Simon Denny per la Nuova Zelanda

Intervento alla Friedrich Petzel Gallery

Dopo la stupenda location della Biblioteca Marciana la Nuova Zelanda conferma anche l'artista, si tratta di Simon Denny, scultore. Come avevamo già annunciato l'ottobre scorso.

Installazione al New Museum di New York 

Press release 

Aotearoa New Zealand is a relative newcomer to the Venice Biennale, with 2015 marking the seventh official participation. Sculptor and installation artist Simon Denny has been selected to represent New Zealand in 2015.

For all of the New Zealand artists whose work has been shown significant national and international opportunities have transpired, and a broadened awareness of and engagement with their work have resulted.

New Zealand's presence at the Biennale, in tandem with the profiling of New Zealand contemporary art within international art fairs and curated exhibitions, is crucial to engaging audiences, curators, writers and collectors with the quality and breadth of the contemporary New Zealand art scene.

The Arts Council of Creative New Zealand is pleased to announce sculptor and installation artist Simon Denny as New Zealand’s artist for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.

“Simon Denny is one of the most high-profile New Zealand artists working in the international contemporary art world today. His work is rich, intelligent, challenging and political. We are confident it will be very compelling within the context of the Venice Biennale,” says New Zealand Commissioner for the 2015 Venice Biennale, Heather Galbraith.

Denny's work has explored the culture of internet-technology firms, the obsolescence of analogue technology, corporate culture and contemporary constructions of national identity. 

He is interested in information technology, for instance the ‘familiar-yet-strange’ conventions used in computer programs and interfaces. He plays with these conventions, in installations that combine sculptures, graphics, and moving images. Referring to new and obsolete digital technologies, he questions how information is controlled and shared.

In 2012, Denny was nominated for the Walters Prize and won the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel. He was the only New Zealand artist invited to exhibit in the curated show at the 2013 Venice Biennale.  

The Arts Council is also pleased to announce Robert Leonard as the curator for New Zealand’s presentation at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Leonard is one of New Zealand’s most experienced contemporary art curators and writers.  

Leonard has held curatorial positions at the National Art Gallery, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Auckland Art Gallery and was Director of Artspace, Auckland for five years. Since 2005 he has been Director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and, in January 2014, will return to New Zealand as senior curator for the City Gallery, Wellington.

Denny and Leonard will present the exhibition Five Eyes. The title refers to the “five eyes” of the USAUK Security Agreement, which finds New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada sharing “signals intelligence”.

“Simon and Robert’s partnership is very exciting,’’ says Galbraith. “Their presentation in the New Zealand pavilion will continue to build on our reputation as a country that has a potent, relevant and perceptive visual arts community.”

Eighteen high-calibre proposals were received for New Zealand’s presentation at the 2015 Venice Biennale. They were assessed by a Selection Advisory Panel, chaired by Arts Council Chairman, Dr Dick Grant. The panel was unanimous in its selection of Simon Denny and Robert Leonard.

“The Venice Biennale represents an incomparable opportunity for New Zealand artists to show their work on the world stage,” says Dr Grant. “It is the world’s largest and most prestigious international contemporary art exhibition, attended by key curators, writers and collectors, not to mention attracting enormous public interest.”

The Selection Advisory Panel for the 2015 Venice Biennale comprised: Heather Galbraith, New Zealand Commissioner, 2015 Venice Biennale and Head of Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University, Wellington; Alastair Carruthers, patron; Anne Rush, Arts Council member; Blair French, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Digital, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia; Brett Graham, artist; Caterina Riva, Director, Artspace; Dayle Mace, patron; Helen Kedgley, Arts Council member and Judy Millar, artist.

Creative New Zealand’s financial commitment will be $700,000 over two financial years.

Notes to editors:

The 2015 Venice Biennale opens in June and runs for six months. It involves more than 80 countries and attracts over 30,000 key international curators, critics, collectors and artists to the three-day Vernissage (preview) period alone.

The 2015 announcement follows New Zealand’s highly successful 2013 exhibition by installation artist, photographer and sculptor Bill Culbert: Front Door Out Back, which attracted widespread national and international acclaim, and has attracted 140,000 visitors to date. 

New Zealand has exhibited at the Venice Biennale since 2001.  New Zealand artists who have exhibited are: Peter Robinson and Jacqueline Fraser (2001); Michael Stevenson (2003) et al. (2005); Judy Millar and Francis Upritchard (2009); Michael Parekowhai (2011) and Bill Culbert (2013).

