Last month, Faustin Linyekula stood at the edge of the lagoon beside the Arsenale, looking out over the water. He bent down and ran his hand along the moss that clings to the concrete docks, then began to sing. His voice carried across the basin, past the bell towers and into the empty military warehouses, the sound echoing through spaces that, in a matter of weeks, would be filled with art and people. For now, though, Venice was quiet. Three weeks before the Venice Biennale opens to press and invited guests on May 5, much of the city’s exhibition infrastructure remained off-limits or unfinished. The Giardini, the public gardens that houses many of the national pavilions, was closed. Access to parts of the Arsenale, which serves as a site of the curated section of the Biennale as well as some pavilions, required special permission and an escort. What will soon be one of the most crowded stages in the art world feels, in late April, more like a construction site than a cultural capital. Related …