Lisa Reihana as New Zealand’s artist for the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017

The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa has approved and is pleased to announce Lisa Reihana as New Zealand’s artist for the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. 

Reihana’s panoramic video in Pursuit of Venus [infected] will travel to Venice. It will be presented at its immersive scale and rendered to its full resolution, with additional scenes included.  A new series of photographic works will also be commissioned.

The Arts Council is also pleased to announce Rhana Devenport as the curator for New Zealand’s presentation and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki as a significant contributor to the project. 

In Pursuit of Venus [infected] is a filmic re-imagining of the French scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique.

In Neoclassical France, entrepreneur Joseph Dufour used the latest printing innovations to produce Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique (1804), a sophisticated twenty panel scenic wallpaper. Mirroring a widespread fascination with the Pacific voyages undertaken by Captain Cook, de Bougainville and de la Perouse, its exotic themes referenced popular illustrations of that time. 

Two hundred years later, Lisa Reihana has employed twenty-first century digital technologies to animate Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique. Enlivened with the sights and sounds of dance and cultural ceremonies, a vast video panorama is populated by a myriad of people drawn from across New Zealand and the Pacific. 

Challenging historical and contemporary stereotypes, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] returns the gaze of imperialism with a speculative twist that disrupts notions of beauty, authenticity, history and myth. It is designed for multi-channel projection to create an immersive cinematic experience.

Alastair Carruthers, Commissioner for the 2017 Venice Biennale, says “in Pursuit of Venus [infected] has already captured a huge New Zealand audience and international attention with its sensuous reimagining of people, place and time.  In Venice 2017 Lisa Reihana will present a further evolution of her vast and beguiling vision, with new accompanying work.  The exhibition will be irresistible.”

Eleven high-calibre proposals were received for New Zealand’s presentation at the 2017 Venice Biennale. They were assessed by a Selection Advisory Panel, chaired by Arts Council Chairman, Dr Dick Grant. 

Dr Grant says, “This will be New Zealand’s 8th official exhibition at the Venice Biennale.  A series of diverse and powerful presentations by New Zealand artists has preceded it and Creative New Zealand took a very broad view of the possibilities and form that the next presentation might take.  I congratulate the selection panel and Alastair Carruthers on this powerful decision for 2017.”

  

The Venice Biennale opens every two years in late May or June and runs for approximately 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. It is the world’s largest and most prestigious international contemporary art exhibition, attended by key curators, writers and collectors.

The Selection Advisory Panel for the 2017 Venice Biennale comprised: Alastair Carruthers, Commissioner 2017; Aaron Kreisler, Head, Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury; Dr Caroline Vercoe, Senior Lecturer, Art History, Auckland University; Charlotte Huddleston, Director, St Paul St Gallery; Dayle Mace, Patron; Heather Galbraith, Associate Professor, Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Massey University and Commissioner 2015; Judy Millar, artist, Venice 2009; Leigh Melville, Head of Patrons; Michael Prentice – Arts Council; Rose Evans – Arts Council.  The panel was chaired by Arts Council Chairman Dr Dick Grant.

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

- See more at: http://creativewaikato.co.nz/news/article/419-2017-venice-biennale-nz-artist-announced#sthash.hHJeFuQd.dpuf

Francia, Tatiana Trouvé o Céleste Boursier-Mougenot?

Mancano pochi giorni alla selezione finale per l'artista che rappresenterà la Francia alla prossima Biennale di Arti Visive di Venezia, sarà Tatiana Trouvé o Céleste Boursier-Mougenot?

Ovviamente parteggio per la Trouvé, che presenta il progetto dal titolo "Implexe", curatela di Elie During, mentre Boursier-Mougenot propone Rêvolutions, con la curatela di Emma Lavigne.

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot Variation Pinacothèque Sao Paulo, Brazil

Il comitato di selezione è composto da Jean de Loisy, presidente della  Palais de Tokyo; Pierre Oudart, Vice Direttore della Creazione Artistica presso il Ministero della Cultura; Sophie Lévy, direttore del LAM (Museo d'Arte Moderna di Villeneuve d'Ascq); Marie Cozette, direttore del centro di arte contemporanea Sinagoga de Delme; ed Enrico Lunghi, direttore del MUDAM (Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) nel Lussemburgo. 

