Museum - Lithuanian Pavilion

The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Council for Culture, and the Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts have the pleasure to invite you to the opening of

Dainius Liškevičius’ project MUSEUM 

in the Pavilion of Lithuania at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia

on Wednesday, 6 May 2015, at 5 pm with the artist’s performance

The Lithuanian pavilion and the opening ceremony will be in the garden of the Palazzo Zenobio, Fondamenta Soccorso, Dorsoduro 2596, Venezia

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Museum, which originated in 2012 as a black cube intervention in the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art in Vilnius (formerly the Museum of the Revolution of the Lithuanian SSR), has arrived in Venice as an artist-created institution which can tell and do what ordinary museums cannot. The artist’s ways of storytelling and rhetoric simulate the phenomenon of a museum itself, with its rules and methods. In this way, a discursive space with overlapping subjective and objective interpretations of time is created. As the Lithuanian national pavilion, Museum seemingly alludes to the idea of the curator Okwui Enwezor that a national pavilion is “the most anachronistic exhibition model”. At the same time, it offers a relevant model of conduct for today’s world, full of national and geopolitical conflicts.

The multi-layered collection that has been put together by the artist works as an elliptical time loop. It simultaneously takes us back to the recent Soviet past, questions the present, and projects our anxieties on to a future that is full of cultural and geopolitical tensions. Museum is essentially a one-off piece of artistic research, but it is not only relevant in exploring the depths of the Soviet totalitarian regime. It is also a possible model for dealing with present-day hegemonic powers, and their impact on the public discourse and the freedom of the artist. We can also interpret Museum as a new kind of patriotism, which rethinks the new democracies’ national myths, and their attempts to create legitimacy for a contemporary nation-state. 

In his vision of Lithuanian (art) history, revamped with subtle irony, the artist offers an unexpected version of the archaeology of objects. Here, every object has both a personal and a collective history that conveys the signs of the times, and allows us to travel in time. Within the space of Museum, Liškevičius’ own life story intertwines with those of dissident revolutionaries and idealised cultural figures (such as Jean-Paul Sartre), further erasing the thin line between subjective and objective forms of storytelling.

Tours to Museum will be given by Lithuanian, English (and sometimes Italian) speaking guides, who will help viewers to find the intersecting multi-linear narratives in it. The printed English guide will help to uncover the stories behind the three revolutionary personalities and some of the exhibits. There is also a book Museum (2013), with full commentaries on the project and extensive illustrations.

Commissioner/Curator of the Lithuanian Pavilion dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius

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Dainius Liškevičius (born 1970 in Kaunas, lives and works in Vilnius) is one of the most prominent Lithuanian artists, who started his artistic career with Lithuania’s independence. With the incredible socio-political changes since 1990, his creative work has evolved through very different media and styles. Performativity and the fluctuating identity of the artist, both as a theme and as a form, are among the main keywords describing his work. The artist studied sculpture and later postgraduate studies at Vilnius Academy of Arts, and is an active participant in national and international shows. www.liskevicius.lt

Lithuania's representation at Venice in 2015 is organised by the Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts. 

Check www.museo.lt to find out more about the Lithuanian pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

The Lithuanian pavilion will run daily (except Tuesdays) from 7 May until 30 September, 10am to 6pm.

For additional information, please contact the producer of the pavilion Ms. Daina Pupkevičiūtė daina@nidacolony.lt

The main sponsors of the pavilion are the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

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The bi-annual international art exhibition la Biennale di Venezia has taken place in the Giardini and the surrounding city since 1895. This year, the 56th international art exhibition is scheduled to be open to the public from 9 May to 22 November. The preview days are on 6-8 May.

Vilnius Academy of Arts is the only university-level state institution for higher education in art in Lithuania. The Nida Art Colony is a department of Vilnius Academy of Art, and runs residencies and educational and art production programmes in the resort town of Nida on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

www.museo.lt

IC-98: Hours, Years, Aeons - Pavilion of Finland

Finland is proud to present Hours, Years, Aeons, a new site-specific installation by the artist duo IC-98 (Patrik Söderlund, b. 1974 and Visa Suonpää, b. 1968) at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition is commissioned and produced by Frame Visual Art Finland and is curated by Taru Elfving, PhD, Frame’s Head of Programme.

IC-98 projects often take the form of installations or publications, combining research, drawing and animation. Their intensely abstracted, identifiable visual language weaves myriad bridges between the material and mythical, individual and collective, nature and culture. The investigations running through the works concern the body politic, social formations and architectural constructions, heresies and pure systems of thought, and the presence of history in everyday life.

“IC-98 has an extensive catalogue of ambitious projects to date and a committed critical practice engaged with international debates and urgencies. My curatorial aim is to offer the artists an opportunity to produce a new, site-specific work for the Biennale. The philosophical and political themes at the core of the works of IC-98 resonate profoundly against the rich context of Venice.” Taru Elfving, curator of the exhibition.

IC-98 will present their work Hours, Years, Aeons in the Finnish Pavilion, designed by Alvar Aalto and completed in 1956. The exhibition is commissioned and produced by Frame Visual Art Finland.

