Lussemburgo Biennale Lussemburgo

Presso il Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean è in corso una mostra dedicata  alle partecipazioni del Granducato alla Biennale di Venezia organizzata dal Mudam di Lussemburgo.

Ripercorre le tante partecipazioni che si sono svolte dal 1988 al 2011.

La prima partecipazioni fu nel 1956, ma poi ci fu un intervallo fino al 1988, quando furono presentati Patricia Lippert e Moritz Ney.

Sede abituale per le mostre di questo paese è la Ca 'del Duca, vicino al Ponte dell’Accademia.

1988: Patricia Lippert e Moritz Ney

1990: Marie-Paule Feiereisen

1993: Jean-Marie Biwer, Bertand Ney

1995: Bert Theis

1997: Luc Lupo

1999: Simone Decker

2001: Doris Drescher

2003: Su-Mei Tse

2005: Antoine Prum

2007: Jill Mercedes

2009: Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert

2011: Martine Feipel & Jean Bechameil

Finlandia con Terike Haapoja e Antti Laitinen

Gli artisti Terike Haapoja e Antti Laitinen sono stati scelti per rappresentare la Finlandia alla prossima Biennale d’Arte di Venezia. Mika Elo, Marko Karo e Harri Laakso saranno i curatori dell’evento.

Ecco il comunicato stampa di presentazione

FINNISH EXHIBITIONS AT THE 2013 VENICE BIENNALE WILL HIGHLIGHT THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN ART AND NATURE 

31 October 2012

Last year, a big tree fell over a building in Venice. The building was the wooden pavilion designed for the Venice Biennale by Alvar Aalto in 1956. The event effectively interrupted the Finnish exhibition in the 2011 biennale. The pavilion and the works exhibited there were damaged and the show had to be closed ahead of time. The pavilion was restored, and the incident would seem to be closed now. However, the random event caused by the forces of nature will feature in the exhibition put up by Finland in Venice next year. The 55th Venice Biennale will be held 1 June – 24 November 2013.

From among 40 submissions, the Board of FRAME chose Mika Elo, Marko Karoand Harri Laakso to curate and build the exhibitions in the Aalto Pavilion and the Nordic Pavilion. The goal of the curator team is to produce two distinct solo exhibitions that share the same concrete starting point. Antti Laitinen will appropriate the renovated Aalto Pavilion and the surrounding park for his work. The show by Terike Haapoja will be held in the Nordic Pavilion, as it is Finland's turn this time to curate the show there.

The working title of the curator team’s exhibition concept is Falling Trees. As the title suggests, the concept revisits last year's event and explores its inherent unpredictability and destructive force. The falling tree is not seen exclusively as an obstacle that must be cleared away or as the reason for the renovation, but as a rupture in which the framework of rationality yields for a second to make way for something unpredictable. The event opens up a stage for an interplay between art and nature that lies beyond the reach of fixed directions and the objectifying gaze. It is a gesture that leads viewers to consider the relationship between art and nature, and the nature of art. Where does nature end and art begin? What are the forces and incidents that a work of art binds together? What is the contribution of nature to art when it refuses to be translated into landscapes or objects?

‘The proposal by Elo, Karo and Laakso is complex and theoretically challenging, yet also very down to earth. The works by Antti Laitinen and Terike Haapoja are topical in the way that they both address our relationship to nature. The artists do not illustrate their concern over the state of nature, using instead visual and symbolic means to present an argument,' says Jan Kaila, Chairman of the Board of FRAME.

‘The tree falling on the pavilion was what sparked off the exhibition concept. A stimulus like that is often the trigger that sets the artistic process in motion. Instead of a fixed theme, we wanted to take as our starting point this unforeseeable gesture that brings nature and art into collision in a certain place at a certain moment, and thus challenges us to consider the dynamic between art and nature in a broader way. How do art and nature interface when nature is not reduced into mere raw material for art or a subject for representation? Antti Laitinen and Terike Haapoja both work in their own specific ways in these unforeseeable areas of confluence. The two exhibitions complement one another, bringing into play the enigmatic connections between the life of art and the art of life,’ say the curators of the exhibitions.

Antti Laitinen (b. 1975) will create a new installation for the Aalto Pavilion, and also present a sample of his earlier work. He will additionally conduct a performance on the biennale grounds, and documentation of the performance will be included in the exhibition. Antti Laitinen’s art is characterised by the physical testing of limits and the tragicomic character of our relationship to nature. A man steps onto the arena of nature, ready to do battle, such as spending days on end in the forest without clothes, food or drink, or sailing over the Gulf of Finland on a bark boat.

