Three things are coming to Venice within a few days. At first glance, they may not have much in common, but in reality the common denominator is tourism.
Entrance fee
From April 25, a unique entrance fee for one-day tourists will come into effect in Venice, local media and the Venice tourism website venezunica.it reported. is presented when checking in the city. The fee will be paid for a total of 29 days in the period April 25-July 14, 2024. – from April 25 to 30, from May 1 to 5, all subsequent weekends after May 5 to the weekend of July 13 and 14 inclusive. An exception is made for June 1 and 2, when Italy celebrates its national holiday on June 2. The fee is for the time period 8.30-16.00. It is mainly intended for the so-called day-trippers, regardless of whether they are foreigners or Italians. Tourists who have booked nights in hotels, short-term rentals and hostels in Venice will not pay the tax, as they already pay a tourist tax for each day of their stay in the city, and the amount is included in the price of the nights.
The payment of the daily fee of 5 euros is made through the activated new platform http://cda.ve.it It is in several languages – English, French, German and Spanish, in addition to basic Italian. The amount of 5 euros is paid only for access to the so-called old city of Venice. There is no need to pay if one only visits the islands of Lido, Murano, Burano, Torcello, Madzorbo, Vignole, Certosa, San Servolo, San Clemente, Poveglia, Pelestrina, Sant’Erasmo, Madzorbeto, Sant’Andrea, which are scattered throughout the Venetian lagoon. To get to many of these islands, transit is most common through Piazzale Roma at one end of Venice, and there will also be no toll when transiting there.
The amount of 5 euros is paid by everyone over 14 years old. Excluded from the payment of the fee are persons born in Venice and persons with residence in the Municipality of Venice. Disabled persons and their accompanying relatives do not pay the fee. Excluded from payment are those working in Venice, students and high school students in Venetian educational institutions, persons who have paid property tax in the municipality of Venice or who have a long-term rental contract in Venice, residents of the Veneto region who come to Venice for treatment or for funerals, participants in sporting events, law enforcement officers, spouses and domestic partners of residents of Venice, relatives of residents of Venice up to the third degree of consanguinity. In most of these cases, however, the above-mentioned persons will have to visit the specially created platform of the Venetian Municipality and, with a few steps there, they will be freed from paying the daily fee. Other cases in which a person can be exempted from the entrance fee to Venice are described on the specialized website.
The purpose of the new fee is to counter the so-called "bite and run" tourism model. This means tourists who do not spend the night in Venice itself, because it seems expensive there, and book overnight stays in the surrounding towns of mainland Italy. Some of these people come to Venice all the way from Padua, Verona, Milan or Trieste. Many such tourists also come from cruise ships anchored near Venice. All these day trippers are literally occupying the streets of the city, causing a number of problems. Among these problems are noise, pedestrian traffic jams in some of the narrow streets, overcrowding of public transport boats, long queues in supermarkets, anti-social behavior, littering in the streets and squares, violation of the Venetians' desire for solitude, peeping through the fences of the few private gardens in the city, etc.
In recent years, problems for Venice came not only from day visitors, but also from ill-mannered tourists who bathed or water-skied in the Venetian canals, took risky selfies on the Venetian bridges, ended up in the water and with rescue operations . There were also tourists who used the roof of some Venetian palace as a tower for water jumping.
On several occasions in recent months, eco-activists have also shaken the Venetians with their actions, ANSA recalls. On December 7, representatives of the “Last Generation“ they sprayed one of the columns of St. Mark's Basilica with a mixture of mud and chocolate. Two days later, activists from the “Rebellion Against Destruction” they poured green paint into the Grand Canal of Venice (Canale Grande). Although in both cases the materials used for the actions were harmless, the Venetians were left shocked and outraged by this way of protesting against the authorities, who, according to the environmental activists, are not doing enough to fight global warming, which will eventually lead to the sinking of Venice. The mayor of Venice, Luigi Bruniaro, described these actions as shameful and emphasized that vandalism is certainly not the right method to find solutions for the protection of the environment and the fight against climate change.
All this contributed to the introduction of the entrance fee. Those who do not pay their daily fee of 5 euros on the aforementioned dates will be fined. Depending on the situation, it will vary from 50 to 300 euros. Checks will be carried out at the main entrances to the city.