“It is exciting to work with IC-98, who are making their international breakthrough, and to take them to perhaps the most important contemporary art forum. Frame Visual Art Finland is delighted to have the responsibility over the Finnish representation at the Venice Biennale.” Raija Koli, Commissioner, Director of Frame.

The 56th La Biennale di Venezia is open from 9 May to 22 November 2015.

Finland is proud to present Hours, Years, Aeons, a new site-specific installation by the artist duo IC-98 (Visa Suonpää, b. 1968 and Patrik Söderlund, b. 1974) at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

The exhibition is commissioned and produced by Frame Visual Art Finland, and it is curated by Taru Elfving, PhD, Frame’s Head of Programme. The mixed media installation consists of a pencil-drawn digital animationAbendland (Hours, Years, Aeons), sound, tar, charcoal and jute. The music for double bass and electronics is composed by Max Savikangas.

IC-98 are known for their animations and installations creating metaphorically charged realms of uncertain coordinates. These landscapes are shaped by interlaced forces of nature and technology, navigation and exploitation, climate and migration. In Venice the viewer is invited to enter this world: The timber architecture begins to creak and tremor, while the smell of tar transports us back to early trade routes and charcoal evokes the origins of civilization as we know it.

The scene is set by Alvar Aalto Pavilion of Finland, built in 1956. As a historical document, the building tells the tale of the nation and its growth. The welfare state and its arts scene owe their existence to the ‘green gold’ of Finland’s vast primeval forests. The wooden structures used here reflect the post-war housing boom, while the pavilion itself was a philanthropic project funded out of fortunes made in the timber industry. Today, the legacy of the forest industry consists of vigorously managed fields of trees, with wealth accumulating and liabilities dispersed across the globe. Not far from the very forests that yielded the funds for the Pavilion will soon lie a tomb for nuclear waste, the repository Onkalo, dug deep into the bedrock.

IC-98 transform the Pavilion into a chamber that guides viewers into the Giardini on another plane of temporality: Deep time begins to resonate through fleeting cycles of life, and space appears as infinite dark matter. Here may stand not the last man, but the last tree, left to spin yarns of the past into a distant future. The garden as a microcosm of knowledge and colonial power over the world of cultural diversity, as well as biodiversity, now appears as a realm governed by the transformations that only a tree can live through.

Within hours, myriad flows have passed. Within years, natural resources have been exhausted and houses transformed into abodes for diverse other lifeforms. Within aeons, buried repositories have been depleted, while forests have reclaimed the earth. So it may be. Yet, within aeons, the ground may have shifted and the planetary order have been redrawn. As the entanglement of different time scales and causal relations in the work of IC-98 suggests, teleology fails us here and future horizons falter. Trees may well inherit the land, but what kind of a land we must ask.

“Hours, Years, Aeons encapsulates the artists’ long-term critical investigations – from boardrooms of power and bounds of public space to ecological frontiers – into an epic new work within which matter and myth merge in the face of today’s seismic shifts,” says Curator Taru Elfving.

Frame Visual Art Finland has responsibility for Finland’s participation in la Biennale di Venezia. Finland has taken part in la Biennale di Venezia since 1954, and its participation is financed with funds from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland. Frame’s Director Raija Koli is the commissioner of the Finnish exhibition.

 

Artists: IC-98

Commissioner: Raija Koli

Curator: Taru Elfving

Deputy Curator: Anna Virtanen

Communications: Heljä Franssila, Laura Boxberg

Organisation: Frame Visual Art Finland

Biographies

IC-98, artists

IC-98 (originally Iconoclast, founded in 1998) is an artist duo comprising Visa Suonpää (b. 1968) and Patrik Söderlund (b. 1974). Their projects often take the form of installations or publications combining research, text, drawing and animation. Their intensely abstracted, readily identifiable visual language weaves myriad bridges between the material and mythical, the individual and the collective, nature and culture. Their work is rooted in investigations into the body politic, social formations, architectural constructions, different ecologies and the presence of human and natural history in everyday life. They often collaborate closely with other arts professionals such as poets, composers and architects.

IC-98 has exhibited extensively both in Finland and internationally. Their solo exhibitions include this year’s forthcoming shows at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland, and Helsinki Art Museum, Finland, and previous appearances in Conde Duque Madrid, Spain (2014), Beaconsfield, London UK (2014) and Turku Art Museum, Finland (2013). Their works have been presented in numerous group exhibitions, most recently at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany (2014), Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City (2014), Quartair, Netherlands (2014), Moonshin Museum, South Korea (2014), Kiasma, Helsinki (2014), MAMba, Argentina (2012), Reykjavik Arts Festival (2012), KUMU Art Museum, Estonia (2012), Loft Project Etagi, St Petersburg (2011), IPCNY, New York (2011). IC-98 has also had solo art fair presentations at Moving the Image Art Fair, New York (2015), ARCOmadrid (2014), Volta, New York (2013) and Volta, Basel (2012).