Simon Denny: biography

Simon Denny studied at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts and at Frankfurt’s Städelschule, graduating in 2009. Born in Auckland, he is currently based in Berlin. 

Denny was a founding member of the Auckland artist-run space Gambia Castle. His work is regularly exhibited in New Zealand and it is held in major public and private collections in New Zealand, including Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

In Germany, Denny started to explore the implications of recent changes in communications technology that saw bulky tube televisions replaced by flatscreens - the ‘box’ replaced by the ‘picture’.

His works punned on similarities and differences between televisions; flatscreens; vitrines; aquariums; paintings and minimalist boxes. He went on to address other themes, such as the culture surrounding internet technology firms, the obsolescence of analogue broadcast technology, neoliberal corporate culture, the demise of ‘welfarism’ and contemporary constructions of national identity.

In 2012 he was nominated for the Walters Prize (for Introductory Logic Video Tutorial, which premiered at Artspace, Sydney, in 2011) and also won the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel for hisChannel Document project on the design of the New Zealand passport. He was the only New Zealand artist invited to exhibit in the curated show at the 2013 Venice Biennale. 

Denny’s work has been included in shows at major European arts institutions, such as the ICA, London; Kunsthaus Bregenz and the KW Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Fridericianum, Kassel and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

This year he exhibited The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, at MUMOK, Vienna and presented All You Need Is Data: The DLD 2012 Conference Redux at Kunstverein Munich, Petzel Gallery, New York and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. The shows received positive reviews in various publications including the New York Times, Focus, Frieze, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Denny is represented by Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin; Petzel Gallery, New York; T293, Naples/Rome and Michael Lett, Auckland.

Portrait of Simon Denny in front of Kim Dotcom's Mansion, Auckland (2012). Courtesy of the artist and Michael Lett, Auckland.

La Nuova Zelanda alla Marciana

La Nuova Zelanda annuncia che per la prossima edizione occuperà i fantastici spazi della Biblioteca Marciana, una location veramente stupenda!

Press Release:

New Zealand’s exhibition for the 56th Venice Biennale 2015 will be housed in the grand salon of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, one of the finest buildings in Venice and home to priceless works of cartography, art and literature.

New Zealand sculptor and installation artist Simon Denny, who will be exhibiting at next year’s Biennale, says the Marciana Library will provide a rich context for his work.  “The exhibition will address the intersection of geography and power, and the ownership of knowledge, so this pioneering library will provide an enriching and highly relevant context for the work.”

New Zealand Commissioner for the 2015 Venice Biennale, Heather Galbraith says securing the Marciana Library is a coup for New Zealand. “It is located in the Piazzetta San Marco, in the heart of Venice. Designed by Jacopo Sansovino, the building is exquisite—a significant visitor destination in its own right. The Marciana Library holds many treasures including an exemplary early map of the world by fra Mauro (1448–53), which Simon’s project takes into consideration as it offers a parallel mapping of world power.”

Creative New Zealand has also announced additional team members to assist with New Zealand’s Biennale presentation.

One of New Zealand’s most experienced contemporary-art curators and writers, Robert Leonard will be the curator. Leonard has held curatorial positions at the National Art Gallery, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and Auckland Art Gallery, and was Director of Artspace, Auckland. Having been Director of the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, since 2005, he recently returned to New Zealand to take up the role of Chief Curator at City Gallery Wellington. 

He will be joined by Assistant Curator Alex Davidson. A graduate of the University of Auckland, she was Curatorial Assistant at Artspace in 2012. Her role is generously supported by Dame Jenny Gibbs.

Joining the team as a specialist adviser will be investigative journalist and author Nicky Hager. He has extensively researched and written on the intelligence industry.

The project takes its title from Hager’s 1996 book Secret Power, an account of the role and international standing of New Zealand’s intelligence work.

Amsterdam-based designer David Bennewith will work with Denny on the project’s branding and will design the website and exhibition catalogue. The catalogue will be edited by Robert Leonard and art writer, editor and commentator Mary Barr.  

Heather Galbraith says, “We expect a high level of interest in New Zealand’s exhibition and finalising a team of this calibre along with a spectacular venue has been very exciting. These are significant milestones towards New Zealand at Venice 2015.”  