The introduction of the entrance fee is also one of the measures that the authorities have recently adopted against over-tourism in Venice. Tens of thousands of tourists a day visit the City of Canals in peak periods without staying overnight. In addition, 100,000 tourists stay overnight in Venice during peak periods, reports AFP. And the inhabitants of Venice are only 49,304, adds the Associated Press.
Venice, located on many islets, has a centuries-old history and in 1987 was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. But the organization's experts warn that climate change, combined with mass tourism and some city development projects, could lead to “irreversible changes to outstanding universal value” of Venice. At the end of July last year, experts even recommended that Venice be included in the list of world heritage sites that are at risk. However, this would harm the reputation of the city and especially its administration. During the meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Riyadh in September, Venice was ultimately not included in this blacklist. At the time, Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said that if Venice had ended up on the “shameful list”, it would not have been based on objective facts, Reuters reported. But the matter will be considered again at the 46th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will be held this summer, France Press recalls. In 2021, Venice was also in danger of ending up on the “list of infamy”, but then local authorities banned cruise ships from passing through the central Giudecca Canal, which was perceived by the World Heritage Committee as an effort in the right direction, the Associated Press recalls .
Foreigners everywhere
The entry fee for Venice will actually be in effect during the first months of this year's 60th edition of the Venice Art Biennale. But it will launch 5 days after its official opening on April 20. Before that, there is traditionally a period of 3 days during which the Biennale is presented exclusively to journalists coming to Venice from all over the world. It is during this period - April 17-19 - that Venice is expecting a new tidal wave of short-term visitors, notes the Italian edition “Gadzetino”. The interest in this preliminary period of presenting the Biennale is so great that hotels in Venice itself at acceptable prices cannot be found for a long time. Which means that the Biennale, in addition to adding to the glory of Venice, is becoming an unfailing magnet for visitors in a city that is trying to cope with the over-tourism flow.
The Arts Biennale is organized by the Biennale Foundation, which also organizes the Architecture Biennale, the Music Biennale, the Theater Biennale, the Dance Biennale and the Venice Film Festival. Each of these events is again a magnet for tourists. The foundation is headed by a president who is nominated by the Minister of Culture, and the nomination is approved by the Senate Committee on Culture. From 2020 until March of this year, the head of the foundation was Roberto Cicuto, who gained fame for his career in the field of cinema, in particular the production and distribution of films. Chikuto's tenure was marked by several crises. First, the coronavirus pandemic forced restrictions on some of Venice's cultural events, with the 2020 Architecture Biennale postponed until next year and the Arts Biennale moved from 2021 to 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to the decision not to allow representatives connected to the Russian government to the Biennale, and as a result the Russian pavilion in the Gardens of the Biennale has been empty for two years. The attack by “Hamas” against Israel on October 7, in which 1,170 people were killed, most of them civilians, and over 250 people were kidnapped, and Israel's subsequent war against “Hamas” in Gaza, which killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave's authorities, and led to calls by supporters of the Palestinian cause for Israel to be excluded from this year's Biennale - something Italian authorities rejected.
In October last year, Italian Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano nominated 60-year-old Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, one of Italy's prominent intellectuals, as the new president of the Biennale Foundation. In his youth he was a far-right activist, like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. After that, both adopted more traditional conservative positions, notes ANSA. Buttafuoco is also a Muslim. He is the author of a number of books in which he exhibits witty humor, biting irony and a knack for provoking the reader. In November, the Senate Committee on Culture approved Buttafuoco's appointment as head of the Biennale Foundation. Then the center-left opposition in Italy accused the right of putting its own person in this key position and of seizing the Venice Biennale, as it also seized RAI TV, ANSA recalls. According to Meloni, however, the appointment marks another breakthrough for the right in a body that has traditionally been led by leftists. Despite being persuaded by the left that he is a man of the right, Buttafuoco wrote articles for several Italian publications that sharply criticized Meloni, such as "Fato Quotidiano" or "Repubblica". He is the author of publications in “Folio“ and “Sole ventiquatro ore“.