Works by IC-98 are found in numerous private and public collections in the Nordic countries. IC-98’s prize-winning self-publishing initiative, Iconoclast Publications, has brought out 16 publications to date. IC-98 were nominated for the prestigious Ars Fennica award in Finland in 2014.

Taru Elfving, Curator

Taru Elfving is a curator and writer on contemporary art and theory, based in Helsinki, Finland. She is Head of Programme at Frame Visual Art Finland (2013-), in which capacity she has curated the Finnish Pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2015, the multi-faceted parallel programme for ARCOmadrid #Focus Finland in 2014 and the Finnish participation in Manifesta 10 On Board in 2014. She is editor-in-chief of Frame publications, the most recent being an artist monograph on IC-98 and the Altern Ecologies anthology. Her previous positions include Programme Director of the HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (2012-13) and Artistic Director of CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago (2009-11).

Elfving’s curatorial practice focuses on nurturing cross-disciplinary encounters and context-specific artistic investigations and interventions with a long-term commitment to critical discourses on sustainability and feminism. Her prior curatorial work includes the Frontiers in Retreat research and production platform (EU-funded residency network, HIAP, 2013-2018), the Contemporary Art Archipelago exhibition and symposium (Turku 2011, European Capital of Culture), the Centrifugal cross-disciplinary research network (Belfast, Helsinki, Zagreb, London 2005-ongoing), and the Towards a Future Present biennial exhibition (LIAF Lofoten International Art Festival, Norway 2008). She has also realized curatorial projects at the Tate Modern, the Dundee Contemporary Arts centre, Site Gallery Sheffield, the Whitechapel Project Space, Helsinki Kunsthalle, and Turku Art Museum.

Elfving has published an extensive body of research and art criticism in journals including Parkett, Metropolis M, and Kunstkritik; artist monographs on Alfredo Jaar (Kiasma 2014) and Eija-Liisa Ahtila (Tate Modern 2002); the anthologies Girls!Girls!Girls! (Intellect, UK 2011), In Medias Res (Eetos, Finland 2008); exhibition catalogues for the Turku Biennial (2009) and the Sydney Biennale (2004), and other titles such as Girls’ Night Out (OCMA 2003). She has lectured regularly at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts as well as other Nordic Art Academies including Stockholm, Copenhagen and Trondheim. She has been a guest lecturer and conference speaker at the MIT, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Tate Modern, the Hayward Gallery, the Gothenburg Biennial and the University of Amsterdam. Elfving holds a PhD in Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London, her thesis having focused on Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s practice and the problematics of address and witnessing.

Commissioner

Frame Visual Art Finland is an advocate for Finnish contemporary art. Frame supports international initiatives, facilitates professional partnerships and promotes the advancement of the visual arts by arranging grants, visitor programmes and residencies, seminars and talks, exhibition collaborations and network platforms. As Director of Frame, Koli is the commissioner of Frame’s major international collaborations, including Falling Trees at the 55th Venice Biennale, featuring Terike Haapoja (the Nordic pavilion) and Antti Laitinen (Alvar Aalto Pavilion of Finland).

Prior to her engagement at Frame, Koli spent five years working as Director of the Finnish Institute in London. During her tenure she transformed the Institute into a think/do tank by commissioning several boundary-crossing landmark pieces in London, including the HelYes! restaurant in 2010, the REDDRESS London concert in 2011 for the London Design Festival and the ViewPoint Pavilion at Regent’s Canal (a collaboration with The Architecture Foundation for London Wildlife Trust).

Koli’s background is in the performing arts and urban events. In her previous career she has commissioned and produced events for the Helsinki Festival and Helsinki 2000 – European City of Culture Foundation as well as for several theatre companies and other cultural organizations. Koli is a literature/arts graduate from University of Tampere, where she also worked as a lecturer in the Faculty of Art. She is currently working on her PhD, which addresses the topic of authorship and copyright. She is a regular contributor to critical discourse through research projects such as Capitalising Culture. Transnational Re-articulations of Economy and Culture and New Reading Communities, New Ways of Reading (both University of Tampere, Media Studies). She has published treatises on issues concerning authorship, translated several key works (Toril Moi, Rosi Braidotti, Terry Eagleton) and worked as editor for the Finnish journal of women’s studies, Naistutkimus.

Catalonia in Venice - SINGULARITY

Catalonia in Venice  - SINGULARITY 

Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia 

The Institut Ramon Llull presents a new work from maverick filmmaker Albert Serra curated by Chus Martínez 

The artist and curator address the question of how the cinema machine creates a mind. 

The Institut Ramon Llull presents Catalonia in Venice at the Biennale di Venezia for the fourth time. A film installation by filmmaker Albert Serra will be shown within the curatorial frame- work of Chus Martínez. The title of this project isSIN GUL A RITY. Under this rubric, the artist has conceived a new piece, an immersive film installation projected onto 5 screens arranged in a dynamic structure taking up the entirety of the exhibition space. Specifically conceived for this presentation in Venice, the installation choreographs not only a wide range of views on today’s world but also the visitors’ movement through the space. 