Terike Haapoja (b. 1974) will bring to the Nordic pavilion a research laboratory in which art, science and technology will come together in unexpected ways. The art of Terike Haapoja is characterised by an overall research approach which highlights the points of contact between contemporary art, natural science and environmental ethics. Haapoja’s practice is also coloured by ecological activism.

The curator team – Mika Elo (b. 1966), Marko Karo (b. 1971) and Harri Laakso (b. 1965) – are artist-curators who all work as researchers in the School of Art and Design at Aalto University. Their previous international curated works includeBacklight 2002 and 2005 (Laakso), Helsinki Photography Festival 2005 (Elo),Pointers 2006–2007 (Laakso), Square Minutes 2007 (Elo and Laakso), Art Research Event 2009–2011 (Elo and Laakso), Helsinki Photography Biennial 2012 (Karo). In summer 2011, the team had a joint exhibition entitled Extracts in the Rantakasarmi Gallery in Suomenlinna, Helsinki.

The artists’ websites:

www.anttilaitinen.com

www.terikehaapoja.net

The 55th Venice Biennale:

http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/

FRAME Foundation is a visual arts foundation supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. The mission of FRAME is to strengthen the position of Finnish visual arts and to promote international cooperation between artists and art institutions.

www.frame-fund.fi

Lituania e Cipro presentano Raimundas Malašauskas

Per la prossima edizione della Biennale, la Lituania collaborerà con Cipro. Il progetto espositivo congiunto si articolerà in due distinti padiglioni nazionali a cura di Raimundas Malasauskas, curatore e autore. Questo modo innovativo di partecipando alla mostra ha come obiettivo di proporre un altro concetto di presenza nazionale, mostrando un progetto plurinazionale che negozia il significato del cosmopolitismo contemporaneo in relazione all'arte e alla società.

Il progetto di mostra collettiva, dal titolo "oO", è stato sviluppato da Malasauskas come una grande mostra curata per caratterizzare gli artisti ciprioti e lituano, nonché contributi da una serie di artisti internazionali di diversa generations.

Curatore: Raimundas Malasauskas

Artisti : Dario Mikšys Antanas Gerlikas Andrius Rugys

Web: oo-oo.co

 Participation of Cyprus in the 55th International Art Exhibition  (1 June – 24 November 2013)

The next Venice Biennial of Visual Arts will take place between 1st June and 24 November 2013 (preview on 29, 30 and 31st May). The Board of the Biennale di Venezia has appointed Massimiliano Gioni asDirector of the Visual Arts Sector, with specific responsibility for curating the  55th International Art Exhibition, under the general title The Encyclopedic Palace (Il Palazzo Enciclopedico).For this next edition of the Biennial,  Cyprus will be collaborating with Lithuania on a joint exhibition project of two distinct national pavilions, curated by  Raimundas Malašauskas. This unprecedented partnership of two European states aims among others to propose another approach to the ‘national participation’ model, by staging a transnational project that negotiates the notion of contemporary cosmopolitanism in relation to art and society. The collaboration explores warp-holes of time between distinct cultures, whose intrinsic plurality of perspectives works as open premises to be discovered and explored in the making of the project. 

I. CURATOR 

Raimundas Malašauskas is a curator and writer. His curatorial work is shaped by the belief in creativity of the public. He has presented art exhibitions through hypnosis séances —his ongoing Hypnotic Show—and variety performances, such as in his ongoing Clifford Irving Show. His writing combines his interest in contemporary art, music, doubling, food, history, science, his native Lithuania and time travel, among 
other subjects.  

Malašauskas recently worked as one of the agents of dOCUMENTA(13), this summer in Kassel. Previous to this, he was curator of the Satellite exhibition series at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris in 2010-2011; a curator at Artists Space, New York in 2007-2009; and, visiting curator at California College of the Arts, San Francisco in 2007 to 2008. Since 2011, he teaches at the Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. 

From 1995 to 2006, Malašauskas worked at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, where he curated numerous exhibitions, including the IX Baltic Triennial,  Black Market Worlds (2005). There, he also produced the first two seasons of the weekly television show  CAC TV, an experimental merger of commercial television and contemporary art, which ran under the slogan: “Every program is a pilot, every program is the final episode.”  

 www.cyprusinvenice.org 

Spagna con Lara Almarcegui

Curata da Octavio Zaya, Lara Almarcegui rappresenterà la Spagna alla Biennale di Venezia 2013

L’artista, che vive in Olanda, agisce in un contesto di ricerca sull’ambiente e le città.