A fine mese la sentenza, incrociamo le dita! 

comunicato stampa dell'istituto culturale francese 

http://institutfrancais.com/cp/140319-CP-biennale.html

PRÉ-SÉLECTION DES DEUX ARTISTES POUR LE PAVILLON FRANÇAIS DE LA 56ÈME BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE D’ART DE VENISE 2015 : CÉLESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT & TATIANA TROUVÉ

Pour la première fois depuis la participation française à la Biennale d’art de Venise, l’Institut français, opérateur du Pavillon français, en collaboration avec le ministère des Affaires étrangères et celui de la Culture et de la Communication, a lancé le 28 janvier 2014 un appel à projets pour le pavillon français de la 56e Biennale internationale d’art de Venise 2015. Chaque artiste a ainsi pu proposer un projet construit avec le commissaire d’exposition de son choix. Cette nouvelle procédure garantit ouverture et transparence du mode de sélection. Au 28 février 2014 minuit, ce sont 35 projets de binômes « artiste-commissaire » qui ont été soumis. Le comité de sélection s’est réuni le 12 mars 2014 et a salué la qualité et la richesse de tous les projets. Conformément à la procédure mise en place, deux projets ont été pré-sélectionnés après délibération : «Rêvolutions» de l’artiste Céleste Boursier-Mougenot accompagné de la commissaire Emma Lavigne «Implexe» de l’artiste Tatiana Trouvé accompagnée du commissaire Élie During La sélection finale se déroulera fin mai 2014 et se fera sur la base d’un projet détaillé. Le comité de sélection est composé de : 4 membres institutionnels, deux représentants du ministère des Affaires étrangères et de son opérateur l'Institut français et deux représentants du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication et de ses opérateurs : - Xavier Darcos, Président exécutif de l’Institut français - Anne Grillo, directrice de la coopération culturelle, universitaire et de la recherche à la direction générale de la mondialisation, du développement et des partenariats (DGM) au ministère des Affaires étrangères - Pierre Oudart, directeur adjoint de la création artistique délégué aux arts plastiques, direction générale de la création artistique, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - Jean de Loisy, Président du Palais de Tokyo 6 membres extérieurs, dont une personnalité étrangère : - Marie Cozette, directrice du Centre d’art La synagogue de Delme - Chantal Pontbriand, critique d’art et commissaire d’expositions - Sophie Lévy, directrice conservatrice en chef du LAM, musée d’art moderne de Villeneveuve d’Ascq - François Quintin, directeur délégué de la Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette - Jérôme Clément, Président du Conseil d'administration du Théâtre du Châtelet - Enrico Lunghi, directeur du MUDAM, Luxembourg

Intanto del nostro padiglione non si sa ancora nulla...

Sarah Sze with "triple point" Usa Pavilion - Venice Biennale

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, with support from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, will present the work of Sarah Sze at the U.S. Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 55th International Art Exhibition.

Internationally acclaimed artist Sarah Sze will transform the U.S. Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale with her signature site-specific installations. Engaging architecture and space in new ways, Sze's works feature the accumulation of everyday materials to create gravity-defying sculptural environments.

A MacArthur Fellow and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award-winner, Sze has captivated viewers with her large-scale, virtuosic constructions. Her recent achievements include the "Infinite Line" exhibition at the Asia Society and her award-winning New York City High Line commission. She has created ambitious, large-scale installations for the Cartier Foundation, the Carnegie International, the 1999 Venice Biennale, and the São Paulo Biennial.

The U.S. Pavilion is presented by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, which supports official U.S. participation at selected international exhibitions. The Pavilion co-commissioners are Holly Block, Executive Director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts and Carey Lovelace, noted critic and independent curator. The Bronx Museum of the Arts is the commissioning institution. 

Info web site http://www.bronxmuseum.org/exhibitions/2012/venice.php 

Artstack launches PALAZZOPECKHAM.COM

WELCOME TO PALAZZO PECKHAM!

