Rain

The day I visited the giardini, when in Venice to view the biennale, it rained. It really rained with a kind of rain that does not really occur back home. The Italian pavilion (it has been renamed this year but I cannot remember the new name, something less memorable) is a very large exhibition space but it was fully taken over by the rain which like white noise frantically invaded and filled the galleries. The halls sounded with a roar like the sea. It was as though the lagoon, from which venice tentatively tries to escape immersion even on the best days, was coming inside, oppressive and enveloping. The work becomes linked by the common soundtrack of rain. Halls leek and buckets are placed in the their hallowed spaces out of necessity rather than art bringing the racing sound of drips - plink, plonk - competing to fill their receptacles fastest. The storm outside is alluring in its drama beyond walls and through windows. In the gardens themselves all the pathways have become torrents, the various pavilion buildings and their layers of modernist architecture become more akin to fountains, waterfalls, even. The environment seems to be returning to water, to nature. It is distracting to the extent that one looks away from the work compulsively to look outside. It seems to border on the apocalyptic in the way that even when one imagines the rain cannot come down any harder, it does.

I wrote this holed up in the nordic pavilion within which a modernist house of depravity has been created, the home of an author who has become obsessed with his sexual exploits. It has now become a refuge for the few hardy art pilgrims still working their way around the giardini, their dowdiness rubbing shoulders awkwardly with the debauchery on show. The noise is almost deafening and the pavilion is starting to flood badly. The invigilator is trying not to panic*, but the onslaught is relentless. Outside there is a swimming pool which is fast becoming a somewhat ironic gesture, it is overflowing and the whole giardini is a pool now. There was meant to be a dead body floating in the pool in an unlikely Michael Barrymore reference. It had been removed by the time I had arrived, probably to prevent it from floating away.

* I would like to note at this point that I have personal experience of the perils of invigilating at the Venice Biennale. A combination of a storm similar to the aforementioned and insufficient drainage caused our exhibition space, an old industrial building with drains in the floor, to flood with raw sewage. We had to wade through the water in order to rescue the mac and barricade the sculptures. Invigilators at the biennale are a breed unto themselves. They are usually student or recent graduate volunteers rather than professional invigilators (if such a thing exists) with few days off but free access to any alcohol left over from the lavish opening parties. Hence they have a rather devil may care attitude to the work in their care. They are certainly not to be ruffled by a bit of rain. The chap in the Israeli pavilion, which was filled with 5 inches of water at one point, sat through it still at his desk, casual as you like, reading a book with his feet up.

The only camera I had with me that day was a very out of date disposable. Due to the low light levels this was the only photo that came out, somehow managing to double expose. I like the graininess though.