Venice

Biennale:

what

you

need

to

know

about

'the

Olympics'

of

the

art

world

For the art world this is the most exciting and important week of the year. Some 25,000 curators, artists, journalists, critics, directors and gallerists from around the world fly into Italy’s floating city to spend a week frantically running from pavilion to exhibition, exhibition to pavilion – crossing canals and palazzos – to see the work of artists legendary and new. It’s a week of meeting old friends, exchanging ideas, discovering new talent and plotting for the future.

Their reviews dictate the zig-zagged routes of the some 800,000 visitors who subsequently turn up to see the sprawling, city-wide exhibition over its seven month run; the artists who will be picked up by big galleries, the shows everyone will queue round blocks, squeeze through arched corridors and down tiny backstreets to see.