Venice Biennale 2017: a celebration of art

Long live the arts! "Viva Arte Viva" was the motto chosen for the 2017 Venice Biennale by French curator Christine Macel. The celebration of culture is well-needed in these times of uncertainty. In the Venetian Arsenal and the Giardini area, 85 nations are on show, with 120 artists exhibiting their works. Top-class exhibitions expand the world art show on the Lido.

Moving like expressionless zombies, young actors walk through the public in the German Biennale pavilion. Artist Anne Imhof set up an unsettling multimedia and performance installation dealing with the transformation of the body. She took home the Golden Lion prize for best national pavilion.

Lurid colors, blinking signs: from the outside, the Korean pavilion looks like a fun fair stand inspired by Las Vegas. Inside, the atmosphere is serious and concentrated. An artist has minutely documented a political assassination. Another installation conveys people's different tempos around the world.

A young refugee is working on a lamp's frame. Just like two years ago in Vienna, the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson set up a workshop in the Venetian Arsenal. He invites people from war-torn countries to build lamps here, a project he views as an artistic intervention and that's part of the Biennale.

An alarmingly thin person appears to be resting under the blanket of this bed. Slippers were tidily left by its side. A couple of artists from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, Yelena Vorobyeva and Viktor Vorobyev, are behind this attention-grabbing work at the Venice Biennale. Created in 1996, it is entitled "The artist sleeps."

"There was this idea that the ideal place to be was up in the air." Danish artist Soren Engsted builds humor into his sculptural works by adding text projections and a soundtrack to them. "Levitation" is his latest work. It has been well-received at the Art Biennale in Venice.

Azerbaijan picked a noble spot for its national pavilion: the Palazzo Lezze in the heart of Venice, right near the Piazza San Marco. The Azeri pavilion, however, grabbed the media's attention through a surprising statement from its German curator, Martin Roth: "Azerbaijan is a blueprint for the tolerant co-existence of people of different cultures," he said of the authoritarian state.

Argentina is presenting a real eye-catching work. With her piece "The Horse Problem," artist Claudia Fontes makes a huge white horse jump around the pavilion in the Arsenale. A life-sized figure of girl who can stop its leaps with the movement of a hand is there as well.

Czech artist Jana Zelibska filled her homeland's pavilion with a herd of swans. The installation also includes a projection of waves, and two portraits of women hang on the wall. The 76-year-old artist's work "The Swan Song: Now" is filled with poetry. Zebliska's art often deals with gender relations.

The Biennale in Venice marks the second international highlight of the current art season, which is unusually packed this year. Athens opened the program with the first part of the documenta in April. The famous German art show will then open its second part in its usual location, Kassel, in June. The international artworks shown at the Venetian Lido remain on display through November.