Shirley Tse per Honk Kong

In accordo fra il M+ Museum e il HKADC (Hong Kong Arts Development Council) è stata scelta l’artista Shirley Tse per rappresentare Hong Kong alla prossima Biennale di Venezia .

CS dal sito https://www.westkowloon.hk

The exhibition, Hong Kong’s Collateral Event of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, will open in Venice on 11 May 2019.

M+, Hong Kong’s new museum of visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) are pleased to announce the selection of Shirley Tse as the featured artist for Hong Kong’s participation in the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The internationally recognised Hong Kong–born, Los Angeles–based artist will present a new, site-specific body of work in a solo exhibition curated by Christina Li, an independent curator based in Hong Kong and Amsterdam. The exhibition will be submitted as a Collateral Event to the 2019 edition of La Biennale di Venezia, one of the most important forums for contemporary art in the world, and will be held between 11 May and 24 November 2019. The professional and press preview will take place on 8–10 May 2019.

This marks the fourth collaboration between M+ and HKADC for Hong Kong’s participation in La Biennale di Venezia, following the solo presentations of Lee Kit in 2013, Tsang Kin-Wah in 2015, and Samson Young in 2017, all critically acclaimed and enthusiastically received by the public. As was the case with these three exhibitions, M+ and HKADC will ensure that Hong Kong audiences have the opportunity to see the exhibition of Shirley Tse’s work in a new, locally adapted exhibition following the close of the Venice presentation, in spring 2020 at the M+ Pavilion in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Following the precedent of the 2017 edition, in which Hong Kong–based independent curator Ying Kwok curated the exhibition with M+, the 2019 edition will be curated by Li, jointly selected by M+ and HKADC.

Suhanya Raffel, Executive Director of M+, emphasises the importance of the ongoing collaboration between M+ and HKADC for the growth of the international presence of Hong Kong artists and curators: ‘The close working relationship of M+ and HKADC has gone from strength to strength over the past three editions of La Biennale di Venezia, and I am delighted to see our collaboration develop further in this presentation of work by Shirley Tse. Together, M+ and HKADC continue to make important contributions to the global visibility and resonance of Hong Kong artists and curators, and deepen our commitment to the arts in Hong Kong. Moreover, I am particularly pleased with the selection of a female artist to represent Hong Kong in Venice in 2019.’

Winsome Chow, Chief Executive of HKADC, highlights the collaboration between M+ and HKADC in the coming edition of La Biennale di Venezia: ‘HKADC and M+ have built up a solid and trustworthy collaboration over the previous three editions with a committed mission to promoting the excellence of Hong Kong arts internationally. By pulling together our expertise and resources, we are pleased to collaborate with M+ again to participate in La Biennale di Venezia in 2019. We are confident that with homegrown curator Christina Li’s rich curatorial experiences, the presentation of Hong Kong international artist Shirley Tse’s site-specific works will bring a magnificent experience to the audiences.’

The selected artist Shirley Tse expresses her delight with the opportunity to represent Hong Kong in Venice: ‘The announcement couldn’t have come at a better time. I have been developing a new body of work, and La Biennale di Venezia is the most apt platform for it. It is a deep honour to represent Hong Kong, my hometown, and a place that shaped my formative years as an artist. Big thanks to Christina Li for visiting me in my Los Angeles studio on a rare rainy day, and for inviting me. I look forward to collaborating with the curatorial team headed by her to bring our vision to fruition.’

The exhibition marks the fourth collaboration between M+ and HKADC, and the second time a guest curator from Hong Kong is engaged to work with M+. Christina Li, Guest Curator for this edition, underscores the relevance of this collaboration: ‘It is a tremendous honour to be invited to curate Hong Kong’s presentation at La Biennale di Venezia. I’m excited to be able to curate, for the very first time for this platform, a solo exhibition of work by a female artist. I have long been following Shirley Tse’s intricate and daring sculptural practice, as well as her work as a dedicated art educator. This will be the perfect opportunity to showcase the geographical reach of Hong Kong contemporary art beyond the city’s borders to an international audience, and to re-introduce Tse’s work to the Hong Kong public.’

Doryun Chong, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of M+, is Consulting Curator of the exhibition: ‘We are immensely proud of the three successful solo exhibitions of Hong Kong artists in the last three editions of La Biennale di Venezia. In particular, the last, highly acclaimed exhibition in 2017, in which we engaged for the first time a guest curator, Ying Kwok, to work with the selected artist, Samson Young, convinced us that both M+ and our collaboration with HKADC have matured enough to support working with an external curator. Christina Li has amply distinguished herself with a series of intellectually engaging curatorial projects in recent years in Hong Kong and beyond, and she is the obvious choice for the 2019 edition. The choice of Shirley Tse, who is admired for her artistic practice as well as her longstanding educational commitment, signals a further growth in the Hong Kong contemporary art scene, which is already well recognised internationally.’

