Jerry Saltz’s Best and Worst of the Venice Biennale

 
 
At Venice's enormous, city-filling Biennale art exhibition, there are about 90 national pavilions, in which each country selects one or more artists to exhibit their work. In addition to these, there were more gypsy shows than could be counted. I did not see everything: I was at this art Woodstock for four days, but paid my own way, which meant no expensive water taxis to take me way the hell out to some island show in the lagoon. So while I’m sure I “missed the one thing that should have been seen in Venice” (which is what everyone at the airport kept saying as I prepared to board the plane home), I did see some riveting things, some revolting ones, and everything in between. Here are my five personal favorite pavilions and my three least favorite.