As Chus Martínez states, “The original inspiration for this eight-hour-long moving image installation was a discussion between the artist and myself about the notion of the singularity. The singularity is the concept that mathematicians and artificial intelligence researchers use to name the moment where our relationship with the machine changes, when technology ceases to be a tool and becomes a companion to the human species. But what is the singularity here referring to? It names a contemporary condition, defined not just by the conditions of capital and economy but by a new epistemological turn in which we share our lives with machines and nature in a different way. Or put another way, the singularity is another name for cinema. Cinema represents one of the most eloquent and close relationships mankind has established with a device. We entrusted the camera with completely recreating our way of describing our deepest insight into our feelings, in the same way our eyes relate to our sense of life. And so we can assume that cinema has learned something from us and that the cinema machine, this very special machine intelligence, is transforming the future of the very idea of a picture in movement. 

Albert Serra poetically interweaves what look like contemporary images filmed in Lleida, Catalonia (in PLANTA Sorigué) with less clearly realistic ones, thus creating a sort of ancient myth—like a fable. Some sections of the film are composed of a flow of purely visual and beautiful material. But in others the artist Albert Serra tells us stories that for him represent “ancient” and novel ways of talking about cinema. This very special piece by Serra attempts to create a “leg- end”—a visual and sensory memory for the viewer based on motifs that will mark a shift in our under- standing not of what cinema is able to tell but of the way cinema can transform us and prepare us for a different future of the image, man and the machine.” 

In the words of Albert Serra, “In the 21st century, images are on the run and don’t turn back; the many screens cast them and they explain them- selves. The artist perhaps creates them, grasps them, exposes them in a baroque and titanic effort. In their death throes, images can still serve to illustrate the world with visual suffocation, but also with the ambition to narrate, with imagination. From mining pioneers to the gold rush of the early 20th century to the present-day regulated and technical industry of land use, SIN GUL A RITY explains the last major transition, the last with man at its core and the last that can still sustain the presence of the body as the driving force of all human transformation. Afterwards, the machines...” 

This project includes a 32-page publication jointly published by the Institut Ramon Llull and Mousse which will be available as a free download on the project’s website. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a website:http://venezia2015.llull.cat  Graphic design for the project was done by Omar Sosa and Ana Domínguez and Guri_Casa- juana Arquitects are the authors of the exhibition interior design. 

Martínez’s proposal was selected by a jury chaired by Marta Gili, Director of Jeu de Paume. The other members of this jury were Bartomeu Marí, Director of the MACBA; Joan Minguet, President of the Associació Catalana de Crítics d’Art (ACCA); Xavier Antich, President of the Board of Trustees of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies; Martina Millà, Head of Programming and Pro- jects at the Fundació Miró; Llucià Homs, Director of Cultural Sector Promotion at the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona; and Damià Martínez, Head of the Creation Division at the IRL.

Chus Martínez

Chus Martínez (La Coruña, 1972) is currently Head of the Art Institute of the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW) in Basel, Switzerland. She holds a BA in Philosophy and History of Art from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and also completed a master’s degree in curatorial stu- dies at Bard College in New York. Over her career she has held the positions of Artistic Director at the Sala Rekalde in Bilbao (2002-2005), Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005-2008) and Chief Curator at the MACBA (2008-2011). More recently she has worked at the Museo del Barrio in New York and was a member of the curatorial team for dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany. 

In 2005, Martínez curated the National Pa- vilion of Cyprus for the 51st International Art Ex- hibition of la Biennale di Venezia. She was also a member of the advisory team for the Carnegie International exhibition in 2008 and participated as a guest curator in the 29th São Paulo Biennial in 2010. In addition, she has organized exhibitions around the world, has spoken at numerous semi- nars and conferences and has served as a member of juries for a number of prestigious events. She publishes regularly in art journals. 

Albert Serra

Albert Serra (Banyoles, 1975) is a film director and producer. His first film Crespià, the F ilm N ot the V illa- ge(2003) was not screened commercially. He later presented H onor de cavalleria (winner of the 2006 Barcelona Film Prize for Best New Director and for Best Film in Catalan) and El cant dels ocells (for which he won the 2009 Gaudí Prize for Best Film). 

In 2009, he was chosen as the avant-garde cinema icon of the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival. 

In 2012, he was one of the artists selected to participate in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, where he showed his film Els tres porquets. The follow- ing year he became the first Catalan director to win the Golden Leopard prize for Best Film for Història de la meva mort (2013) at the Locarno Film Festival. 

He has recently been invited to show work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2013) and Bozar in Brussels (2014), where he was given carte blanche. 

Institut Ramon Llull

The Institut Ramon Llull is a public consortium established in 2002 with the aim of promoting the Catalan language and culture abroad. This mission is accomplished by providing broad international exposure to writers and artists, encouraging artistic and cultural exchanges, and supporting Catalan language and literature studies in universities. Cur- rently, the consortium is formed by the Govern- ment of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council. 

This will be the fourth time that the IRL brings Catalonia in Venice to the Art Biennale as part of the eventi collaterali, and it follows its second participation at the Architecture Biennale last year. 