La notizia è uscita sul sito di http://www.abc.es/20121025/cultura-arte/abci-almarcegui-201210242124.html

Estonia con Dénes Farkas

Photo by Alma Lii Farkas

Dénes Farkas è l’artista selezionato per rappresentare l'Estonia alla Biennale di Venezia 2013, curatore è Adam Budak.

L’artista opera prevalentemente con opere concettuali e fotografiche.

Per chi volesse ci sono già le informazioni sul progetto dal titolo Evident In Advance www.evident-in-advance.com

Ecco il comunicato uscito su www.cca.ee Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia announces that artist Dénes Farkas will represent Estonia at the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (from 1 June 2013 until 24 November 2013), with his project Evident in Advance, curated by Adam Budak.

Dénes Farkas lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. As a post-conceptual photo artist, Farkas has primarily focused since the late 2000s on contemplating social structures and reflecting the result in a laconic visual language that unites photography and captions as a means of expression. Both private art collectors as well as the Art Museum of Estonia have acquired his work.

The exhibition project Evident in Advance studies the various aspects of linguistic elusiveness, translation and interpretation. The project is a collaboration between the artist and an international team of architects and theoreticians curated by Adam Budak, who is currently working as the curator of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, USA. Budak and Farkas first worked together during the exhibition Beyond under the Fotokuu project (Photography Month) at Kumu Art Museum in 2010. Budak has curated several important international exhibitions, including Architectures: Metastructures of Humanity, Morphic Strategies of Exposure, held in the Polish Pavilion at the 9th International Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2004. He was also co-curator at Manifesta 7.

The 55th International Venice Biennale will be held from 1 June until 24 November 2013. The head curator of the biennale is Massimiliano Gioni. The venue for the Estonian exposition in Venice 2013 will continue to be the Palazzo Malipiero, this time with the entrance at the front of the building on San Samuele Square, S. Marco 3199 (2nd floor).

The Venice Biennale is the oldest and largest international art forum, and Estonia has participated since 1997. The Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia is the official representative of the Estonian exposition at the Venice Biennale.

The competition for the 2012 Estonian exposition attracted 13 projects and the evaluation took two rounds of meetings. The winner was chosen by a nine-member panel of artists and representatives from various art institutions, including Sirje Helme(Art Museum of Estonia), Reet Mark (Tartu Art Museum), Andres Kurg (Estonian Academy of Arts), Kaido Ole (freelance artist), Katrin Kivimaa (Estonian Academy of Arts), Johannes Saar (Center for Contemporary Arts), Maria-Kristiina Soomre(Estonian Ministry of Culture), Christian Schoen (Kunst-Konzepte, Germany) and Jan Boelen (Z33, Belgium).

Estonia's participation at the 55th International Art Exhibition in Venice is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture.

More information:

KAASAEGSE KUNSTI EESTI KESKUS

CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS, ESTONIA

Vabaduse väljak 6

10146 Tallinn

ESTONIA

ph. +372 631 40 50

www.cca.ee

Curatore: Adam Budak

Indirizzo: Palazzo Malipiero, San Marco 3199 (2 ° piano)

Sito web: www.evident-in-advance.com

Germania e Francia uniti in uno scambio ..

Christine Macel, curatore del padiglione francese e Chief Curator del Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou di Parigi, e Anri Sala, l'artista che rappresenta la Francia, così come Susanne Gaensheimer, il curatore del padiglione tedesco e direttore della MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, e gli artisti che ha invitato, Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng e Dayanita Singh, hanno deciso di scambiare i padiglioni tedesco e francese per l'Esposizione internazionale d'Arte 55 - la Biennale di Venezia.

All'inizio di quest'anno, i ministri degli esteri di Francia e Germania hanno proposto lo scambio padiglioni dei due paesi per l'Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte 55 - La Biennale di Venezia nel 2013.

Questa idea è stata discussa più volte nel corso degli ultimi dieci anni, e nel 2012 i curatori e gli artisti hanno deciso di discutere congiuntamente la possibilità. Dopo molti colloqui costruttivi, tutte le parti hanno concordato il progetto.