Shirley Tse’s exhibition curated by Christina Li promises to respond to the unique site condition of the venue of the Hong Kong exhibition, ideally situated in front of the entrance to the Arsenale, one of the two main sites of the international section of La Biennale di Venezia.

M+ and HKADC are planning ambitious pre-opening and post-opening public programmes in Hong Kong, in an effort to connect the selected artist’s and curator’s international experiences and perspectives with the quickly evolving Hong Kong contemporary art scene. 

Following the precedents of the previous exhibitions, M+ will form a curatorial team consisting of an assistant curator, a curatorial intern provided by HKADC on an eighteen-month-long internship, and a group of twelve exhibition and technical interns to help stage and facilitate the six-month-long exhibition on-site in Venice, offering unique professional opportunities to young talents in Hong Kong and continuing M+ and HKADC’s commitment to the growth of future leaders of Hong Kong’s art scene.

Shoplifter per l’Islanda

E’ nota come Shoplifter ma il suo vero nome è Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, islandese che vive a New York e che rappresenterà l’Islanda alla prossima Biennale di Venezia, fonte Grapevine   " Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, who works under the nom-du-guerre Shoplifter, has been announced as Iceland’s representative at the 58th Venice Biennial art fair, to be held in 2019. This prestigious event sees countries around the world put forward a single artist to represent them every two years in a sprawling exhibition series that receives over 500,000 visitors each time.

“I’m really happy about this,” said Hrafnhildur, at the announcement event. “It’s like getting to the Olympics of art. The Icelandic Pavilion always draws attention, and I do not intend to change that....  "

Kris Lemsalu per l'Estonia

Nei nuovi spazi della Giudecca l’Estonia proporrà il lavoro dell’artista Kris Lemsalu che si intitolerà “Funtain”.

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Kris Lemsalu will represent Estonia at the 58th Venice Art Biennale .Next year, the Estonian pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale will feature an exhibition by Kris Lemsalu. The working title of the project is FUNTAIN. The Estonian pavilion exhibition will be opened next May in Venice, in a spectacular industrial building on the island of Giudecca.

Lemsalu is planning to create a fantasy world that is at once real and fairy-tale, involving in the process international musicians and performance artists, many of whom she has worked with before. This environment will be created for the purpose of producing a whole and emotionally charged installation in which every viewer could participate themselves. An international team of curators and writers will begin work on the exhibition project.

“In my previous work, there are too many depictions of death, which there is already enough of in the world around me,” says Lemsalu, describing her plans for the pavilion in Venice, “and even though it can be naive to think that I will be able to ditch this subject so easily, I will at least attempt to make the viewer smile – there is all the more reason to, as in Venice, death wears a carnival mask anyway.”  

Kris Lemsalu is an artist with a distinctive visual language who makes use of combined techniques and methods from ceramic, installation and performance art. The driving forces behind her work are often events and stories from her personal life, based on which the artist creates mises en scène that enable her to make wider generalisations.

Lemsalu has studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Danish Design School and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. This year, she received an Estonian national culture award for her performances at the Performa17 art biennial in New York, the David Roberts Art Foundation’s 10th anniversary events in London and for her international exhibitions in 2017. In Summer 2018 Lemsalu will be participating at the Baltic Triennial 13 and will have a solo show at the soon-opening Goldsmith's College Gallery in London at at Secession in Vienna.

Estonia’s participation in the Venice international art biennale is organised by the Center for Contemporary Arts, Estonia and funded by the Estonian Ministry of Culture.

More information:
Maria Arusoo
Commissioner of Estonian Pavilion
maria@cca.ee

Marco Godinho per il Lussemburgo

L'artista Marco Godinho è stato selezionato per il padiglione del Lussemburgo lo segnala il Chronicle.lu 

Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz per la Svizzera

Swiss Presence at the 2019 Venice Biennale: Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz to exhibit at the Pavilion of Switzerland and Céline Eidenbenz to curate the «Salon Suisse» 2019 The curator of the Swiss Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia,Charlotte Laubard, appointed by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, has announced she is developing an exhibition with artists Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. Curator and art historian Céline Eidenbenz is responsible for next year’s «Salon Suisse» at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi. The 58th International Art Exhibition will be held in Venice from 11 May to 24 November 2019. Pavilion of Switzerland at the Giardini della Biennale, Venice, built by architect Bruno Giacometti in 1951/52 © Pro Helvetia