But it was not Buttafioco who decided who would be the curator of this year's edition of the Art Biennale, but his predecessor Cicuto, who already in 2022 decided that the curator of the jubilee 60th edition would be the Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa. Pedrosa holds a law degree from Rio de Janeiro State University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Since 2014, he has been the creative director of the São Paulo Museum of Art, named after the lawyer, politician, journalists and media entrepreneur Francisco de Asis Chateaubriand Bandeira de Mello. Over the years, Pedrosa has shown himself to be an excellent and innovative curator of individual and collective exhibitions and especially at art biennales and cultural exhibitions or pavilions of participants in similar events.
And it was Pedrosa who had the task of deciding what the main theme of the 60th edition of the Venice Art Biennale would be, which was “Foreigners Everywhere”. Coincidentally or not, the topic refers in part to the issue of migration, which is among the priority issues of Meloni's government, governing a country on the front line of the migration wave across the Mediterranean. In the Romance languages, the word “foreigner“ has a common origin like the word “stranger”, so more generally the theme of the Biennale this year also refers to all those who are perceived as strangers in society, who are marginalized for one reason or another. “The expression “Foreigners everywhere” has several meanings. The first is that wherever you go and whoever you are, you will always meet foreigners. They and we are everywhere. And secondly, it doesn't matter where you are, you are always truly and deeply a foreigner, says Pedrosa himself. And it refers to the fact that each person always by nature remains alien to others, regardless of the physical proximity that may exist between people. With the advent of social networks and new technologies, this alienation between people deepens.
The phrase “Foreigners everywhere“ is actually borrowed from an installation by the creative collective “Claire Fontaine”, created in 2004 by the Italian Fulvia Carnevale and the British James Thornhill. The works of this creative collective are videos, sculptures, drawings, texts, neon installations, raising the question of the powerlessness of politicians and the crises of the individual in modern society. The installations of “Claire Fontaine“ are often neon signs, as in the case of the installation "Foreigners Everywhere" that inspired Adriano Pedrosa for the Venice Biennale. In turn, this phrase “Claire Fontaine“ is borrowed from the motto of a group from Turin that fought against racism and xenophobia in Italy at the beginning of the 21st century.
This year's Biennale runs until November 24. It takes place as always in the Gardens of the Biennale and in the architectural-historical complex “Arsenal” in the Castello area of Venice. In both places there are central pavilions in which the main exposition is presented, divided into 2 cores – historical and contemporary, in which installations of folk artists, artists of indigenous societies, artists perceived as outsiders or strangers will be exhibited. In addition, there will be 88 national pavilions in the Gardens of the Biennale and in the “Arsenal”, as well as in various locations in Venice. Bulgaria will be represented with the installation "Neighbors", located in the Bulgarian pavilion, which will be in the "Titian" hall. of the cultural complex “Don Orione Artigianelli“ in the Dorsoduro area. In the period April 17-19, during the preliminary presentation for journalists of the BTA Biennale, there will be a special envoy in Venice and will publish information in the LIK feed.
The Pope in Prison
On April 28, an unusual visitor to the Biennale is expected to become a magnet to draw many people to Venice, and that is Pope Francis. For the first time, the head of the Roman Catholic Church will respect this event, the media "Avenire", "Vatican News", "La Croix", "Artribune" note. and “Gadzetino“. The curious thing is that Pope Francis will stay in Venice for only a few hours. So his visit will resemble the visit of those one-day tourists for whom the Venetian administration introduced the 5 euro entrance fee. But the Pope meets one of the requirements for exemption from the fee – he occupies a position of power and visits Venice on an institutional occasion. That is, in his capacity as head of state of the Vatican, Francis will be in Venice to visit the pavilion of the Holy See at the Biennale.
This is the third time the Vatican has participated in this exhibition with its own pavilion, having debuted in 2013 and returning again in 2015. And back in 2001, the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, known for his hyperrealistic sculptures, presented at the then edition of the Biennale, a full-length figure of the then Pope John Paul II, fallen to the ground, struck by a meteorite, which shocked Catholics, notes “Artribune”. Now it is Cattelan who will be among the artists invited by the Vatican to participate with their installations and performances in the Vatican Pavilion of the Biennale. Other artists include the aforementioned Claire Fontaine collective, American actress Zoe Saldana and her Italian husband, director Marco Perego, former American nun and now artist and designer Corita Kent, Brazilian sculptor Sonia Gomez, French dancer and choreographer Bintu Dembele, Lebanese - the American artist and creator of ceramic works Simone Fatal and the French artist Claire Tabouret, who participated with an accompanying exhibition at the Biennale in 2022. The collective exhibition of these artists is called "With my eyes". This strange mix of nationalities in the Vatican Pavilion is compounded by its unusual location. It is located in Venice's women's prison, on Giudecca Island across the Venetian Giudecca Canal. The design of the pavilion reflects the desire of Pope Francis that the church and its ministers reach everyone, including even the most isolated strata of society. It is no coincidence that during the Holy Week on Holy Thursday, Pope Francis washes the feet of people from marginalized categories, such as migrants or prisoners. This year, for example, he washed the feet of female prisoners in a Roman prison. The selection of artists of various nationalities and styles who will enliven the Vatican Pavilion reflects Pope Francis' desire to modernize the church, which would bring more young people to it.
