Dirty Politics muddies the water in Venice

Art patron Jenny Gibbs has clarified her position on the Venice Biennale following reports that she has withdrawn her support after hearing Creative New Zealand is providing Dirty Politics author Nicky Hagar with airfares to and accommodation in Venice where he will join the team supporting Simon Denny, the artist selected to represent New Zealand at the 2015 Biennale. Gibbs is making a statement about Hagar's involvement, but hasn't bailed out of the project. Rather she has redirected her support to the newly created position of assistant curator for the Venice project, a move that has been welcomed by Creative New Zealand. According to the earlier reports, Michael Friedlander has also withdrawn his support, but he was unwilling to make a statement when contacted by the press following up on the announcement by Jenny Gibbs.

Okwui Enwezor checks out Australian art

Okwui Enwezor, the artistic director of the 56th Venice Biennale, has been on a whirlwind trip to Sydney and Melbourne where he has been meeting artists and visiting galleries and exhibitions, which he described as a "fascinating investigation into Australian contemporary art". Read more...
Image: Okwui Enwezor

Okwui Enwezor on the Venice Biennale

In this interview Okwui Enwezor talks about his career and vision for the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Image: Okwui Enwezor

Artistic director of 2015 Venice Biennale announced

Okwui Enwezor has been named as the artistic director of the 2015 Venice Biennale. Currently director of Haus der Kunst in Munich, Enwezor has also been artistic director of Documenta 11 (2002), Triennale d'Art Contemporain of Paris at the Palais de Tokyo (2006) and the Gwuangju Biennale (2008). Read more...
Image: Okwui Enwezor

Australia announces artist for the 56th Venice Biennale

Fiona Hall has been selected to represent Australia at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Her project will be curated by Linda Michaels, deputy director at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, and presented at Australia's new pavilion in the Giardini. Read more...
Image: Fiona Hall at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Venice Biennale update

Creative New Zealand has provided further information on the selection process for New Zealand's presentation at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Twenty expressions of interest were received from artists/curators of which nineteen have been asked to submit full proposals. The proposals will be assessed by a selection panel chaired by Arts Council Chairman Dick Grant and including: Heather Galbraith (2015 Commissioner), Alistair Carruthers (Patron), Anne Rush (Arts Council), Blair French (Assistant Director, Curatorial & Digital, MCA, Sydney), Brett Graham, Artist), Caterina Riva (Director, Artspace), Dayle Mace (Patron), Helen Kedgely (Arts Council), and Judy Millar (Artist).

The panel will meet in late September with the aim of announcing the successful artist(s)/curator team in early October.

Creative New Zealand announces new selection process for Venice Biennale

Creative New Zealand has announced a new selection process for New Zealand's representation at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.

The approach adopted for the current biennale, which bypassed proposals in favour of informal sector consultation and a hands-on, behind-the-scenes selection process, has been replaced with a two-stage process beginning with preliminary expressions of interest from artists and curators. Eligible applicants will then be invited to submit proposals to be assessed by a panel including a CNZ representative, the 2015 Commissioner (Heather Galbraith), visual arts sector experts and representatives of the Venice Biennale patrons' group.

New Zealand pavilion at the Venice Biennale

This link takes you to a video clip of Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota talking about Bill Culbert's installation at the Venice Biennale.
Image: installation view of Bill Culbert's installation at the New Zealand pavilion, Venice Biennale, Photo Jennifer French

Udo Kittelmann questions Ai Weiwei's inclusion in the lineup of artists for the German pavilion at Venice

Udo Kittelmann, director of the Nationalgalerie State Museums of Berlin, says the other artists chosen to represent Germany at this year's Venice Biennale will be overshadowed by Ai Weiwei, one of four artists selected by curator of the German pavilion Susanne Gaenshimer.

Kittelmann says: If one invites Ai Weiwei, the international media is a given, Ai is increasingly used by some art world figures to put their own politics in a populist way. The other artists could be overshadowed by his presence. It is my belief that one must make the playing field level."

Gaensheimer has responded saying: "The German pavilion is precisely about moving away from simple truisms and rankings and about questioning the assumption  that there are unambiguous levels and identities." Read more...
Image: Udo Kittelmann

Prada Foundation to re-stage Harald Szeemann's legendary '69 show during the Venice Biennale

The Prada Foundation will re-stage Harald Szeemann's Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form at this year's Venice Biennale. The legendary exhibition of conceptual art, arte povera, and land art was originally curated by Szeemann for the Bern Kunstjhalle in 1969. The recreated version will be curated by Germano Celant in collaboration with architect Rem Koolhaas and artist Thomas Demand.
Image: catalogue cover for Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form

Massimiliano Gioni on exhibition-making and the Venice Biennale

Massimiliano Gioni has a reputation for shifting perceptions of what an exhibition can be in the 21st century, an approach he plans to continue with the Venice Biennale. "Lately, people think that contemporary art is something to pass the time of the wealthy, or because everybody else is doing it  or because openings are cool or fashionable," he says. Gioni sees art not as the exclusive domain of the hip and the well-to-do, but as a kind of mental playground for the masses. "We need to remind ourselves that contemporary art is first of all a form of mental gymnastics in which we learn to co-exist with what we don't understand."  Read more...