Charlotte Laubard notes about her collaboration with Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz: “Challenging notions of gender, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz question the norms that govern our representations and our life in society. What lends their work such force is that it moves beyond mere criticism or deconstruction. Their installations, films and performances are conceived as dispositifs capable of inventing other ways of being in the world, ones no longer split by categories of identity and binarisms. Their practice of “denormalisation” has led them to question the “agency” of artistic objects or gestures in their relationships to those who experience them. Their interest in these modalities of action is intimately linked to their desire to find a position towards the situation of withdrawal and antagonism that we are currently experiencing.” Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi © Pro Helvetia. Organised by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, the «Salon Suisse» runs concomitantly to the exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion and is now in its eighth year. The programme consists of a series of lectures, talks and cultural events, and, over several long weekends, aims to provide a meeting point for the entire duration of the Biennale. It offers an opportunity to discuss art and the Biennale in a relaxed and stimulating atmosphere. Céline Eidenbenz, Director of the Valais Art Museum, will develop the programme for the «Salon Suisse» 2019 and will host all events as Salonnière. Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the 58th International Art Exhibition will take place in Venice from 11 May to 24 November 2019 (preview from 8–10 May 2019) at the Giardini and at the Arsenale, as well as at various venues in the city.

Milovan Farronato curatore per il Padiglione Italia

Finalmente anche il nostro paese ha scelto il progetto del curatore Milovan Farronato per il padiglione nazionale, 

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“Sarà Milovan Farronato il curatore del Padiglione Italia alla 58. esposizione internazionale d'arte di Venezia del 2019”. Lo rende noto il Ministro dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Alberto Bonisoli che fa sapere come il nome di Farronato sia stato individuato al termine di una procedura di selezione a cui sono stati invitati a partecipare dieci nomi rappresentativi del panorama artistico nazionale. Il progetto è stato scelto dal Ministro nell'ambito della terna proposta dalla Direzione Generale Arte e Architettura Contemporanea e Periferie Urbane. 

Tra le dieci proposte presentate, tutte attente alle più avanzate tendenze artistiche internazionali, è stato selezionato il progetto di Farronato che si concentra su un gruppo limitato di artisti a cui verrà dato spazio per presentare le proprie opere e indagare i loro universi creativi.

“Il progetto di Farronato - ha dichiarato il Ministro Bonisoli - è molto originale e innovativo anche dal punto di vista dell’allestimento, valorizza il lavoro degli artisti e pone il Padiglione in linea con il panorama artistico internazionale”.

Milovan Farronato  é il Direttore e Curatore del Fiorucci Art Trust, per il quale ha sviluppato dal 2011 il festival Volcano Extravaganza a Stromboli. Assieme all’artista Paulina Olowska, ha fondato nel 2014 il simposio Mycorial Theatre a Rabka, in Polonia, che nel 2016 è migrato a San Paolo, Brasile. Ulteriori collaborazioni includono le Magazine Sessions (nel 2016) con le Serpentine Galleries di Londra. Ha inoltre concepito The Violent No! all’interno della 14esima Biennale di Istanbul nel 2015. Dal 2005 al 2012, è stato Direttore dell’organizzazione no profit Viafarini e Curatore presso DOCVA Documentation Centre for Visual Arts, Milano.

Dal 2006 al 2010 è stato Curatore Associato della Galleria Civica di Modena, per la quale ha curato nel 2006 la mostra collettiva Egomania e le personali di Ugo Rondinone e Yayoi Kusama; nel 2007, la personale di Katharina Fritsch; nel 2008, la bipersonale di Runa Islam e Tobias Putrih e nel 2009 la personale di Christian Holstad. 

È stato professore di Cultura Visiva al CLADEM, Università IUAV, Venezia, dal 2008 al 2015.

Tra le mostre curate da Farronato si ricordano Nick Mauss, Illuminated Window, La Triennale e Torre Velasca, Milano 2017; Lucy McKenzie, La Kermesse Héroïque, presso la Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venezia 2017; Si Sedes Non Is presso The Breeder Gallery, Atene, 2017.

E’ stato parte del team curatoriale del Dhaka Art Summit, 2017 e fa parte del Development Committee della Chisenhale Gallery a Londra.

Farronato è l’editore di varie pubblicazioni e i suoi testi sono stati pubblicati da Mousse Magazine, Flash Art, ATPDiary, CURA, Artribune, Tate Etc., L’Uomo Vogue, Fashion Trend, tra gli altri.