Catalonia in Venice. SINGULARITY

Cantieri Navali, Calle Quintavalle, Castello, 40 

Private view: May 7th at 11hrs

UAE at Venice

NATIONAL PAVILION UNITED ARAB EMIRATES LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
ANNOUNCES FEATURED ARTISTS FOR THE
 56TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION – LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

Curator Sheikha Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi selects work by 14 Emirati artists:
 Ahmed Al Ansari, Moosa Al Halyan, Mohammed Al Qassab, Abdul Qader Al Rais, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohammed Abdullah Bulhiah, Salem Jawhar, Mohammed Kazem, Dr. Najat Meky, Abdulraheem Salim, Hassan Sharif, Obaid Suroor, Dr. Mohamed Yousif, and Abdulrahman Zainal.

1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates will explore the emergence of contemporary art practices in the UAE over the past four decades.

Drawing upon extensive historical research, Sheikha Hoor bint Sultan Al Qasimi, curator for the National Pavilion United Arab Emirates (UAE) la Biennale di Venezia and President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, will present a diverse assemblage of work by key figures in the country’s art history at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Titled 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, the exhibition features 14 featured artists, including Ahmed Al Ansari, Moosa Al Halyan, Mohammed Al Qassab, Abdul Qader Al Rais, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohammed Abdullah Bulhiah, Salem Jawhar, Mohammed Kazem, Dr. Najat Meky, Abdulraheem Salim, Hassan Sharif, Obaid Suroor, Dr. Mohamed Yousif, and Abdulrahman Zainal. The National Pavilion UAE la Biennale di Venezia is commissioned by the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, and supported by the UAE Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development.

This exhibition will present a selection of works from different decades highlighting the emergence of art practices in the UAE. The Emirates Fine Arts Society, a non-profit association that was formed in 1980 in Sharjah, has served as a main point of focus and inspiration for research.

1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates is built upon extensive research involving archives of newspaper articles, artists’ writings, and catalogues, as well as interviews with artists and cultural practitioners. Reflecting personal and geopolitical trajectories, the research focused on the underexposed historical record and evolving practices of some of the UAE’s most important modernist and contemporary artists.

A publication including previous writings and articles on the art scene in the UAE since the 1980s, as well as some personal memoirs from a number of artists will be presented alongside the exhibition. The 56th Venice Biennale runs from 9 May–22 November 2015, with a preview from 5 May–8 May.  Further details about the pavilion and the artists involved will be announced in early 2015.

To join the conversation follow National Pavilion UAE on Facebook | Instagram | Twitter and use the hashtag #UAEinVenice

*Image: Emirates Fine Arts Society Exhibition - 1981. Image courtesy of the Emirates Fine Arts Society.

Helen Sear per il Galles

 Below English

Arts Council of Wales è lieta di annunciare che Helen Sear è stato selezionato per rappresentare il Padiglione del Galles a Venezia alla 56a Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte, la Biennale di Venezia in esecuzione dal 9 maggio al 22 novembre 2015. Curata da Ffotogallery questa sarà la prima volta per il Galles nel presentare una mostra personale di un'artista femminile.

Conosciuta come una delle più significative artiste contemporanee del Galles, la pratica di Helen Sear può essere caratterizzata dalla sua esplorazione del crossover tra fotografia e arte, la sua attenzione sulla co-esistenza umana, animale e mondo naturale.

info dal sito http://www.wai.org.uk/news/6121

Press release:

Arts Council of Wales is delighted to announce that Helen Sear has been selected to representCymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice at the 56th International Art Exhibition, the Venice Biennale running from 9 May to 22 November 2015. Curated by Ffotogallery this will be the first time for Wales to present a solo exhibition by a female artist.

Known as one of Wales’ most significant contemporary artists, Helen Sear’s practice can be characterised by her exploration of the crossover between photography and fine art, her focus on the co-existence of the human, animal, and natural worlds.

With an exemplary track record for producing high quality, conceptually rigorous work, Helen Sear’s current work shows particular maturity and sophistication, seamlessly moving between expanded notions of photography, sculpture and video, with the artist exhibiting great command of different materials and production processes. These developments, coinciding with renewed interest in and critical acclaim for the artist’s work and profile internationally as well as in Wales, make this the perfect moment for Helen Sear to represent Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice.

Helen Sear’s photographic practice has developed from a fine art background in performance, film and installation work in the 1980s and she continues to explore ideas of vision, touch and the representation of the nature of experience, combining drawing, lens-based media and digital technologies. Her work challenges accepted notions of photography as a documentary and creative medium.

Wales’ first ever female solo exhibition in Venice is led by Ffotogallery; the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales, who will be working with Stuart Cameron, curator of Helen Sear’s first major exhibition at Chapter, Cardiff and longstanding supporter of her work. He has worked with a number of major artists, within Wales and internationally, to develop new work, most recently The Art Party Conference 2013.

Louise Wright, Commissioner for Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice and Portfolio Manager for Visual Arts at the Arts Council of Wales said:

"We are very excited to be working with Helen Sear and Ffotogallery. Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2015 is a significant opportunity to develop and present new work at the world’s most prestigious international event for the Visual Arts."

