Inevitably, some critic or other, whether writing about Venice’s art or architecture biennales, ‘reveals’ the enterprise’s imperial trappings. Among reading I took for the journey to this year’s Architecture Biennale was the September–October 1990 edition of artscribe. For weeks I had meant to read an interview it contained with Derek Jarman but, coincidently, the issue also featured a review of that year’s Biennale by Jan Avgikos titled ‘The Dangers of Tourism’. What had I let myself in for?