ArtStack partners with Palazzo Peckham at Venice Biennale

ArtStack is pleased to announce its partnership with Palazzo Peckham at the 55th Biennale di Venezia. ArtStack powers the Palazzo Peckham web channel and will host the ArtStack Social Hours at Palazzo Peckham, from 5–7pm throughout the opening week of Venice Biennale at Palazzo Peckham’s space in Castello. Palazzo Peckham features works and interiors commissioned from international artists, which will also feature on the website. The space will host a series of live events and is additionally home to a temporary bar and kitchen created by Jackson Boxer, Frank Boxer & Andrew Clarke. ArtStack is the social media platform for art, where art lovers share and discover works from around the world. 

 

PalazzoPeckham.com is conceived as an integral part of the Palazzo Peckham experience, hosting specially commissioned new works and allowing guests to share their own videos, images and comments. It is additionally a live channel for material created by Palazzo Peckham’s in-house team with visitors to the Palazzo. Enabling an unprecedented level of audience engagement and participation, the website is fully integrated with ArtStack and gives guests an opportunity to explore more of the artists’ work, discover their influences and continue their experience after the project’s completion.

 

ArtStack Social Hours

ArtStack Social Hours at Palazzo Peckham will take place 5-7pm from Tuesday 28 May to Saturday 1 June 2013, providing a ‘real-world’ counterpoint to the online ArtStack experience. PalazzoPeckham.com and the ArtStack Social Hours are open to the public and will provide a complimentary art experience, where people come together around art – in discussion, creation, exhibition and documentation.

 

Ezra Konvitz, Co-Founder of ArtStack, said: ‘The Biennale is a global experience packed into a tiny space – it’s great to see art lovers documenting and sharing fantastic art on ArtStack’s mobile apps so people around the world can participate in the live experience. We’re thrilled to be sharing real-world art experiences online and our collaboration with Palazzo Peckham is an exciting way to bring online experiences back into the real-world.’

 

ArtStack is the social media platform for art, where everyone can share art they love. The platform demonstrates that the best way to discover art is through people. ArtStack is a global community includes some of today’s most exciting artists, curators, writers and creative thinkers in over 185 countries. ArtStack makes it easy to engage with the world's most exciting art and for people to discover art through the most trusted source: their friends and the people, institutions and artists they follow. The platform is available on web, iPhone and Android and in English, Chinese and Spanish.

Info palazzo.peckh.am and palazzopeckham.com

Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale - Dénes Farkas - Evident in Advance

The exhibition EVIDENT IN ADVANCE develops a vast diapason of issues, grouped around the elusiveness of language, the (im)possibilities of translation and the logic of infinite re-translations. Its concept is playfully inspired by an adventurous storyline of American writer, Bruce Duffy’s ground-breaking novel, „The World As I Found It“ (1987), a melange of fiction and reality, truth and fake, where history, biography and philosophy are intertwined in a witty narrating of lifes of three philosphers, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore.

Here, on the pages of this fascinating book, contemplation, free thinking and magnetic philosophy construct an architecture of thought, precise and logic, but unstable too, challenged by a polymorphousness of sense and meaning.

The exhibition in Estonian Pavilion is orchestrated as a composition based upon a slightly varying sets of a (as if musical) score: the articulations of the same story created from the carefully deconstructed novel and from other related sources (the texts of the above mentioned philosophers, texts of the authors and co-authors of the project) are spatialized within a give physical space and a mental space of the viewer’s perceptive field. Here, we are at the threshold of a meaning’s construction as an on-going study of a repetition and silence.

The very act of working with the original text – taking apart, dismantling, editing and appropriating – is conducted under a supervision and a control of the author of the novel himself – a mastermind – and assisted by a linguist, an expert of sorts, a passionate of words, letters, and their troublesome relationships and by a scholar, an expert in echoes and resonances, shadow-meanings and their secret influence.

The rigid interior architecture of Estonian Pavilion with a vast entrance-hallway and adjacent living-rooms writes a potential scenario of a master-narrative and chapter-like episodes. The rooms are chamber-minds – rough references to situations, positions and spaces that surround a more complex, almost questionably standard-like exhibition space. A close collaboration with an architect should help to deal with such a complex construction site by turning it into a realm of criticality where language is perceived as a mathematical issue in a truly Wittgensteinian way.

