Eventi collaterali Scotland+

The 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia confirms Charlotte Prodger’s Scotland + Venice presentation as official Collateral Event

Today the President of La Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, confirmed Charlotte Prodger’s Scotland + Venice presentation as one of the official Collateral Events of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, May You Live In Interesting Times, to take place across Venice from 11 May – 24 November 2019.

To coincide with today’s announcement, the Scotland + Venice partners are delighted to extend an open invite to Charlotte Prodger’s preview event which will take place at the exhibition venue Arsenale Docks on Thursday, 9 May, from 14:00–17:30.

The accreditation for pre-opening of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia closes on 27 April 2019. For more information about how to apply, visit: https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019/accreditation

The pre-opening will take place on May 8th, 9th and 10th 2019, prior to the public opening on Saturday 11 May.

The new single-channel video installation by Charlotte Prodger for La Biennale di Venezia is curated by Linsey Young with Cove Park, an international artists residency centre based in Scotland, and commissioned by Scotland + Venice, a partnership between Creative Scotland, British Council Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Charlotte Prodger works with moving image, sculpture, writing and performance. The commission for Scotland + Venice will provide her with the opportunity to produce a new single channel video work that will build on her sustained exploration of “queer wilderness”. Last year, she was awarded the Turner Prize for her solo exhibition Bridgit / Stoneymollan Trail at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway. Alex Farquharson, Director, Tate Britain, said the jury felt BRIDGIT was “incredibly impressive in the way that it dealt with lived experience, the formation of a sense of self through disparate references”. He said the work evoked traditions in landscape art and had psychological weight. “It ends up being so unexpectedly expansive. This is not what we expect from video clips shot on iPhones.”

Prodger’s new major commission will build upon her sustained exploration of subjectivity, self-determination, and queerness. The artist comments: “Growing up in the rural, agricultural environment of Aberdeenshire as a young person, I understand landscape and queerness as inherently linked. And, as someone who identifies as queer, I’m excited by the fluid borders of identity – especially the perceived edges of gender and geography. The productive crux of this new work is precisely where all these things come into contact with one another.” 

The Scotland + Venice exhibition will take place at Arsenale Docks (S. Pietro di Castello, 40, 30122), a 1930s ex-industrial space that forms part of the historic and recently restored Cucchini Shipyard in Castello, overlooking the Canal di Sant’Anna. It is conveniently located at the top of Via Garibaldi, between both the Arsenale and Giardini Biennale locations.

Visitors to the exhibition will be welcomed by a team of staff trained through the Scotland + Venice Professional Development Programme. The programme offers 17 early career artists and curators from across Scotland a unique and valuable opportunity to stay in Venice, learn new skills, develop international networks and gain professional experience while supporting Prodger’s presentation at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Cove Park is spearheading the 2019 Programme that, in addition to partnering with six Scottish Art Schools and Colleges across Scotland, will benefit from new collaborations with the Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN) and Templar Arts and Leisure Centre (talc), in Argyll and Bute.  The aim is to open up this opportunity beyond those currently in further or higher education to help address the significant barriers that people can face in pursuing or progressing a professional career in the visual arts.

From 27 June 2019, Prodger's new work will tour cinemas across Scotland's west coast, highlands and islands. The Dutch arts organisation, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, who are supporting the production of Prodger’s video work, will lead on a subsequent international tour.

On being selected for Scotland + Venice 2019, Prodger continued: “I feel honoured to have this opportunity and it means a great deal to me to represent Scotland in Venice. The public funding I received through six years of free higher education – and subsequently in the form of artist bursaries to develop work across several years – has been absolutely crucial in enabling me to realise and sustain a practice. In addition to this, the generosity of friendships and local dialogues within Glasgow’s art, music and queer community continue to be fundamental in the development of my work.”

 Preview: Thursday 9 May, 14:00-17:30

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