Helen Sear said: "Having lived and worked in Wales since 1984, the opportunity to be part of Wales in Venice has been an ambition of mine for several years. The photographic image in art practice has never been so diverse or contested, and, with the acceleration of new digital technologies, the material presence of the image is now more than ever at stake."

David Drake, Director Ffotogallery said: "We are delighted with the news, for Ffotogallery has championed Helen Sear’s work over a number of years and witnessed many exciting developments in her practice. For Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2015 the artist will be creating a beguiling new body of work which is both rooted in the local and familiar landscapes of Wales, and also responding to the wider context of the Venice Biennale."

Wales’s presence at Venice has been a vital part of the artistic calendar ever since the country first burst onto the International Biennale’s scene in 2003 with the exhibition, Further. Since then the Biennale has provided a superb platform for visual art from Wales, strengthening its international profile and reflecting back into Wales through exhibition tours and related initiatives such as the Invigilator Plus programme, educational resources and talks.

Paraguay National Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia 2013

Paraguay  will participate with a first National Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia, 2013, through a 6 months art exhibition and a series of events that will promote the arts and culture of the country at the international level.

The Venice Biennale - that is universally recognized as the world’s most prestigious contemporary art event, dates back to 1895 when the first art exhibition was organized. It will present its 55th International Art Exhibition from June 1 through November 24, 2013. In recognition of the emergent presence of Paraguay as a cultural incubator in the art scene, the Biennale has provided an invitation, guide & support to the first national participation of Paraguay. Additional to the art exhibition, La Biennale hosts Architecture Biennale, FilmFestival, Music, Theater and Dance events.

Paraguay announces that Prof. Osvaldo Gonzalez Real, Artistic Curator of Paraguay to the Venice Biennale, had selected the following paraguayan artists to represent the country to the 55° International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia - 2013:

- PEDRO BARRAIL

- FELIX TORANZOS

- DIANA ROSSI

- DANIEL MILESSI

The Paraguay Pavilion is pleased to announce its first participation at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, 2013.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture of Paraguay, had appointed :

- Elisa Victoria Aquino Laterza as Commissioner of the country’s National Pavilion since 2011.

- Prof. Osvaldo Gonzalez Real, recently appointed as artistic curator, will be in charge of the selection of the artists who will be exhibiting in the pavilion and representing Paraguay.

- the italian architectural & design studio, Arbur Italia, lead by Arch. Tiziano Inguanotto to produce the elements related to both the organization and the exhibition.

The Artistic Curator :

Prof. Osvaldo Gonzalez Real is an art critic and poet. He was already a curator for Paraguay to the Bienal of San Pablo, Brazil. He studied at the University of Hamline, USA and at Sophia University of Tokio, Japan. Also a member of the AICA, of the Paraguayan Academy of Spanish Language and of the Writers Society. And he was a Director of the Paraguayan Fine Arts School and a Deputy Minister of Culture, with official decorations from UNESCO and France.

The National Pavilion of Paraguay : The Power of an Idea that unifies

Initiated and supported by Elisa Victoria Aquino Laterza since December 2010. She presented the idea of a Paraguay Pavilion to the Ministers of Culture and Foreign Affairs. The idea of Paraguay’s own space in Venice Biennale continued and developed during last 2 years under the leadership of its Commissioner and the support of enterprises, individuals and Government officials.

Commissioner Elisa Victoria Aquino Laterza, former diplomat and supporter of the arts, education and culture of Paraguay around the world, is now expecting that the country unifies around this idea that still requires the support of the media and additional funding from public and private sources, wishing that these will be the first of many Paraguayan participations in the whole cultural panorama of the Venice Biennale.

We are honored to be guided and supported in Venice by Arch. Tiziano Inguanotto and the studio Arbur Italia. Their commitment to art and their support for Paraguay’s international art scene is crucial; added the Commissioner.

The Paraguay Pavilion at the Venice Biennale will be a historical event becoming the first participation with a National own personal space . The Paraguay Pavilion is born with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Embassy of Paraguay in Italy and particularly H.E. Ambassador of Paraguay Ms. Ana Baiardi.

La Pinacoteca Agnelli supporta in qualità di donor la partecipazione di Cindy Sherman alla 55 Biennale di Venezia, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico

La Pinacoteca Agnelli La Pinacoteca Agnelli inaugurata il 20 settembre 2002, su progetto dell’architetto Renzo Piano, persegue finalità di pubblica utilità in campo culturale, in particolare in ambito artistico e nello studio dell’arte.

In occasione della 55. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, la Biennale di Venezia, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico a cura di Massimiliano Gioni, la Pinacoteca Agnelli sostiene in qualità di donor la partecipazione di Cindy Sherman.