The exhibition’s concept relies upon elements that come from various fields of culture and knowledge production. A variety of direct references in a spatial concept of related rooms but also the articulation of the main thought are fueled by the ideas of collections, archives, museums, libraries, but also of dictionaries, indices and cataloging. They deal with the systems of order and classification and correspond with the usage of and relationality between public and private spaces. How do we understand the same word or sentence in dissimilar surroundings? How do we communicate in different situations? How do we write space? How can we achieve a real communication with a medium of an exhibition?

Challenged by Bruce Duffy’s act of a narrative forgery, the exhibition explores a doubt and suspension of belief by a further reconsideration of the thoughts of the author’s protagonists in a reasonably critical way. Breaking up the imaginary story and creating a whole new dizzy polylogue produces an intriguing but also heavily coded play. The narrative is not eventual – the visitor, drawn in a textual net, is supposed to become a part of a unique story. Various fragments of the main text and elements of a stage paired in different forms, mostly not visibly at first sight, contribute to a new geometry of a site, both physical and mental. A relatively silent play on a very simple and restrained stage – an artificial setting, very likely just a model, existing only as reproductions on photographs, puzzles of a generic cartography. Here, we are in a realm of palimpsest, overlap of texts, an ivory towers of memory, history and contemporary desire to replay the times past.

However EVIDENT IN ADVANCE rejects a hyper-narrative which would emphasize the fabricated mastery and perfection of a human mind. Instead, it focuses on errors and logical mistakes, moments of weakness and inability. From the very beginning, being haunted by its predictability, the narrative is condemned to a delicious failure and collapse. Aware of such a fate, the project in a Beckettian way exercises its own inabilities in an ritualistic act of repetition and seriality.

Here, there is a maze of almost identical rooms, acting like words in a lost sentence before its articulation. What are we saying? Why are we saying (it)? The content and its pronounciation are seemingly blurred. How do we understand (it)? How are we trying to put bits of information together in order to construct a useful and meaningful story? The process of production and the act of reception concentrate on such questions. The despair conducts the deconstruction of a text and the assemblage of installations. Using the same words and the same sentences and even the same logical constructions, we are still in a danger of manouvering through misled areas of meaning and common sense.

Proustian paraphrase „a la recherche de la recit perdu“ (mis)guids the authors of this project. In order to receive instructions how to navigate in the exhibition’s real and imaginary space, it is necessary to open and study the specially created books, while walking around and examining the potential connections between images, objects and words, sentences and episodes. It is not the authors’ intention to create a well recognizable exhibition-like setting as a whole. Eventually the aim is to generate a bit dysfunctional interactive installation within such familiar although uncanny spaces.

Playing with the fragments and resetting the acknowledged codes of a play but also desperately trying to decipher the borders – the end and the beginning – and, last but not least, the center, a guarantee of the meaning of the story; a story which might not beconstructable; or the one which does not exist at all; a phantasmagoria.

Dénes Farkas
Evident in Advance

June 1–November 24, 2013
Palazzo Malipiero
San Samuele Square, S. Marco 3199

Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia is proud to announce that artist Dénes Farkas will represent Estonia at the 55th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia with his project Evident in Advance, curated by Adam Budak.

info = http://www.evident-in-advance.com

THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES REVEALS ARTISTS FOR THE UAE PAVILION AT THE INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION - THE VENICE BIENNALE 2011

"Second Time Around" /

Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa bint Maktoum will represent the UAE as chosen by Curator Vasif Kortun

United Arab Emirates, March 10, 2011 - Building on its 2009 debut, the United Arab Emirates is emerging as an important contributor to the world of contemporary art, and will welcome visitors once more to its Pavilion in Venice from June 4 through November 27, 2011.

Established in 1895, the Venice Biennale today encompasses the official pavilions of more than 70 nations. Its International Art Exhibition draws more than 375,000 influential visitors from around the world. It is widely regarded as the most important international art fair.

