Middle Eastern artists did not win any of the major prizes at the Venice Biennale, which opened to the public on June 1 and will run through Nov. 24, but they have made a good showing nevertheless.
The Iraqi pavilion was pioneering in its debut, an Emirati artist made the rounds on social media and as Al-Monitor’s Cengiz Candar reported, “All the Turks at [the] Venice Biennale gathered at San Marco plaza to support Istanbul,” as protests erupted around their country. In a region rife with turmoil, many of the artists represented had something in common — cutting-edge multimedia work.