Venice Art Biennale

The Venice Biennale is the leading international event for contemporary art. More than 80 countries participate in the seven-month exhibition, which last year attracted more than 470,000 visitors.   New Zealand has an official exhibition at the Venice Biennale since 2001. The artists have been Peter Robinson and Jacqueline Fraser (2001), Michael Stevenson (2003), et al. (2005), Judy Millar and Francis Upritchard (2009), Michael Parekowhai (2011), and Bill Culbert (2013).

Simon Denny

Simon Denny studied at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts and at Frankfurt’s Städelschule, graduating in 2009. Born in Auckland, he is currently based in Berlin. Denny was a founding member of the Auckland artist-run space Gambia Castle. His work is regularly exhibited in New Zealand and is held in major public and private collections in New Zealand, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Denny’s work has been included in shows in major European art museums, including the ICA, London; Kunsthaus Bregenz; KW Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Fridericianum, Kassel, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

In 2013, he presented All You Need Is Data: The DLD 2012 Conference Redux at Kunstverein Munich, Petzel Gallery, New York and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (as one of four nominees for the 2013 Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst). In 2013, he exhibited The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, at MUMOK, Vienna, and, in 2014, at Firstsite, Colchester. These shows received positive reviews in various publications including the New York Times, Focus, Frieze, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. Denny recently opened New Management at the Portikus, Frankfurt.

In 2012, Simon Denny won the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel. He was the only New Zealand artist invited to exhibit in the curated show at the 2013 Venice Biennale and is a nominee for the 2014 Walters Prize.

The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

The Biblioteca Marciana, the Library of St Mark, is one of the most important research libraries in Italy.  It currently occupies the original Renaissance library dating from 1537 and the building that was constructed between 1537 and 1588 to house the mint.

Today, besides about a million printed books, the Marciana Library contains some 13,000 manuscripts and 2883 incunabula and 24,055 works printed between 1501 and 1600.

Among the irreplaceable treasures are unique scores of operas by Francesco Cavalli and sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, two manuscripts of the Iliad from the 10th and 11th centuries and the first book ever printed in Venice (1469).

In the first floor vestibule the ceiling is decorated with a painting by Titian "La Sapienza", and on the vaulted ceiling of the library hall are twenty one paintings, the work of seven artists chosen by Titian and Sansovino themselves: the most famous are three by Paolo Veronese; on the walls are portraits of philosophers, some of which are works by Tintoretto and Veronese.

Fra Mauro’s famous Map of the World (1450ca.), which has just been exhibited in Australia, is also housed in the vestibule, and will be on view in conversation with the New Zealand Pavilion.

Sarkis per la Turchia

La Turchia ha reso noto che sarà l’artista concettuale Sarkis a rappresentarla alla prossima Biennale di Venezia, evento curato da Defne Ayas negli spazi dell’Arsenale che saranno curati fino al 2034 dalla Fondazione Istanbul per la cultura e le arti (IKSV). Il progetto ha già un titolo “Sarkis at the 56th”.

Pressrelease

The Pavilion Of Turkey to present a new installation by Sarkis at the 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale Di Venezia

A new installation by the influential artist Sarkis will be presented at the Pavilion of Turkey at the56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia, to be held between 9 May and 22 November 2015. Curated by Defne Ayas, the presentation will take place at a dedicated new location at the Arsenale as recently secured by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) for the duration of 20 years from 2014 to 2034.

A graduate of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Sarkis had his first exhibition at the Istanbul Art Gallery in 1960. Throughout his career, Sarkis has worked with various mediums and has been, since the end of the 1960s, an icon of installation art in particular. His works have been shown worldwide in important art institutions, museums, and galleries, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Kunst-und-Ausstellungshalle, Bonn, Germany; the Louvre, Paris; the Bode Museum, Berlin; and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany. Sarkis was also part of When Attitudes Become Form: Works - Concepts - Processes - Situation - Information (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), Documenta VI and VII (Kassel, 1977 and 1982), and the biennials of Sydney, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, and Istanbul. Recently, Sarkis has had solo shows at Galeri Manâ (Istanbul, 2013), Arter (Istanbul, 2013), the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, 2012); Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris, 2011 and 2014), MAMCO, Museum of Contemporary Art (Geneva, 2011), Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2010), and the Istanbul Modern (2009). He has been living and working in Paris since 1964.

