We are the eye of Graii.

The Venice Biennale is widely considered the white-hot centre of the Art world. Being the privileged few to have been selected to come here, we humbly present you some of our favorite pavilions and art works so that you may experience this prestigious event vicariously through us. Today, we are talking about the few works seen at the Arsenale.

FRANZ WEST. I love this dudes work. It's usually shocking, humorous, provocative… all at the same time. One piece that spoke to me especially was an artwork where he covers an old photograph with sticky tape. You can barely make out the image. It's like a painful memory where one physically tries to "mask" it out. Genius.

FABIAN MARTI. Sun Oh! A huge structure is built in the Arsenale space. At first you are amazed by it's architecture, then you realize, you are able to enter this structure! You follow this passage and you are led to a large screen showing an image of the great outdoors. Bellisimo!

HAROON MIRZA. The National Apavilion of Then and Now. Another structure that piqued my interest just by it's peculiar shape. You enter this white polygon and you are immediately shrouded in darkness! And shrouded not just by plain sight, but also shrouded from your sense of sound. Mounted on the interior walls of this structure are sound dampening devices that creates an illusion that you are in a vacuum. A black hole if you will, devoid of sound and sight. As you clamber your way into this "black hole", you will begin to notice the sound of electric static. You will then notice a ring of light getting brighter as the static gets louder and then suddenly, darkness! Silence! A dead, dark silence.

ELAD LASSRY makes one of my favorite films of the Biennale; Untitled(Ghost). It's a quirky, silent film about the ghost of a ballerina joining a troupe in this bizarre dance choreography. It's hauntingly beautiful! (Pun intended)

Another film I enjoyed thoroughly was SHAHRYAR NASHAT'S Factor Green. It's a fun little piece about a man opening a parcel in a museum and discovering a little green box! Beautiful use of space, music and projection.

One of the star attractions to the Arsenale is URS FISCHER'S wax sculptures. The beauty of the work is that the work is constantly changing because the work is, in its essence, a huge burning candle. Fischer reconstructed Giambologna’s The Rape of the Sabine Women in wax with another wax sculpture of a man (The curator?) staring at it. It was interesting to return to the artwork a couple of days later and find that the "Curators" head had fallen off as the candle burnt away.

Stay tuned for more updates of the 54th Venice Biennale soon! Till then… Arrivederci!