As I neared my destination to an island in the northern part of the Venetian lagoon, about 30 minutes from the Giardini, I was among the first on my boat to spot a cloud of hot pink smoke rising up from the island. Our destination was the Isola di San Giacomo, which was recently acquired by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo for her foundation and will be fully operational by the next Biennale.
The tiny island—you could walk the perimeter in fewer than 10 minutes—has a rather interesting history. An 11th-century doge donated it to become a monastery and it’s been the home to a few different monastic orders over the centuries, as well as serving as a hospice for pilgrims en route to the Holy Lands and then a military outpost. And then in 1975 Polish avant-garde theatre director Jerzy Grotowski staged an interactive version of his iconic Apocalypsis cum figuris. Each visitor who arrived received an apple from Grotowski.
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That small gift has borne fruit anew as part of a performance staged by Korean performance artist Eun-Me Ahn, commissioned by the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Titled Pinky Pinky ‘Good’: San Giacomo’s Leap into Tomorrow, the island-spanning spectacle serves as a blessing for San Giacomo. Upon arrival, visitors again received an apple for making the journey.
The island’s building are still under renovation—construction was not halted for the performance, adding to the charm of the morning’s events. After disembarking from the boat, I found performers, all wearing pink-colored traditional Korean garb, banging drums and gongs and intoning, their voices radiating through a few speakers. On a raised mound between the two main buildings, where flora was starting to sprout, two performers danced facing each other. Behind them a hot pink inflatable man blew in the wind. Elsewhere, another performer, lifted by one of the construction crew’s cranes, rose into the air, dousing the island with water, a baptism of sorts.
Inside one building was an installation of hanging white streamers meant to serve as the barrier between the “here and hereafter,” according to an exhibition brochure. On the other side was an installation of some 500 wooden dolls inspired by kkoktu, puppets placed on funeral biers that transform into beings that can cross between the here and the hereafter. And around the island, and in both buildings, were several LED disco balls. That work was titled PLEASE BLIND MY EYES (all works 2024), a reference to Ahn’s belief that “color is the starting point of an artist’s life” and that the work would “invite audiences to reconsider their position on the boundary between reality and illusion,” per the brochure.
The other moments on the island carried similar titles: PLEASE TOUCH ME (the pink smoke), PLEASE HOLD MY HAND (the inflatable man), PLEASE HELP ME (the dolls). But the most evocative was PLEASE LOVE US at the back of the island, where a woman stood in a boat, precariously resting on a mound of dirt. Inside the boat was hot pink paint and nearby were fragments of bricks (from the construction), which visitors would give to the performer. Upon receiving it, she looked directly into my eyes and smiled, as if to say thank you. She then dipped the fragment into the paint and handed it to another performer who placed it atop a cone-shaped mound of dirt to create a sculpture.
I’m not sure if the resulting work will be permanently installed on the island, but it felt like all who were invited were asked to help bless and baptize the island, the forthcoming home for an arts center. If Ahn’s Pinky Pinky ‘Good’ is any indication of what the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has planned for future Biennales, this will be a can’t-be-missed trip.