Una considerazione fondamentale era la volontà di seguire l'attuale corrente del mondo dell'arte, in cui la cooperazione internazionale e la comunicazione è  una questione di dialogo tra i settori culturale che supera il concetto di  nazionalità. 

I curatori e gli artisti si sentono parte di una cultura comune europea. Il contributo tedesco è stato commissionato dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Repubblica Federale di Germania, e sarà realizzato in collaborazione con l'Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa). Il sito temporaneo per il padiglione tedesco è già accessibile e sarà ulteriormente sviluppato nelle prossime settimane e mesi: http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org

Belgio Berlinde De Bruyckere

Schauvliege Joke, ministro fiammingo dell'ambiente, natura e cultura,  ha annunciato che il Belgio sarà rappresentato dall'artista Berlinde De Bruyckere (nato a Gand nel 1964).

L'artista recentemente ha visto il premio dell'arte fiammingo nel 2009, lavora con la galleria Hauser & Wirth  

Comunicato stampa 

The Flemish Minister for Environment, Nature and Culture, Joke Schauvliege, has nominated Berlinde De Bruyckere to represent Belgium at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013.

Berlinde De Bruyckere (°1964, Ghent) lives and works in Ghent. In February 2010, she received the Flemish Culture Prize 2009 for Visual Arts. De Bruyckere's sculptures, installations and drawings set out to embody the world's great stories. The forms and materials she uses are consistently selected for their metaphorical power. For several years now, she has been constructing a highly personal vocabulary, in which a refined vision of the melancholy relationship with the world and the things in it has gradually risen to the surface.

De Bruyckere can count on a growing international interest. An exhibition putting her work in dialogue with the work of the deceased artist Philippe Vandenbergh is currently running at Museum De Pont in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Last week, she presented her work within a dance performance, a coproduction with Romeu Runa, at the St James's Church Southwood Garden, London. Last summer, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne showed an impressive exhibition of her work. Next autumn, De Bruyckere will show her work in Beijing, China.

Australia Simryn Gill

Come già annunciato a Maggio sarà Simryn Gill a rappresentare l'Australia alla prossima Biennale, eccovi il comunicato stampa

Simryn Gill to represent Australia at theVenice Biennale 2013

The Australia Council for the Arts today announced Simryn Gill has been selected torepresent Australia at the 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2013.

The Sydney-based artist, who works across multiple media, will be the sole artist exhibiting at the AustralianPavilion in the Giardini in June 2013. The exhibition will be curated by Catherine de Zegher.Simryn Gill has had solo exhibitions at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2009); Museum ofContemporary Art, Sydney (2008); Tate Modern, London (2006); Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2004); and the ArtGallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2002).Recent group exhibitions she has participated in include Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial),

Istanbul, Turkey (2011); Animism, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (2010); Provisions for the Future, Sharjah Biennial, UAE (2010); Transmission Interrupted  , Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK (2010); Revolutions 

 –

Forms That Turn  , Biennale ofSydney (2008); News From Islands 

, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (2007); documenta 12 

, Kassel,Germany (2007); and Living in the Material World 

, National Arts Centre, Tokyo, Japan (2007).

“Simryn’s work is deeply engaging and challenging,” said 2013 Venice Biennale Commissioner Simon Mordant.“She will be making a new set of works for Venice and I am overjoyed to be working with both her and Catherinede Zegher, in delivering a very exciting Australian contribution to this most important contemporary art

exposition.”

 Australia Council CEO Kathy Keele said: “Representing Australia at the Venice Biennale is a significantachievement

 –

over 190,000 people visited the Australian Pavilion in 2011. I congratulate Simryn on her selection and I’m confident she will leave a lasting impression on the international audiences at the VeniceBiennale  – and well beyond.

”

 The exhibition will be curated by Catherine de Zegher, Joint Artistic Director of the 18th Biennale of Sydney in2012. Catherine is an art historian, curator and writer. She is Visiting Curator at the Antoni Tàpies Foundation,Barcelona, and until recently, was Guest Curator in the Department of Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art,New York. From 1999-2006, Catherine was the Director of The Drawing Center in New York. In 1997, she wasthe Commissioner of the Belgian Pavilion at the 47th Venice Biennale. “I feel honored to be invited to do this exhibition and I thank the selection panel members for their trust," saidSimryn.

“I am delighted to be working with Catherine de Zegher. We have admired each other’s work from adistance for some time now and I look forward to the process of collaboration.