According to the official program of the Pope's visit on April 28, he will depart by helicopter at 6:30 a.m. from the Vatican to Venice, writes in “Gadzetino”. It will land around 8 a.m. at the helipad on the grounds of the women's prison. There will be a first meeting with the prison management and the 80 female inmates, with the Venetian Patriarch Francesco Moralia, with Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendoza, prefect of the Congregation for Culture and Education at the Vatican and curator of the Vatican Pavilion at the Biennale. The Pope will also have a meeting with the artists from the Vatican Pavilion. Around 9:30 a.m., Francis will cross the Giudecca Channel between Giudecca Island and the Dorsoduro area by boat to go to the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health). There at 10 a.m. he will have a meeting with young people from Venice and the Diocese of Venice, after which he will cross a pontoon bridge specially built for his visit over the Grand Canal and go to St. Mark's Square, where he will be welcomed by the regional governor of Veneto Luca Dzaia, by the Mayor of Venice Luigi Bruniaro and by the Prefect of Venice Darko Pelos. At 11 a.m., the Pope will celebrate Mass and then make a private visit to St. Mark's Basilica. Then, by boat, he will reach the park in the neighborhood of Santa Elena, where there is also a naval school. From there, at 1 p.m., the Pope will leave for the Vatican at the end of this express visit, which, however short it is, is expected to cause a massive tourist flow to Venice.
More tourist magnets
In addition to the free attraction called Pope Francis, during the Venice Biennale there will be many more such free attractions scattered around the city, which will also increase the flow of tourists. One of them, for example, will be the exhibition of the Roman street art creator Mauro Pallotta, known by the creative pseudonym Maupal, who from April 27 to May 7 will present in the San Leonardo hall the exhibition "We have a Pope", bringing together all his street art works, inspired by Pope Francis, including those depicting him as a superman who rushes to help in a risky situation or as a street art artist painting murals for peace on the walls of the Vatican, write the editions “Venice Today” and “New Venice”.
The installation "Once upon a time we ruled the world" is expected to be a magnet for tourists. of the Belgian unconventional artist Tom Herc, which will be located in the garden of the palace “Balbi Vallier“ and which will be visible from the boats on the Grand Canal and from the Bridge of the Academy. The work is a 10-meter skeleton of a man caught in the moment he caught a dinosaur skeleton. The installation reminds of the impermanence of the inhabitants of the planet and warns people that before them the Earth was inhabited by already extinct creatures and that after millennia man may also follow the fate of the dinosaurs.
Another such installation will be in the middle of the lake in the northern part of the “Arsenal” complex, which is accessible to people who have not bought tickets for the Biennale. There will be an island platform, in the middle of which will be a 7-meter egg-shaped wooden structure, in the middle of which will be a swamp cypress tree, also called a bald cypress. The installation is by the Swiss Klaus Littmann and is called “Arena for Life”. It aims to generate reflections on climate change, on the resilience of species, on the climate migration that global warming will cause in some places around the world. Bald cypress trees have the properties to adapt to different conditions, pump up to 800 liters of water per day, cool the surrounding atmosphere, withstand hurricane winds as well as extreme temperatures, making them particularly resistant to the challenges of change of the climate and some of the challenges faced by Venice in particular", says Klaus Littmann's team to the publication "Artribune".