Image: Massimiliano Gioni in Venice

Installation artist Kim Sooja to represent South Korea at the Venice Biennale

Despite earlier reports that South Korea would present a group show at this year's Venice Biennale, Kim Sooja will be the country's sole representative. Best known for her installation, video and performance work, the artist is a seasoned biennale performer - this is the fifth time she has participated in the Venice Biennale. Read more...
Image: from Kimsooja's Bottari Truck Migrateurs

Belgian pavilion at Venice to be curated by Nobel Prize-winning novelist

Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee will curate the presentation by Berlinde De Bruyckere at the Belgian pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale. The artist recently worked with Coetzee on a book with text by the author and photos by the artist and when asked for more on his appointment said: "I thought why shouldn't I ask him to be the curator and he agreed." Read more...
Image: JM Coetzee

Jonathan Watkins to curate the Iraq Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale

Ikon Gallery director Jonathan Watkins has been named curator of the Iraq Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Speaking about his approach to the pavilion he said: "As much as possible the Iraq Pavilion will embody the nature of everyday life as it is lived now - both in Iraq and beyond the art world there, such as it is. We envisage a celebration of creativity in all forms, at every level of society"

Image: Jonathan Watkins, director of Ikon Gallery

Vatican City to have a pavilion at the Venice Biennale

The Art News Paper is reporting that Vatican City will have a pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, citing this from Italy's La Stampa paper: : "...the artists will include fewer than 10 men and women from various countries around the world, some of whom are established artists and others who are just emerging. Their subject matter will be the first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis."
Image: The Swiss Guard in Vatican City 

Massimiliano Gioni announces theme for Venice Biennale

Massimiliano Gioni has selected a theme for his Biennale exhibition. It will be known as The Encyclopedic Palace, part of the title of a 136-story Futurist skyscraper imagined for Washington DC's National Mall by Marino Auriti a self-taught Italian-American artist. "It's the crazy dream, bordering between knowledge and madness, image and imagination...reflecting the grand ambition of this international exhibition," Gioni said in a recent interview. Read more...

Image: Massimiliano Gioni in Venice

Germany's program for the 2013 Venice Biennale challenges traditional formulations of national pavilions

The curator of the German pavilion, Susanne Gaenscheimer, will challenge traditional formulations of national pavilions with her program for the 2013 Venice Biennale. She will show four artists, none of whom are German: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Indian artist Dayanita Singh, South African artist Santu Mofokeng and French-German artist Romuld Kamakar. 

In a statement the MMK curator writes: "Both everyday life and the cultural landscapes of Germany are determined by different religions, economies, and political approaches. This defines our everyday life and leads to mutual enrichment as well as confrontation. At the same time it is extremely evident that our society can no longer function without dialogue, collaboration and the addressing of different philosophies and actual realities...The artists whom I invited and their works are representative of a number of issues resulting from the convergence of diverse ideologies and conceptions of life, which impact us most immediately today. In the context of the Venice project it is important to me that the artists mange to expand our perspectives and give us access to the view of the other, sometimes in an uncomfortable way. Although they develop their works out of specific, local contexts, they establish a kind of universal language by integrating their experiences of internationality."

Image: German pavilion, Venice

Winning design for Australia's Venice Biennale pavilion announced

An elevated black cube designed by Melbourne architects Denton Corker Marshall has been selected for Australia's Venice Biennale pavilion, replacing the much-criticised temporary structure by Philip Cox which remained in place for 25 years. The new building has a $6m budget and all funds must be privately raised before building starts at the end of 2013.
Image: artist's impression from DCM website

US announces artist for the 2013 Venice BIennale

The Bronx Museum will present a Sarah Sze project at the US Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Sze is known for her gravity-defying, minutely detailed accumulative architectures that challenge viewers to experience space in unexpected ways. "Sze's boundary-defying work engages architecture and space, challenging the viewer by reorganising reference points, disorienting and reorienting at every turn," says co-commissioner Carey Lovelace, a critic and independent curator. "Her ephemeral installations strike a balance between spectacle and poetry, with unparalleled potential to transform and invigorate the US Pavilion."
Image: Sarah Sze, Corner Plot, Doris C Freedman Plaza, Central Park. Presented by New York's Public Art Fund

Director of the 2013 Venice Biennale announced

The New Museum's Massimiliano Gioni has been appointed artistic director of the 2013 Venice Biennale. Gioni is a seasoned biennale curator. He curated 10,000 Lives for the 2010 Gwangju Biennale in 2010 and co-curated the 2006 Berlin Biennale and Manifesta 5 in 2004.