”

 Simryn was selected by a six-member peer panel comprising: Simon Mordant, Australian Commissioner for theVenice Biennale 2013 and Chair of the Museum of Contemporary Art; Professor Ted Snell, Chair, Visual ArtsBoard; Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art; Nick Mitzevich, Director, ArtGallery of South Australia; Jessica Morgan, The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, Tate, London; andRussell Storer, Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. 

“We are delighted to also announce the support of The Balnaves Foundation as the Major Partner, and Maddocks as Principal Corporate Sponsor for 2013,” said Kathy Keele. “ Their significant support, as well as the contribution of the Commissioner’s Council and many individual donors , ensures the Australian representationextends and leverages our presence in Venice to increase the profile and international opportunities for theAustralian contemporar y visual arts sector.”

The Biennale is considered the most important and prestigious event on the international contemporary arts calendar,and is the oldest and largest established biennale in the world. Australia has been consistently represented in the VeniceBiennale for more than three decades, through the financial support and management of the Australia Council for theArts. Visit http://venicebiennale.australiacouncil.gov.au for more information.

Beware of the holy whore: Edvard Munch and the dilemma of emancipation

Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation' is a project co-organised by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice, Italy, as the official Norwegian representation at the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2013. The project, curated by Marta Kuzma, Director, OCA, Angela Vettese, President, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and Pablo Lafuente, Associate Curator, OCA, revolves around emancipation as an issue always vexed with contradiction – between the realm of freedom and the consequences of the isolation that often accompanies pursuing a qualitatively different, ‘alternative’ life. In his Essay on Liberation, Herbert Marcuse noted that this striving toward what is essentially a ‘new sensibility’ involves a psychedelic, narcotic release from the rationality of an established system, as well as from the rationality that attempts to change that system. This new sensibility, which resides in the gap between the confines of the existing order and those of true liberation, might lead to a radical transformation – and in this transformation art serves as a technique through which to reconstruct reality from its illusion, its imitation, even its harmony, towards a reality not yet given, still to be realised. 

The impulse to operate in the margins – on the outside trying to break in or on the inside redefining the context – is one of the key driving forces in the history of art, and is also at the centre of 'Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation'. The exhibition, which will take place at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa’s gallery at Piazza San Marco, will bring together works from the collection of the Munch Museum in Oslo in order to explore Edvard Munch’s position within and response to the age of emancipation in which he lived, where sexual norms and traditional gender roles were challenged amid new psychological theories of sex and politics and a struggle for women’s equality. Challenged by social developments and psycho-emotional expression, Munch faced the alienation that characterised a society (the Kristiania Bohemia) bidding for emancipation but trapped in ‘reality’, struggling between two options: assimilating shared values, or going beyond them in order to construct a new frame for perception. As Munch’s illustrations for Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal warned, sex might bring death. 

Munch’s emphatic treatment of these themes from 1902 to 1908, before entering the asylum, reflected an internal ambiguity and anguish. Munch described this period as an ‘eternal civil war’, after which his work moved to a more distanced treatment of subjects, in social caricatures in which he offers an ironic critique of an increasingly capitalist and permissive society. In Social Studies: Cause and Effect, made shortly after, Munch also reflected upon the conditions of artistic production and its reception, via patronage, sales, criticism and public opinion, opening new dimensions for his work, from a psychological perspective into social and historical realms.

The ‘pile of humanity’ or ‘human mountain’, a recurrent motif in Munch’s work since the early 1890s, is a pivotal element for 'Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation', in its reflection on an emancipatory drive that might conclude in tragedy. While some of the sketches, illustrations, drawings and lithographs of the versions portray the human mountain as a platform for what looks like a move towards true liberation, others show a sarcophagus at the mountain’s pinnacle – an allegory that reflects Munch’s deep ambivalence towards the new times, their promises and their possibilities, and that expresses the dilemma of emancipation. 

Padiglione Russo, scelto il curatore, Udo Kittelmann

Per la prima volta un curatore non russo per il padiglione russo, si tratta di 

Comunicato stampa ufficiale

The Commissioner of the Russian Pavilion, Stella Kesaeva, announced the appointment of the curator of the Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale. The curator of the Russian Pavilion will be Udo Kittelmann, Director of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (State Museums in Berlin). 

