On the morning of press day at the 52nd Venice Biennale, the international contemporary art world's most prestigous event, it is bucketing down with rain. Bedraggled artists, curators, journalists and hangers-on squeeze themselves onto packed vaporetti and pour out at the Giardini, where the 30 national pavilions are opening their doors after months of preparation.
Art world VIPs do not use water buses and arrive rather less dishevelled in their private boats; uber-collectors relax on their yachts having been round the day before.
Representing Great Britain is Tracey Emin, now holding court in a white trouser suit and telling a bank of photographers that she has been horrible to all the people she loves over the past nine months because preparing for the Biennale was "like a really difficult pregnancy".
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SOPHIE LERIS takes a tour of the pavilions at the Venice Biennale |
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Nevertheless, she is trailed by a loyal entourage that includes punk fashion designer Pam Hogg and venerable pop artist Peter Blake. Tracey's pavilion includes small, optimistic water colours she made to recover from her abortions and four structures made of splintered wood which represent the family. The most touching work is a child's abandoned sock on the steps outside, a pale, grubby pink, but made of bronze.
In contrast, the Dutch pavilion has been turned into a detention centre with video screens showing real and mocked-up footage of immigrants clashing with police and bombed-out buses. "It all looks so normal, so familiar, doesn't it?" asks the curator.
At the French pavilion, celebrated artist Sophie Calle has taken the Dear John letter of a former lover, X, as inspiration for her show and asked other women to analyse his banal prose. The show is called 
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