion. (Could it be that even video artists find video art a bit time consuming?)... Actress Cate Blanchett at the Australian pavilion... Tim Marlow — writer, broadcaster, art historian and Director of Exhibitions at White Cube — red with rage in front of two burly security guards at the entrance to the  Museo Correr's Lucian Freud show, which was closed at 4pm on Friday; time to polish the floors?... Hussein Chalayan walking out of the screening room of the Turkish pavilion just before 'technical problems' caused the interruption of his ten-minute film featuring actress Tilda Swinton repeating the words 'how am I supposed to know?' Seems the fashion designer/artist had received a newer version of the DVD which he preferred and decided then and there to do the swap… Tilda Swinton herself at the party for the American pavilion at the Guggenheim... Writer and broadcaster Janet Street Porter sashaying into the LTB party at the Guggenheim wearing a fabulous necklace with cute curlicue script spelling out the word 'cunt'... Tracey Emin posing poolside at the Hotel de Bains; 'Very Helmut Newton' remarked photographer Johnny Shand Kydd… Luxury goods magnate Bernard and Hélène Arnault strolling around the Giardini trailed by three hefty bodyguards carrying umbrellas on a gloriously cloudless day.


WHAT'S IN STORR FOR 2007

Also at the Biennale was art historian and former MoMA curator Rob Storr, who has already been chosen as the curator of the 2007 Venice Biennale. Though he is tight-lipped about his exact plans, Storr, ever the thorough researcher, says he will move to Venice six months before his Biennale opens.


I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TWO SUMMERS AGO

Other than Pucci, the fashion trend of note at the Biennale appears to be tote bags from the last biennale, in 2003. Two favorites, spotted slung on the shoulder of many a visitor, were the elegant beige bag from the UK pavilion, and the starkly lettered bag from Utopia Station, the traveling show guest-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and others. One observer commented that the choice of tote wasn't so much based on how much one liked that particular exhibition, but on the design of the bag itself. It was surely also a way of proving one's Biennale street cred. On the Pucci front, Becky Smith of New York's Bellwether Gallery was spotted wearing a very lovely, very Pucci looking non-Pucci top. "I keep having to tell people it's not Pucci!" she laughed. "It's faux-ci."


NAKED AMBITION

It's only natural that artists not invited to the Biennale might yet find a way to capitalize on this gathering of art world luminaries. The Giardini played home to any number of conversations between dealers, journalists and other artists that included phrases along the lines of "you have to see the work of so and so." One dealer in particular traipsed from pavilion to pavilion with two artists in tow, taking journalists aside to introduce them and describe the work. There were even a few guerrilla performances. In one instance, a man streaked around the Giardini in nothing but sneakers; another artist's performance consisted of asking women if he could suck their toes. He got five yeses before being busted by Venice's carabinieri police, at which point a crowd rallied to support him.


PUTTING A GOOD SPIN ON THINGS

Some events in Venice are easier to get into than others. At a party for the first acquisitions of Ukrainian supercollector and foundation founder Viktor Pinchuk at the Palazzo Papadopoli, security was high, with a group of stern, suited toughs guarding the entrance and meticulously ticking names from an invitation list. Rumor had it that Olafur Elliason, one of the artists whose work Pinchuk was celebrating having purchased, spent five minutes at the gate negotiating with the guards. After they couldn't find his name on the guest list, Elliasson is reported to have told them to check the announcement card itself. Pinchuk's party was very happening, due partly to the outrageously ornate Palazzo (which had days before been the site of Larry Gagosian's lavish event), but due also to the lively DJ'd music in the entrance hall, to which many guests were dancing energetically. After the party ended around 1AM, the surrounding narrow streets and squares were filled with revelers trying to find their ways home. Two young Italian men were lamenting that they hadn't gotten in. "I could hear the music from outside," one of them said. He revealed that it was in fact the lauded British DJ Swayzak for whom he had come to the party. Elsewhere in Venice that night, a more famous DJ was at work on turntables. Bjork is said to have spun a record or two at the Icelandic pavilion.


BEST OVERHEARD COMMENTS

In the Giardini: "The Americans chose a painter I haven't heard of." Also in the Giardini, a German dealer complaining about how much of Mona Hatoum's "digestible conceptualism" he sees in collectors' homes. Cryptic conversation at the New Zealand party: "Are you English?" "No, I'm Australian, but if I knew you were English I'd give you all I've got."