Commenting the appointment, Stella Kesaeva said: “It was decided in April 2012 that the artist Vadim Zakharov would represent Russia at the Venice Biennale in 2013. The idea of inviting Udo Kittelmann as curator followed from the choice of the artist. As a result, the Russian Pavilion will be curated by a citizen of another country for the first time in its history. Udo Kittelmann is one of the most renowned curators in the art world and his appointment is an important and conscious step, reflecting our principal objective, which is to bring Russian art out of isolation and secure for it the attention that it deserves at the highest international level. I am very happy that Udo Kittelmann shares our view and has accepted the project.”

Accepting the appointment as Curator of the Russian Pavilion, Udo Kittelmann said: “I am very pleased to take on this responsibility and the tough challenge of curating the Russian Pavilion at the forthcoming Venice Biennale. The fact that Russia will be represented by the artist Vadim Zakharov means much to me. I am greatly honoured that Vadim Zakharov proposed me as candidate for the curatorship and that the commissioner, Stella Kesaeva, supported the idea, enabling the continuation of my long cooperation with Vadim, which dates from the 1990s. I greatly admire the contribution, which Vadim Zakharov has made to contemporary art. His work has a continuity of development and is marked by a unique outlook and independence of artistic thought. His constant role as thinker and protagonist of the Moscow Conceptualist movement from the end of the 1970s remains a hallmark of his work right up to the present. As a curator, it gives me joy to be able to present this outstanding artist to a broad public. It would be hard to find a better place for an international exhibition of Vadim’s work than the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.” 

The Venice Biennale in 2013 will be held from June 1 until November 24, with preview days on May 29, 30 and 31. Massimiliano Gioni has been appointed artistic director of the Biennale. The Russian Pavilion was built following a design by the architect Alexei Schusev. It is one of the oldest Biennale pavilions and stands on the main thoroughfare of the Giardini della Biennale. 

Udo Kittelmann

Udo Kittelmann was born in 1958 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Since fall 2008, he has been the Director of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (State Museums in Berlin). In this position he is responsible for the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin (Museum for Contemporary Art), as well as the Berggruen Museum, the Sammlung Scharf - Gerstenberg (Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection) and the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche. Udo Kittelmann worked as a freelance curator from 1987 to 1993, organizing more then 100 exhibitions of contemporary art during that time. From 1994 to 2001 he was the director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne). In 2001, he was the commissioner of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where the Totes Haus u r project by Gregor Schneider won the Golden Lion award for best national pavilion. Between 2002 and 2008, Udo Kittelmann was the director of the MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst (Modern Art Museum) in Frankfurt. 

Udo Kittelmann is the author and editor of various publications and essays on art. 

Vadim Zakharov

Vadim Zakharov was born in 1959 in Dushanbe. After graduating from the Moscow Pedagogical Institute in 1982, he pursued experiments in conceptual art independently and in collaboration with other artists, including Sergey Anufriev, Igor Lutz, Victor Skersis, and Ivan Sokolov. Since 2008 he has been a participant of the Capiton and Corbusier groups together with Yuri Leiderman and Andrei Monastyrski. He took part in the activities of Apt-Art and the Club of Avant-gardists. In 1992 he organizedPastor Zond Editions, a publishing house with a catalogue of over sixty works, including the Pastor almanac. Some highlights of his exhibition history include the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, Berlin-Moscow/Moscow-Berlin 1950-2000 (2003-2004), andRussia! at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2005. In 2003 his Monument to Theodor Adorno was erected in Frankfurt-am-Main. He is the author of Monument to Utopia created for the exhibition, Pavel Filonov. Witness of the Invisible (St. Petersburg, 2006). In 2006 he won Russia’s Innovation Prize for Contemporary Art, and in 2009 he was the winner of the Kandinsky Prize. He currently lives in Berlin and Moscow. 

Stella Kesaeva

Stella Kesaeva is the President of Stella Art Foundation, which was set up as a non-profit organization in 2003. The mission of the Foundation is cultural exchange, support for Russian art and for young artists and the creation of a museum of contemporary art in Moscow. Stella Kesaeva was appointed as commissioner of the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011, 2013 and 2015 by decree of the Russian Ministry of Culture.

Stella Art Foundation has held the following exhibitions by Vadim Zakharov

Vadim Zakharov, Andrei Monastyrski. Mouse Hunting (Stella Art Foundation, 2004)

Vadim Zakharov. 25 Years on One Page (The State Tretyakov Gallery, 2006)

Vadim Zakharov. Lessons in the Boudoir (Stella Art Foundation, 2006)

sito ufficiale: http://www.ruspavilion.ru