A third free installation, which has been attracting tourists in Venice for half a month now, is inspired by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez and his landmark work “Las meninas“ (“Ladies of the Court“) from 1657, depicting the Infanta Margarita-Teresa of Habsburg-Spain together with her court ladies. It was these characters from Velazquez's work that appeared on March 27 in St. Mark's Square in Venice, in the area of the Doge's Palace. They will remain there until June 15. It is about 13 black bronze figures of human height arranged one after the other. One of them is slightly different from the other 12 and represents the Infanta Margarita-Teresa, the others are her courtiers. The installation is the work of contemporary Spanish artist Monolo Valdes, known for his sculptures and installations in marble, bronze, steel, resin, gold patina, glass, wood, aluminum, metals, ceramics, ebony, and more. Valdes is inspired by Velázquez, Picasso or Matisse, creating works that transform their classics and “take them out” from the confines of museums, making them accessible to a wide audience. Valdes' installation in Venice was officially opened by the authorities in the middle of last week, "Venice Today" recalls. It was then officially announced that the installation was presented in conjunction with the private Venetian gallery “Contini“, representing Valdes. After it is dismantled, one of the figures – that of the Infanta, worth around 500,000 euros - will be donated to the city. The installation is already generating a lot of interest among tourists who take selfies with the bronze figures. But the work also generated a large number of criticisms that, with its black color and its bronze, it does not fit into the architecture and landscape of Venice, combining marble, warm colors, colorful glass and wood. Critics said that Valdes' installation trivialized art in general, that it turned every corner of Venice into a Biennale. There were also those who likened Valdez's sculptures to separate waste collection containers. Two other works by the same artist – “The Diadem“ and “The Butterflies” - by the way, they will be exhibited respectively in the “Arsenal“ and on the “Riva Ca di Dio“ pier, reports the website of the “Contini“ gallery.
Such large-scale works in public places may attract criticism, but they are part of a long-standing tradition that allows residents and visitors to Venice to touch art without having to visit the Biennale. In 2013, during the then edition of the Biennale, on the island of San Giorgio, outside Venice, an exhibition by the British Mark Quinn was presented, which was dominated by a pink inflatable figure about 12 meters high of a pregnant woman with no arms and underdeveloped legs , called “Breathe”. She was displayed in the piazza across from the church of San Giorgio Maggiore and became a favorite of Venetians and tourists, who began to call her “The Pink Girl”. In fact, it was the inflatable version of a work by Marc Quinn made of Carrara marble, over 3.5 meters high, representing the pregnant Alison Lapper, who is an artist and model, and who has no arms and barely developed legs due to the congenital condition phocomelia.
In 2019, the son of the actor Anthony Quinn - Lorenzo Quinn, conquered the then edition of the Venice Biennale with his installation “Building bridges” – 6 pairs of huge white hands, 15 meters high and 20 meters wide, made of material imitating marble, gathered in various gestures and towering over the lake of the “Arsenal” complex. The six pairs of hands symbolized 6 values – hope, faith, help, love, wisdom and friendship. They stayed there for several years. Last year, the same giant hands appeared in Vieste, in the southern region of Puglia. And recently they can be seen in the Tonfano neighborhood of Marina di Pietrasanta in the Tuscany region. Previously, in 2017, Lorenzo Quinn stunned Venice when, during the then edition of the Biennale, he “supported” the Ca Sagredo Palace with two huge white arms reaching out from the water of the Canale Grande. Thus, he reminded what risk of sinking the City of Canals is exposed to because of global warming and rising water levels. This year, Lorenzo Quinn returns to Venice with the installation “Souls of Venice” – 15 mesh sculptures on display in the atrium of Ca' Rezonico Palace from April 20 to September 15, representing key figures in the city's history and which can be viewed for free. And since April 6, a similar netted figure of the Venetian explorer and merchant Marco Polo, again by Lorenzo Quinn, has been on display at the entrance to the Venetian Doge's Apartment in the Palazzo Ducale, as part of the exhibition “The Worlds of Marco Polo: The Journey of a Venetian merchant from the 13th century", which will be available for viewing until September 29. This year, Venice is celebrating the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo with a number of events.
A Biennale attracting thousands of tourists, an art brought to the streets and squares that biennales Venice, and a Pope who brings crowds of followers and pilgrims wherever he appears – these few factors will boost the flow of visitors to the City of Canals at a time when authorities are touting an entrance fee measure aimed at reducing over-tourism and preventing Venice from turning into a kind of Disneyland. Only time will tell how and whether the city administration will achieve the right balance between these two trends in the long term.