The curator of the pavilion, Defne Ayas, has been the director and curator at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, since 2012. Prior to coming to Witte de With, Ayas was the founding co-director of Arthub Asia in Shanghai (2007-) and founding co-curator of the Blind Dates Project, an artistic platform dedicated to tackling what remains of the people, places, and cultures that were once part of the Ottoman Empire. Since 2005 she has been a curator at Performa, the biennial of performance art in New York. In September 2012, Ayas co-curated the 11th edition of the Baltic Triennial of International Art, to great acclaim. Ayas was the education and new media programs coordinator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York before attending the De Appel curatorial program in Amsterdam. She received an MA from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University in 2003, and a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia in 1999.

The Advisory Board consists of the artist Ali Kazma, Burcu Pelvanoğlu, associate professor of Art History at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts; Cristiana Perrella, independent curator and art critic; Lewis Johnson, Associate Professor in history and theory of art and visual culture, Bahçeşehir University; and Zerrin İren Boynudelik, Yıldız Technical University art and design faculty member.

The Pavilion of Turkey at la Biennale di Venezia is coordinated and organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), sponsored by Fiat, and realised under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey.

The 56th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia will run from 9 May through 22 November 2015 and will be curated by Okwui Enwezor.

Call for curatorial project at next Biennale of Venice

ATTENTION  change the deadline at 3 September  2014     INFO

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in partnership with the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, are pleased to announce the Philippine participation in the Venice Biennale, 50 years after its last official participation in 1964.

 To offer this exceptional opportunity to a large community of Filipino curators and artists residing in the Philippines and abroad, an OPEN CALL FOR CURATORIAL PROPOSALS is hereby launched. Submitted proposals will be reviewed by a distinguished panel in the field of contemporary art. Only one (1) proposal will be selected and will be mounted at the Philippine pavilion in Venice. The exhibition officially represents the Philippines at the 56^th Venice Biennale which will open on May 9, 2015 and will run until November 22, 2015. The Philippine participation in the Venice Biennale marks the country’s significant return to this kind of platform and further pursues an engagement in the dynamic process of defining and shaping contemporary art.

Content of the Proposal

1. Title of the Exhibition

2. Curatorial Concept (800 -1,000 words only)

3. Proposed Exhibition lay-out

4. CV of Curator

5. CV of Participating Artists

6. Budget (production of the works only)

7. Production Timeline

8. Contact Information

Qualifications of Curator

1. Filipino citizen

2. has curated  international contemporary art exhibitions

3. has sufficient grasp of the issues in contemporary art

Qualifications of Artists

1. Filipino citizen

2. must have participated in one major national exhibition

Submission Guidelines:

1. Download open call proposal form from www.ncca.gov.ph 

2. Submit the completed form and ALL the necessary documents only via email, with subject

heading “Curatorial Proposal,” to info@philartvenicebiennale2015.net on or before August

28, 2014.

           *emailed proposal will be duly acknowledged upon receipt

Deadline of Submission: August 28, 2014

Contact Information

Email: info@philartvenicebiennale2015.net

Landline: 527-2206

Website: www.ncca.gov.ph 

31/08/2014

from http://www.manilatimes.net/

THE deadline for the submission of curatorial proposals for the Philippine participation at the 56th Venice Biennale is extended to September 3 at 12 midnight.

After 50 years since its last official participation in 1964, the Philippines will again be joining the Venice Biennale through efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in partnership with the Office of Senator Loren Legarda.

To offer this exceptional opportunity to a large community of Filipino curators and artists residing in the Philippines and abroad, an open call for curatorial proposals was launched. Submitted proposals will be reviewed by a distinguished panel in the field of contemporary art. Only one proposal will be selected and will be mounted at the Philippine pavilion in Venice.

The exhibition officially represents the Philippines at the 56th Venice Biennale opening on May 9, 2015, and runs until November 22, 2015. The Philippine participation to the Venice Biennale marks the country’s significant return to this kind of platform and further pursues an engagement in the dynamic process of defining and shaping contemporary art.

The proposal must contain the title of the exhibition, curatorial concept (800 to 1,000 words only), exhibition layout, curriculum vitae of the curator, curriculum vitae of participating artists, budget (production of the works only), production timeline, and contact information.

Curator must be a Filipino citizen, who has curated international contemporary art exhibitions and has sufficient grasp of the issues in contemporary art. Artists must be Filipino citizens and must have participated in one major national exhibition.

One can download proposal form at the NCCA Web site (www.ncca.gov.ph), submit the completed form and all the necessary documents only via email, with subject heading “Curatorial Proposal,” to info@philartvenicebiennale2015.net on or before September 3. For inquiries, call 527-2206.