The Venice Biennale in the footsteps of Marco Polo in Mongolia

“The stop in Mongolia takes on particular significance – explained Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, President of the Biennale – if we consider that Marco Polo’s extraordinary and legendary journey coincides with the glorious Pax Mongolica, a period still alive today and celebrated in contemporary memory. And right under the infinite skies of this vast and boundless country, steppes and landscapes follow one another which have already inspired the exhibition Where splendid horses run, testifying to the freedom of spirit and horizons of those who inhabits and lives these territories”.

“Today’s meeting between Mongolian artists and the Venice Biennale in the context of the historic Zanabazar museum, an artist whose Italy hosted two exhibitions for the first time in 2026 (in the setting of the prestigious Galleria Borghese museums in Rome and Mao museum in Turin), transcends the artistic dimension, to take on a strong symbolic and political value – declared the Italian ambassador to Ulaanbaatar, Giovanna Piccarreta – It bears witness the consolidation of bilateral relations between Mongolia and Italy and reflects the common desire to consolidate ties through culture, as a privileged tool of diplomacy and mutual understanding, strengthened by the rich historical tradition that unites us, and by the shared respect for democratic values and the rule of law, the faith in multilateralism and the promotion of peace”.

With the exhibition “Where splendid horses run”, the Venice Biennale and its Historical Archive present the works of Baatarzorig Batjargal and Dolgor Ser-Od, enhancing the dialogue between arts, cultures and languages ​​and tracing a path which, in the footsteps of Marco Polo, connects tradition and contemporaneity, East and West. “The title of the exhibition comes from the suggestion of a verse from the poem by Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj, one of the founders of modern Mongolian literature, My Native Land (1933) which describes the vastness of the landscape, the cyclical nature of the rhythms, the persistence of a sense of freedom and uncontamination which acts as a bulwark against every type of external influence – underlined the curator Luigia Lonardelli – ‘Where splendid horses run’ collects the works of Batjargal and Ser-Od in a path that crosses the rooms of the museum, inserting them as punctuation marks within an epic that the country is currently finding itself rewriting, trying to identify a rhythm and some pauses within the narrative of tens of thousands of years of visual and material culture”.

In the spaces in front of the museum, Amfibio will be presented, a structure designed by Istanbul artist Cevdet Erek, who has been following this special project since its first stop in Hangzhou. For the occasion, from 24 to 27 June, Amfibio will host a reading program organized by the Mongolian Writers’ Union. For four days, voices and sounds of Mongolian literature will alternate: from oral tradition poetry, through written literature and lyrical landscape poetry, up to contemporary experiments. Amfibio is a modular and adaptable meeting space, intended to host public programs and to be permeable, in its construction and integrated sound system, to the architectural languages ​​and rhythms of the places it passes through. The public is invited to walk through it, to rest there, to listen to its sound and its fusion with the urban sounds that surround it. (The complete program is attached)

“The project ‘It’s the wind that makes the sky’ – declared Baigalmaa Purevsukh, director of the Fine Arts Zanabazar Museum – offers us an extraordinary opportunity to reread and reinterpret, through the language of contemporary art, the path he undertook. The project stands out for its ability to connect past and present, opening new reflections on the themes of travel, memory, cultural exchange and the most precious values of humanity. Mongolia participates in this initiative with a particular meaning, having been an integral part of the vast Eurasian world described by Marco Polo in his stories. communication and trade networks of the imperial era, the nomadic culture and the vision of the world linked to the cult of Heaven still represent a precious component of the global cultural heritage”. “Art does not limit itself to reproducing history: it gives it new life and enriches it with new meanings. The artists involved in the È il vento che fa il cielo project interpret Marco Polo’s journey not only as a geographical movement, but as the meeting between civilization and the eternal search for knowledge that accompanies the human being – he continued – In their works the wind becomes a symbol of the journey and the traces left by the journey, while the sky represents a common space that unites humanity. This project not only evokes the journey history that began in Venice, but also reminds us how precious intercultural dialogue, mutual understanding and shared creativity are in the contemporary world. This process of connection across borders, made possible through the universal language of art, represents the most authentic continuation of the legacy left by Marco Polo. The journey of knowledge and encounters between cultures continues today.

The Zanabazar museum takes its name from Eshidorji, one of the most important artists and mystics in the country, who lived in the 17th century and known by the spiritual name of Zanabazar, venerated as the highest religious authority of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia and considered the reincarnation of one of the five hundred disciples of the Buddha. Besides being a guide Zanabazar was also a linguist and one of the greatest sculptors of the modern period. Together with his disciples he traveled the roads of the steppes living in various Tibetan monasteries, all experiences which later entered into their works. These works are located in a situation on the border between a sacred and, as such, venerated object – a phenomenon found in all the places of worship and temples founded by Zanabazar in the country – and true artistic objects. In addressing the last movement of Mongolian painting, within a complex and varied theoretical reference scenario, we move within an interdisciplinary framework located at the intersection between studies on visual culture and post-socialist cultural theory and analysis.

The works on display highlight, in their different interpretative levels, the emergence and transformation of modern and contemporary art in Mongolia. The language of the Mongol Zurag movement was born as a reaction to a system of visual signification structured and incorporated into the country’s artistic training paths during the twentieth century. The suppression of Buddhism and the interruption of historical continuity, including the replacement of the traditional Mongolian alphabet with Cyrillic, have dismantled, albeit temporarily, religious and linguistic systems, upsetting local ways of approaching visual knowledge. By creating layered works that preserve and reinterpret the past and juxtaposing traditional forms with contemporary icons and motifs of global consumer culture, Batjargal and Ser-Od address the tensions between tradition and modernity, and between cultural heritage and globalization.