Florentina Holzinger at the Venice Biennale What Not to Miss in Venice’s Arsenale and Giardini

Florentina Holzinger | ‘Seaworld Venice’ | Austrian Pavilion, Giardini | 9 May – 22 November

By Flossie Killingley

Water has long been a dominant motif in Florentina Holzinger’s work. In her theatrical performance Ophelia’s Got Talent (2022), vast aquatic tanks were inhabited by naked performers who spearfished, enacted daring, Houdini-like escapes and embodied muddy, playful mermaids, accompanied by a chorus of half-dressed sailors singing ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?’ Under the working title ‘Seaworld Venice’, this presentation marks the first time Holzinger has fully integrated her long-standing research of water into an exhibition format. Working with curator Nora-Swantje Almes and a team of performers and musicians, Holzinger will stage interventions both within the pavilion and across the lagoon itself. Drawing on mythological creatures as conceptual anchors, she continues her feminist interrogation of bodily capacity while engaging with urgent ecological questions specific to the sinking city.