 

Di seguito si riportano i nomi dei 10 curatori invitati: Antonia Alampi; Laura Barreca; Andrea Bellini; Alfredo Cramerotti; Milovan Farronato; Luigi Fassi; Andrea Lissoni; Bruna Roccasalva; Francesco Stocchi; Roberta Tenconi.

La selezione dei curatori è stata condotta attraverso l’individuazione di personalità del settore che negli ultimi anni hanno svolto significative attività non solo nel campo della curatela delle mostre di arte contemporanea ma anche nell’ambito della ricerca.  La scelta è stata eseguita tenendo conto delle esperienze maturate in campo nazionale e internazionale, garantendo anche la presenza di giovani e affermati professionisti.

 

Roma, 6 giugno 2018 

Ufficio Stampa MiBACT

Nida Art Colony per la Lituania

Per la Lituania sarà il collettivo Nida Art Colony

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Nida Art Colony will be representing Lithuania at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. This time the Colony will is going to present Sun and Sea, an opera-performance by Lina Lapelyte, Vaiva Grainyte, and Rugile Barzdžiukaite.

Initially, the creation of Sun and Sea was developed during the residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2016. At the end of the residency, the project was presented as a micro-opera version at Palermo gallery in Stuttgart. In the autumn of 2017, it was presented at the National Gallery of Arts in Vilnius and this year the artists were awarded with Borisas Dauguvietis Earring for innovation and originality.

Sun & Sea’s setting is a makeshift beach area, set up indoors to resemble as closely as possible a real-life, crowded beach: like a counter-monumental, anti-baroque theatre.

Contemporary society, a major character in the performance, is embodied by a number of performers in their bathing suits, lying on the ground looking up, while the audience looks down at them from above. In an apparent show of frivolity and laziness, the seaside sets the stage for the ominous topics addressed by the songs with the same nonchalance: complex subjects unfold easily, attractively. Like putting on sunglasses to witness a star dying.

In her recent book, Staying with the Trouble, Donna Haraway suggests that the worst position to take in what she calls ‘a time of trouble’, plagued as it is by extinction and climate change and so much else besides, is that of ‘depressed nihilism’: in the face of overbearing complexity, of an ocean of headlines, a repetition of alarmist clichés, the mind retreats, folds in, becomes incapable of conceiving of possible action, or of believing in the consequentiality of one’s individual life, or active life.

Haraway would say: “It matters what worlds world worlds”. This phrase, seemingly so esoteric, means simple things: it is time for the sciences to recognise the arts and humanities, and for the arts and humanities to do the same back. Only through collaboration and exchange, through new imaginaries and new forms are we perhaps likely to set the stage for more interspecies and ecological re-thinks of this fragile planet. It is key, Haraway argues, for worlds once apart (science and humanities, social sciences and geology… the list goes on) to reconnect.

The authors of opera-performance Sun and Sea are Rugile Barzdžiukaite, Vaiva Grainyte, and Lina Lapelyte

The curator Dr Lucia Pietroiusti (London) is the Public Programmes Curator at the Serpentine Galleries in London.

The commissioner of the pavillon Prof Jean-Baptiste Joly (Stuttgart) is the Founder and Artistic Director of Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Producer Dr Rasa Antanavičiūtė (Vilnius) is the Executive Director of VAA Nida Art Colony.

Remy Jungerman e Iris Kensmil per l'Olanda

Per il Padiglione Dutch ci saranno Remy Jungerman  e Iris Kensmil

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The Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale functions as an important podium which embraces the occasion of national representation as an opportunity to reflect on the Netherlands’ (inter)national image vis-à-vis the current rapid transformations in Dutch society. The Mondriaan Fund is responsible for the Dutch entry.

Remy Jungerman and Iris Kensmil selected for the Dutch Pavilion in 2019

Work of visual artists Remy Jungerman (1959) and Iris Kensmil (1970), brought together by Benno Tempel for a joint presentation, has been selected as the Dutch contribution to the 58thedition of the Venice Biennale, that is to take place in 2019. The selection of this exhibition, entitled ‘The Measurement of Presence’ has been made public by the Mondriaan Fund, that was advised in that regard by an international jury.

Curator Benno Tempel (director of the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) brings together the work of Remy Jungerman and Iris Kensmil in a presentation that has developed as a tribute to conceptual artist stanley brouwn, who passed away last year. The way in which brouwn looked at the world and how he handled his art strategically form an inspiration to generations of young artists. Jungerman and Kensmil, too, use their work to go into the necessity for artists to position themselves and to take the proper measure of the world.

Together with Jungerman and Kensmil, Tempel has developed a plan in which they present us with different visions of the notion of identity, in a presentation that offers room to reflect on our relation to the other. The jury appreciates the way in which the three artists relate to these valuable  themes and considers the exhibition in the Dutch Pavilion as an appropriate recognition of their work.