The UAE Pavilion has been initiated and supported by His Excellency Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy and the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC). The UAE Pavilion is being developed and presented under the leadership of its Commissioner, Dr. Lamees Hamdan. Serving as curator for the UAE Pavilion for 2011 is Vasif Kortun, an internationally respected curator and Director of Research and Programs, SALT, Istanbul.
"Second Time Around" /


The title of the exhibition for this year's UAE Pavilion is
"Second Time Around" /


This title refers to the UAE's debut appearance at the biennial in 2009. A newcomer to the Venice Biennale, the UAE Pavilion found itself in a position of answering demands and curiosities which it addressed brilliantly with its cheerful self-criticality and artistic strength. The second Pavilion is in turn a sign of slowly coming of age. The title "Second Time Around" is in fact purposefully modest and refers to the barebones of the exhibition. The same attitude adopted while choosing the title is echoed in the approach to the exhibition.

In a statement about his curatorial concept, Kortun elaborated, "The first years of the emergent art scene in the UAE have been of remarkable frenzy. This scene that had been earlier propelled by galleries, art fairs, museum projects and curious professionals is now developing into a more established set of structures, inline with the necessities of a contemporary globalized hub. The effects of a vertical urbanization that every citizen has to answer day in and day out constituted the rapid transformation of the nation. Likewise, UAE artists were called upon to perform the role of chroniclers and represent the burdens of this sea of change. However, they are now negotiating and processing the complexities of what is becoming a predominantly visual culture."

"No longer contextualized in what have become the absolute clichés of the international reception of the UAE, the UAE Pavilion for 2011 does not aim to treat the exhibition as curatorial conceit; but rather chooses to realize the theoretical foundation in the immanence of the works in the exhibition," Kortun notes. "The Pavilion will not be 'curated' around concepts but around artistic positions, as if three independent projects form a coherent exhibition structure pivoting around the works of three artists, Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa bint Maktoum."

The Artists

Kortun visited the UAE on numerous occasions in 2010 and interviewed over 30 Emirati artists about their artwork and their art practice.

Three Emirati artists were selected by Kortun for exhibition in the UAE Pavilion. Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa Bint Maktoum will represent the UAE through displays of an installation, drawings and photography respectively.

Reem Al Ghaith holds a BSc in Visual Communication from the School of Architecture and Design, American University of Sharjah, UAE. Her work examines changes in the urban and social landscape of the UAE, often with sophisticated all-around installations that relate to tradition and history, yet do not fall into banal representations and fascinations of the subject. The intertwined structure of her work deliberately places itself far away from being representative.

Abdullah Al Saadi holds a degree in English Literature from United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain. From 1994 -1996 he studied Japanese painting at Kyoto Seika University in Japan. He lives and works in Khorfakan, outside the art world and untethered by its demands and daily routines. His work is a daily practice of recording, inventing normative groupings, and documenting species that are beyond "scientific inquiry."

Lateefa Bint Maktoum holds a degree in Visual Communication from Zayed University, Latifa College. Her practice largely consists of composite, digitally manipulated images based on highlighted, enhanced, and conflated realities from her immediate memories as well as the distant past. Her compositions combine an aestheticism of British painting with enhanced local fauna and flora that sit in stark opposition to images of urbanization. Maktoum is also a curator and Founder and Director of Tashkeel, a public studio providing specialist facilities for artists and designers living and working in the UAE.

Additional plans for the UAE Pavilion

The architecture firm SuperPool has been selected to create the scenography of the UAE Pavilion exhibition.

Headed up by Selva Gurdogan and Gregers Tang Thomsen, in addition to the UAE Pavilion, the firm is currently engaged in TailorCrete, a European Commission funded research grant for incorporating robotics into concrete construction technology. Superpool has recently completed Mapping Istanbul, a book commissioned by Garanti Gallery with nearly a hundred maps and information graphics. The book is a resource for architects, planners and policy makers invested in the city's future.

Möbius Design Studio, based in the creative resource centre, Tashkeel - UAE, will be developing the visual for the exhibition theme as well as designing the catalogue and related materials.

In 2009, the UAE became the first gulf nation to exhibit at the prestigious Venice Biennale. For the Venice Biennale in 2011, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are expected to also participate with their own national pavilions.