Passages through the Biennale

Since 2001 Ezio Ferreri has been working on the Venice Biennale "Passaggi alla Biennale", seen as a place of vertigo from Stendhal syndrome. The real spaces of the Biennale intertwine with those of the exhibited works in a consensual osmosis.

It is a particular passage seen in images taken during the 2001, 2009, 2015 and 2024 exhibitions. From “Plateau of Humankind” by Harald Szeemann to “Making Worlds” by Daniel Birnbaum, to “All the World's Futures” by Okwui Enwezor, to “Foreigners Everywhere” by Adriano Pedrosa.

In “Plateau” shots go from Ron Mueck's male Sphinx, imposing, monumental, sinister, to Bill Viola's video frames. In “Making Worlds” the photographer seems to count the observers' steps.

Images follow a path leading to decomposition in a Cubist sense or to a decomposition that refers to a material fraying; the work completely loses its original form to dissolve into fragments or replicate into chaotic forms. It is a deconstruction: the photographer isolates details in macro images, alters perspective obtaining new geometries, or shoots multiple fragmented sequences then reassembled in a visual mosaic.