Drinks, canapés—and poppers—at the Cruising Pavilion in Venice

Some champagne Madame, and perhaps some poppers? Amyl nitrate will indeed be on offer at the launch of the Cruising Pavilion, an independent project at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale on show at the Spazio Punch venue (24 May-1 July). The curators—Pierre-Alexandre Mateos, Rasmus Myrup, Octave Perrault and Charles Teyssou—want to show us how architecture is a “sexual practice” under the umbrella of the overarching biennale theme of Freespace. The biennale needs to question “the hetero-normative production of space itself”, they say, asking the valid question of whether cruising (namely casual sex in public places) is dying out in the age of Grindr. Monica Bonvicini, Prem Sahib, Lili Reynaud Dewar, Tom Burr and Trevor Yeung will all add to the debate.