La decisione di supportare la partecipazione di Cindy Sherman per Ginevra Elkann presidente della Pinacoteca Agnelli, è stata molto naturale. Ho sempre ammirato moltissimo la sua arte, il suo interesse per la trasformazione, il travestimento, la recitazione. Sapevo che era interessata all’outsider art, alla subcultura, temi che mi appassionano molto. Quando Massimiliano Gioni mi ha parlato del progetto che Cindy Sherman stava organizzando per la Biennale, sono rimasta colpita. Sento di seguire cosi la missione della Pinacoteca Agnelli legata al tema del collezionismo. Ho la sensazione che questa mostra possa essere la wunderkammer sempre sognata dall’artista.

Al centro dell’Arsenale Cindy Sherman – che nella sua opera ha fatto della maschera la propria ossessione – presenta un progetto, una mostra nella mostra, in cui è messo in scena un personale museo immaginario.  Nel progetto bambole, pupazzi, manichini e idoli si mescolano a collezioni di fotografie, dipinti, sculture, decorazioni religiose e tele disegnate da carcerati che insieme compongono un teatro anatomico nel quale sperimentare e riflettere sul ruolo che le immagini hanno nella rappresentazione e percezione del sé.

La sezione organizzata da Cindy Sherman comprende oltre 200 opere di più di trenta artisti.

Elenco artisti

Enrico Baj

Nato nel 1924, Milano, Italia

Morto nel 2003, Vergiate, Italia

Mirosław Bałka

Nato nel 1958 a Varsavia, Polonia

Hans Bellmer

Nato nel 1902 a Katowice, Polonia

Morto nel 1975 a Parigi, Francia

Vlassis Caniaris

Nato nel 1928 ad Atene, Grecia

Morto el 2011 ad Atene, Grecia

James Castle

Nato nel 1899 a Garden Valley, USA

Morto nel 1977 a Boise, USA

George Condo

Nato nel 1957 a Concord, USA

John DeAndrea

Nato nel 1941 a Denver, USA

Jos De Gruyter and Harald Thys

Nato nel 1965 a Geel, Belgio

Morto 1966 a Wilrijk, Belgio

Jimmie Durham

Nato nel 1940 a Washington, USA

Ex-votos from the Santuario di Romituzzo

Italia, XVI–XIX secolo

Linda Fregni Nagler

Nata nel 1976 a Stoccolma, Svezia

Phyllis Galembo

Nato nel 1952 a New York, USA

Norbert Ghisoland

Nato nel 1878 a La Bouverie, Belgio

Morto nel 1939 a Frameries, Belgio

Yervant Gianikian e Angela Ricci Lucchi

Nato nel 1942 a Merano, Italia

Nato nel 1942 a Lugo di Romagna, Italia

Robert Gober

Nato nel 1954 a Wallingford, USA

Haitian Vodou Banners

Duane Hanson

Nato nel 1925 in Alexandria, USA

Morto nel 1996 a Boca Raton, USA

Herbert List

Nato nel 1903 a Amburgo, Germania

Morto nel 1975 a Monaco, Germania

Paul McCarthy

Nato nel 1945 a Salt Lake City, USA

Gilad Ratman to present The Workshop (2013) for the Israeli Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

Gilad Ratman has been selected to present The Workshop (2013), a multichannel site-specific installation at the Israeli Pavilion at this year’s 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by the Israel Ministry for Culture and Sport, Ratman is one of the youngest artists ever to be chosen for the Israeli Pavilion.

Ratman works primarily with film and installation, often distorting and disrupting narrative as a way to examine the friction between thereal and imaginary. The op position between universal patterns of human behaviour - as definedthrough language, nationality, government or other kinds of representation - is a key concern inRatman’s work, expressed through gestures that draw attention to resistance through struggle.

The Workshop documents thejourney of a community of people from Israel to Venice, through a nonlinear presentation of video, installation, sound and a physical intervention in the fabric of the Pavilion itself. The Workshop’s site-specificity reflects on the Biennale as a utopian model of nations’ connectivity.

Ratman shows a world where transit can take place across national borders in hidden networks – free, undetected and unidentified. For this – operating in small communities in a utopian, presocial and even pre-linguistic stage, as the ones recurrent in Ratman’s work – is essential.

Richard Mosse Benefit Print - You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are - In Support of Richard Mosse: The Enclave, The Pavilion of Ireland, At the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

Price: $4,500; €3,500 (unframed/excluding delivery)

Kilkenny, Ireland, May 8, 2013 – The Pavilion of Ireland at the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia has announced a benefit print by Richard Mosse titled, You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are. 

The print has been produced to support Richard Mosse’s multi-media installation for the Pavilion of Ireland, The Enclave, with all monies received from the sale of the print going directly towards project costs. You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are is an edition of 30 Digital C-prints, including two artist proofs, and is being offered for $4,500 or €3,500 (unframed). 

The landscape in the photograph shows the front line between M23 rebels and the Congolese army (FARDC) at Kibumba in North Kivu. This area is currently the site of intense fighting and an ongoing stand off by M23 rebels who occupy an  enclave along the Congo-Rwanda-Uganda boder. M23 recently launched a major offensive from Kibumba and took the city of Goma, in spite of heavy defence from the FARDC backed up UN troops. The dramatic pink and purple tones of the landscape are the result of Mosse’s use of a discontinued military reconnaissance film, originally used for camouflage  detection, which registers an invisible spectrum of infrared light. The photograph was taken at dawn in February 2012, and the title of the piece was borrowed from a song by American composer Steve Reich.

