It’s day 187. A constant swarm of visitors, from linen-suited retirees to black-clad teens, floods the gallery space. Some stay for hours, others promptly leave with fingers in their ears. My ears are ringing despite wearing industrial-strength headphones. There are still two weeks to go in what is easily the longest, and maybe even loudest, performance I’ve heard.

Marco Fusinato

Marco Fusinato. Photo © Zan Wimberley

I’m in the Giardini, the tree-lined heart of La Biennale de Venezia (Venice Biennale). The sprawling exhibition therein is dubbed the “Olympics of the art world” and standing here I can see why. I’m surrounded by 30 national pavilions of varying architectural styles, from Britain’s classical arches to Finland’s blue flatpack hut. For over a century, this open-air campus has brought the world’s top artists face to face with enough art tourists to sink an island. 

The Australian pavilion, designed by Denton Corker Marshall and unveiled in 2015, is the newest and the starkest. The outside is a simple black box, the inside a gleaming white cube, which this year perfectly melds performance and exhibition....