Florence Biennale 2003

In ten days at the beginning of December there was an international exhibition that not too many know much about, called the Florence Biennale. I attended, and thought it was kind of weird. Imagine a potpourri of styles, images, and forms mainly in 2 & 3 D, which you could find online on one of any of the larger commercial artist's search engines. Well, there you go--summed up in a line. The reason I thought the show so weird was because there was actually some really good work there. I mean, sure, even if this was mostly all traditional media--not all was, exactly. I heard similar stories from the 2001 Florence as well, and that's the reason I decided to go. And true enough, there were highpoints. Even so I'd say the Biennial at this moment is in reverse mode with 2003 offering appalling visitor attendance with a round figure of, let's be positive, 30,000 down on expectation. Ouch!
In the early days of January I'll put up a few pages of artists' work I really enjoyed and jot down a brief comment, and where possible add a link to their site or gallery. Unfortunately my digital camera is not all that trusty, and I lost some images I wanted up. Anyway, I can mention those artists by name. While the ridiculously low attendance spells disaster for the future of this Biennial, Florence is a wonderful city, and plenty of us found ways to entertain ourselves when the halls were empty. This failure could be just the wake-up call that is so desperately needed to get this one as a draw-card.