77. Art of tote bags, or, Venetian Stares

I was amused to find the measure of distance to the moneyed heart of the art world represented at the Venice Biennale was the tote bag. Pretty much every pavilion had one and if you were early enough - by having a press pass ideally, or queuing on the next day - the first day of the Vernisage - then you could snap some up. The NZ pavilion definitely had one of the nicest but also ran out quickly - much to my chagrin! The Sami takeover of the Scandinavian pavilion had different colour options, and others ran the gamut from super deluxe thick fabric to the basic cotton tote for your single origin vegetable shopping at the local organic market. At Venice the tote bag was the art world equivalent of the band t-shirt - they let you express your cultural capital and impeccable taste whilst being entirely compatible with whatever un-labeled fashion you are wearing. For what it’s worth, I went with the bright yellow Sami tote which made the colours of my jacket ‘pop’. Hahaha.

Two days in I started to get serious tote envy.

in the last episode I had just landed and was settling in to Venice. This one is the ‘art’ episode, a text accompaniment to my Insta feed - I’ve embedded some more pics that I haven’t posted on Insta so, if you’re like me and don’t automatically load images in emails, then select ‘load images’ and let’s go!