BIENNALS: 59th Biennale di Venezia

For over a Century the Venice Biennial has been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. Ever since its foundation in 1895, it has been in the Avant-Garde, promoting new artistic trends and organizing International events in the contemporary art in accordance with a multi-disciplinary model, which characterizes its unique nature.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Venice Biennal Archive

The 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled “The Milk of Dreams”, will take place in the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and in the Arsenale, including 213 artists from 58 countries; 180 of these are participating for the first time. 1,433 the works and objects on display, 80 new projects are conceived specifically for the Biennale. The exhibition takes its title from a book by Leonora Carrington, in which the Surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination. It is a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else. This exhibition is grounded in many conversations with artists held in the last few years. The questions that kept emerging from these dialogues seem to capture this moment in history when the very survival of the species is threatened, but also to sum up many other inquiries that pervade the sciences, arts, and myths of our time. How is the definition of the human changing? What constitutes life, and what differentiates plant and animal, human and non-human? What are  our responsibilities towards the planet, other people, and other life forms? And what would life look like without us? The exhibition focuses on three thematic areas in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth. “The Milk of Dreams” was conceived and organised in a period of enormous instability and uncertainty, since its development coincided with the outbreak and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. La Biennale di Venezia was forced to postpone this edition by one year, an event that had only occurred during the two World Wars since 1895. New work by Agnes Denes will be on view, continuing the artist’s examination of natural and sociological forces at play in the modern world, and new modes of their co-mingling, while artists Mire Lee and Hannah Levy will both continue their exploration of hybridized forms of industrial and physical materials, blended into new conceptions of bodies, both human and non-human. The exhibition will also include 80 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city centre of Venice. 5 countries will be participating for the first time at the Biennale Arte: Republic of Camerun, Namibia, Nepal, Sultanate of Oman, and Uganda. Republic of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kirghizistan and Republic of Uzbekistan participate for the first time with their own pavilion. The Collateral Events will take place in several locations around the city of Venice. They offer a wide range of contributions and participations that enrich the diversity of voices that characterizes the Exhibition. SPECIAL PROJECTS: Elisa Giardina Papa, one of the artists taking part in the International Exhibition has been invited by Cecilia Alemani to make a special work in Forte Marghera, in the building called Polveriera austriaca. Sophia Al-Maria has been selected to present a work in the Applied Arts Pavilion at the Sale d’Armi, Arsenale.  The selected projects for the 1st edition of Biennale College Arte 2021/22 are by Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Ambra Castagnetti, Andro Eradze and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami. The 4 artists will receive a grant of 25,000 euros for the realization of the final work. The artworks will be presented, out of competition, as part of the 59th International Art Exhibition, “The Milk of Dreams”.

The German artist Katharina Fritsch and the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña are the recipients of the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement.  Katharina Fritsch lives and works in Wuppertal and Düsseldorf, Germany. Since 1979 she has worked on multi-scaled, boldly hued sculptures, which she says should instead be seen as three-dimensional pictures. Saints, mice, architectural models and plans, shells, snakes, umbrellas, human figures, the sound of frogs croaking, and objects of everyday life populate Fritsch’s world: a place where realistic detailing and disorienting immaterial finish dissolves the edges between the ordinary and the uncanny, causing a sensation of surprise and astonishment. Much of the works are made as multiples, however some are created as singular large-scale sculptures. Most often the pieces are given a monochrome or two-tone color scheme, done in a smooth application to avoid the appearance of the technical process, which can be seen more in the light of a religious endeavor rather than a technically virtuous quest. Typically, each work is first molded by hand, cast and re-worked, then cast again in a chosen material, and finally finished with a matte paint. Her sculptures maintain a formal naturalism made strange by the paint’s absorption of light, lending to the sculpture’s disorienting immaterial quality. From 1984 on she has participated in many international art exhibitions and had one-person exhibitions at museums across Europe and the United States, including the Kunstmuseum Basel, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern in London, and K21 in Düsseldorf. In 2009 her work was the subject of a retrospective at Kunsthaus Zürich and the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. In 2013 she created Hahn / Cock, an enormous sculpture of a bright blue rooster, for London’s Trafalgar Square, and in 2016 she did a collaborative exhibition with Alexej Koschkarow at the Schaulager, Basel titled Zita – Щapa. Cecilia Vicuña (is a poet, artist, filmmaker and activist. She lives and works in New York and Santiago. Her work addresses pressing concerns of the modern world including ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. Born and raised in Santiago, she was exiled in the early 1970s after the violent military coup against President Salvador Allende. Vicuña coined the term “Arte Precario” in the mid 1960s in Chile, for her precarious works and quipus, as a way of “hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard.” Her impermanent multi-dimensional works begin as a poem, or as an image that morphs into a film, a song, a sculpture, or a collective performance. Her paintings of the early 1970s de-colonised the art of the conquerors and the “saints” inherited from the Catholic Church to create irreverent images of the heroes of the revolution. Her work is characterised by a desire to pay tribute to the indigenous history and culture of Chile. Vicuña received her M.F.A. from the National School of Fine Arts, University of Chile and continued with postgraduate studies at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Recent solo exhibitions include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (forthcoming 2022); Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid, Spain (2021); MUAC, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico (2020); and Kunstinstituut Melly Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2019). Her work is in numerous private and public collections, including Tate, London; MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Guggenheim Museum; The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Santiago; MALBA, Museo Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL. Vicuña is the author of 27 volumes of art and poetry published in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Her filmography includes documentaries, animation, and visual poems. Vicuña has received several awards, including the Premio Velázquez de Artes Plásticas, Madrid, Spain (2019); Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Santa Monica, CA (2019); Anonymous Was a Woman Award, New York, NY (1999); and The Andy Warhol Foundation Award, New York, NY (1997). In 2015 she was appointed The Messenger Lecturer at Cornell University. She is the co-founder of www.oysi.org.