Richard Mosse, You Are Wherever Your Thoughts Are, North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2012. Digital C-print. Image size: 30 x 38 inches; 76.2 x 96.5 cm. Paper size: 32 x 40 inches; 81.2 x 101.6 cm. Edition of 30 (2 AP’s) 

In Support of Richard Mosse: The Enclave, The Pavilion of Ireland, At the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di VeneziaAbout the Artist Richard Mosse’s (b. Kilkenny, Ireland, 1980) practice resides at the intersection between documentary photography and  contemporary art. Drawing from the Romantics, Surrealism, psychedelia, punk, and modern military reconnaissance  technologies, he seeks to challenge and transgress traditional conventions of war photography through unmitigated aesthetic strategies in situations of tragedy and conflict. His work has been exhibited at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Barbican Art Gallery, London; Bass Museum, Miami; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Kunsthaus Munich; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Open Eye Liverpool; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

Mosse has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts, and a Visual Arts Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. Mosse holds an MFA in photography from Yale University and a postgraduate diploma in fine art from Goldsmiths College, London. He also holds a first-class BA in English literature from King’s College London and an MA in cultural studies from the London Consortium (ICA, AA, Tate, Birkbeck). Aperture Foundation and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting co-published his first monograph, Infra, in 2012. Mosse is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. 

Silentio Pathologia - Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva per il Padiglione Macedone

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva presents a major new installation work, Silentio Pathologia, at the Scuola dei Laneri, commissioned by the National Gallery of Macedonia, working with curator Ana Frangovska for the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.

Silentio Pathologia draws upon her original proposal to the Ministry of Culture of Macedonia, which reflected upon the movement, migration and impact of medieval plagues through Europe (and city states such as Venice) and considers contemporary concerns about international migratory illnesses such as coronavirus. This ambitious work includes woven silk, silkworm cocoons, rat skins and curtains of steel sheet installed in a Venetian palazzo. Drawing upon her established and highly regarded practice of extended periods of working and embellishing multiple objects into large-scale art installations; this is a signature artwork for the 55th international Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.

blog http://blog.elpihv.co.uk/category/55th-venice-biennale/

Scuola dei Laneri, Fondamenta del Gaffaro, Santa Croce 131, Venezia

Saturday 1st June – 24th November 2013

Tuesday – Sunday: 10.00 – 18.00

Vaperetto: Piazzale Roma (Lines 2, 1, 41, 42, 51, 52) 
San Toma (Lines 2, 1)

Traghetto: Sant’Angelo – San Toma (7.30am – 8pm) 

Maria Lassnig e Marisa Merz - Leoni d’oro alla carriera della 55. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte

 

  

Venezia, 6 maggio 2013 – Sono stati attribuiti all’artista austriaca Maria Lassnig e all’artista italiana Marisa Merz i Leoni d’oro alla carriera della 55. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Biennale di Venezia – Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (Giardini e Arsenale, 1 giugno - 24 novembre 2013). 

La decisione è stata presa dal Cda della Biennale presieduto da Paolo Baratta, su proposta del Curatore della 55. Esposizione Massimiliano Gioni, con le seguenti motivazioni:

 

Maria Lassnig

“Per oltre sessant'anni Maria Lassnig ha indagato la rappresentazione del corpo e dell'individuo in una serie di dipinti che ritraggono l'artista spesso in uno stato di irrequietezza, eccitazione e disperazione. Con i suoi autoritratti Lassnig ha composto una personale enciclopedia dell'auto-rappresentazione e - attraverso quelli che chiama i "body-awareness paintings", ovvero i dipinti di “auto-coscienza corporea” - ha  trasformato la pittura in strumento di auto-analisi e di conoscenza del sé. A novantatre anni Lassnig rappresenta un esempio unico di ostinazione e indipendenza che merita di essere celebrato con il riconoscimento del Leone d’Oro alla Carriera.”

 

Marisa Merz

“Dagli anni Sessanta Marisa Merz si è imposta come una delle voci più singolari dell'arte contemporanea. A partire dal suo lavoro svolto in parallelo ai protagonisti dell'arte povera, tra i quali Marisa Merz si distingueva per la riflessione sulla sfera dello spazio domestico e femminile, l’artista ha sviluppato un linguaggio personale in cui pittura, scultura e disegno si combinano per dare forma a immagini all’apparenza arcaiche e primordiali. In queste icone contemporanee, volti stilizzati affiorano alla superficie come apparizioni divine. Questa pittura epifanica, coltivata per anni in solitudine, ci invita a guardare il mondo a occhi chiusi, perché – come recitava il titolo di una mostra di Marisa Merz del 1975 – “A occhi chiusi, gli occhi sono straordinariamente aperti”.”

Il riconoscimento sarà consegnato alle due artiste sabato 1° giugno 2013, alle ore 11, ai Giardini della Biennale, nel corso della premiazione e inaugurazione della 55. Esposizione.