Art-lovers visiting Venice in coming weeks have more than just the 52nd edition of the Biennale to look forward to, with a string of side exhibits devoted to 20th-century artists.
Among the many exhibits timed to coincide with the start of the world-renowned contemporary art fair on Sunday, five artists are being celebrated in personal shows exploring different aspects of their work.
The ideas of prolific German artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) are the focus of an exhibition opening on June 10 in the Arsenale Novissimo.
Entitled Difesa della Natura - The Living Sculpture (Defending Nature - The Living Sculpture), it is based on a piece of the same name by Beuys, dedicated to promoting human harmony within the universe.
The event runs for 100 days, featuring art, video and conferences with the participation of humanitarian, social and environmental groups.
Curated by Lucrezia De Domizio Durini, the exhibit will be centred on a Living Sculpture created with people of different religious, ethnic and social backgrounds.
The influential ideas of the US conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth (b. 1945) are explored in another show opening June 10.
Entitled Il Linguaggio dell'Equilibrio (The Language of Balance), the exhibit has been designed to reflect the tranquillity of its location, the monastery island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni.
The show is also a foretaste of a more extensive personal exhibit planned in Milan next year, looking at the artist's 40-year career.
A piece by acclaimed US video artist Bill Viola (b. 1951) goes on display this Thursday in the San Gallo Church, behind St Mark's Square.
Ocean Without A Shore, designed especially for the 15th-century church, is a three-screen video and sound installation featuring a cyclical progression of images about the intersection between life and death.
More than 24 performers and a technical team of 20 people worked on the installation, which is projected onto three stone altars in San Gallo.
The patriarch of Venetian Abstractionism, Emilio Vedova (1919-2006), will be commemorated in a special show on the island of Sant'Erasmo.
Five works from his 'Lacerazione III 1977-78' cycle and five from his '...Cosidetti Carnevali... 1977-1983' will go on public display for the first time ever.
Two linked, smaller exhibits will run at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and the Venice Pavilion, with some of Vedova's most recent paintings as well as pieces by artists whose work he influenced, such as Georg Baselitz.
The final personal exhibit features work by the Belgian multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre (b. 1958), who is also famous for working as a playwright, stage director and choreographer.
His artistic talents are equally wide-ranging, including drawings, paintings, sculpture, installations, performance art, video and drawings.
'Jan Fabre - Anthology of A Planet' opens on June 8 in Palazzo Benzon, a historic building overlooking the Grand Canal.
The Biennale itself, now in its 52nd year, runs until November 21.
Curated by a US director for the first time, Robert Storr, it features exhibitions from 77 countries and is themed 'Think With The Senses - Feel With The Mind'.