Works by: Noor Abuarafeh, Carla Accardi, Igshaan Adams, Eileen Agar, Monira Al Qadiri, Sophia Al-Maria, Marina Apollonio, Gertrud Arndt, Ruth Asawa, Shuvinai Ashoona, Belkis Ayón, Firelei Báez, Felipe Baeza, Josephine Baker, Djuna Barnes, Benedetta, Mirella Bentivoglio, Merikokeb Berhanu, Tomaso Binga, Cosima von Bonin, Louise Bonnet, Marianne Brandt, Kerstin Brätsch, Dora Budor, Eglė d ytytė, Liv Bugge, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Miriam Cahn, Claude Cahun, Elaine Cameron-Weir, Milly Canavero, Leonora Carrington, Regina Cassolo Bracchi, Ambra Castagnetti, Giulia Cenci, Giannina Censi, Gabriel Chaile, Ali Cherri, Anna Coleman Ladd, Ithell Colquhoun, Myrlande Constant, June Crespo, Dadamaino, Noah Davis, Lenora de Barros, Valentine de Saint-Point, Lise Deharme, Sonia Delaunay, Agnes Denes, Maya Deren, Lucia Di Luciano, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Sara Enrico, Chiara Enzo, Andro Eradze, Jaider Esbell, Jana Euler, Minnie Evans, Alexandra Exter, Safia Farhat, Simone Fattal, Célestin Faustin, Leonor Fini, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Katharina Fritsch, Ilse Garnier. Aage Gaup, Linda Gazzera, Ficre Ghebreyesus, Elisa Giardina Papa, Roberto Gil de Montes, Nan Goldin, Jane Graverol, Laura Grisi, Karla Grosch, Robert Grosvenor, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Florence Henri, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Charline von Heyl, Hannah Höch, Jessie Homer French, Rebecca Horn, Georgiana Houghton, Sheree Hovsepian, Tishan Hsu, Marguerite Humeau, Jacqueline Humphries, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Tatsuo Ikeda, Saodat Ismailova, Aletta Jacobs, Geumhyung Jeong, Charlotte Johannesson, Loïs Mailou Jones, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Birgit Jürgenssen, Ida Kar, Allison Katz. Bronwyn Katz, Kapwani Kiwanga, Kiki Kogelnik, Barbara Kruger, Tetsumi Kudo, Louise Lawler, Carolyn Lazard, Mire Lee, Simone Leigh, Hannah Levy, Tau Lewis, Shuang Li, Liliane Lijn, Candice Lin, Mina Loy, Antoinette Lubaki, LuYang, Zhenya Machneva, Baya Mahieddine, Maruja Mallo, Joyce Mansour, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Diego Marcon, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Maria Sibylla Merian, Vera Molnár, Delcy Morelos, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Sandra Mujinga, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Nadja, Louise Nevelson, Amy Nimr, Magdalene Odundo, Precious Okoyomon, Meret Oppenheim, Ovartaci, Virginia Overton. Akosua Adoma Owusu, Prabhakar Pachpute, Eusapia Palladino, Violeta Parra, Rosana Paulino, Valentine Penrose, Elle Pérez, Sondra Perry, Solange Pessoa, Thao Nguyen Phan, Julia Phillips, Joanna Piotrowska, Alexandra Pirici, Anu Põder, Gisèle Prassinos, Christina Quarles, Rachilde, Janis Rafa, Alice Rahon, Carol Rama, Paula Rego, Edith Rimmington, Enif Robert, Luiz Roque, Rosa Rosà, Niki de Saint Phalle, Giovanna Sandri, Pinaree Sanpitak, Aki Sasamoto, Augusta Savage, Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt, Schwartz, Amy Sillman, Elias Sime, Marianna Simnett, Hélène Smith, Sable Elyse Smith, Teresa Solar, Mary Ellen Solt, P. Staff, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Toshiko Takaezu, Emma Talbot, Dorothea Tanning. Bridget Tichenor, Tecla Tofano, Josefa Tolrà, Tourmaline, Toyen, Rosemarie Trockel, Wu Tsang, Kaari Upson, Andra Ursut, Grazia Varisco, Remedios Varo, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, Marie Vassilieff, Cecilia Vicuña, Nanda Vigo, Marianne Vitale, Raphaela Vogel, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Laura Wheeler Waring, Ulla Wiggen, Mary Wigman, Müge Yilmaz, Frantz Zéphirin, Zheng Bo, Unica Zürn, Portia Zvavahera

Photo: Candice Lin, Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping, exhibition view from Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2021. Courtesy the Artist; François Ghebaly Gallery

Info: Curator: Cecilia Alemani, 59th Biennale di Venezia, Giardini and Arsenale, Venice, Italy, Duration: 23/4-27/11/2022. Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00 (23/4-27/4/2022) & 10:00-18:00 (27/9-27/11/2022), Admission: Full price € 25, Reduced price € 20 (over 65, Venice residents, Students and/or Under 26 € 16, Groups: Adults € 18/ University-Students € 15/ Secondary School Students € 10, www.labiennale.org