The jury selected the proposal of Benno Tempel from among seventy proposals that were submitted at the beginning of this year after an open call from the Mondriaan Fund.

The jury of the Dutch entry of 2019 consists of: Carlos Amorales (artist and participant in the Dutch Pavilion in 2003 and solo-participant in the Mexican Pavilion in 2017), Zippora Elders (freelance curator and artistic director of Kunstfort Vijfhuizen), Xander Karskens (artistic director of the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen and curator of the Finnish Pavilion in 2017), Mirjam Westen (conservator contemporary art in Museum Arnhem and part of the jury in 2017) and Birgit Donker (director Mondriaan Fund) as chair.

The 58th Venice Biennale will run from 11 May tot en met 24 november 2019.

Charlotte Prodger per la Scozia

Ieri il sito  http://scotlandandvenice.com   ha annunciato che è stato scelto Charlotte Prodger per la Scozia 

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Charlotte Prodger to represent Scotland at 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

On behalf of the Scotland + Venice partnership, Creative Scotland is delighted to announce that Charlotte Prodger has been selected to represent Scotland at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

Commissioned and curated by Linsey Young with Cove Park, Prodger’s presentation will be a major solo exhibition of new work opening on 11 May 2019 and running until 24 November 2019.

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”. Prodger will develop this new work over a series of research and production residencies at Cove Park, one of Scotland’s foremost residency centres and will be supported by the artist’s production consultant Mason Leaver-Yap. On its return to Scotland the work will tour the Highlands and Islands while Dutch arts organisation If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution, who are supporting the production of the work, will lead on a subsequent international tour.

Discussing the forthcoming work for the Biennale, Charlotte Prodger commented: “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.”

Nominated for the Turner Prize this year, Prodger won the Margaret Tait Award in 2014, was shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2017 and, in the same year, was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Award. Scotland + Venice provides Prodger with a major international platform at this key moment in her practice.

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.”

Linsey Young, Curator for Scotland + Venice 2019 commented: “It is a great honour to have the opportunity to commission Charlotte Prodger to represent Scotland at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale de Venezia. I am particularly thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Charlotte, Alexia Holt and the team at Cove Park alongside Mason Leaver-Yap to share Charlotte’s work within the unique context of the Biennale.”

Alexia Holt, Associate Director of Cove Park commented:  “Cove Park is thrilled to have this opportunity to work with Charlotte as she produces a major new commission for such an important international platform. Charlotte’s first residency was at Cove Park in 2010 and we have followed the development of her work closely over the last 8 years. We were delighted to be able to offer Charlotte a residency in the summer this year to support her practice at such an exciting point in her career. Working with curator Linsey Young, artist’s production consultant Mason Leaver-Yap and the wider project team promises to be a wonderful experience and we are very pleased the Scottish presentation of Charlotte’s work for Venice will take place at Cove Park in 2020, our 20th anniversary year.”

The Venice Biennale is recognised as the foremost global presentation of visual art. This will be the ninth presentation supported by the Scotland + Venice partnership (Creative Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland and the British Council Scotland), continuing to build Scotland’s strength and reputation as an important international voice in visual art.

Amanda Catto, Chair of the Scotland + Venice partnership commented:“We are delighted to be commissioning Charlotte Prodger to make new work for Scotland + Venice 2019.  Charlotte is a remarkable artist who is making important and compelling work that resonates with audiences nationally and internationally.  This new commission will enable her to make a rich and distinctive contribution to the most significant international festival of contemporary art, the Venice Biennale. We are excited to be working with Charlotte, Cove Park, Linsey Young and the many other collaborators who will be making the project possible and very much look forward to premiering the new work in May 2019.

Sean Edwards per il Galles

l'Arts Council of Wales ha reso noto che sarà l'artista Sean Edwards a partecipare alla prossima 58ma Biennale d’arte di Venezia per il Galles.

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The Venice Biennale is one of the largest and most prestigious art exhibitions in the world. Wales has been represented since 2003 and for Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2019, Sean Edwards’s presentation is led by Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham who will be working with international curator, Marie-Anne McQuay. This exhibition will be his most ambitious and emotionally resonant to date; a poetic enquiry into place, politics and class intertwined with personal histories.

Although known as a sculptor, Sean Edwards’s work also combines objects, film, video, photography, books and performance. Starting points are usually the things and places that have important personal connections. The artist’s proposal will see the creation of a major new body of work that will foreground his interest in social class and the everyday, influenced by his own experiences of growing up on a council estate on the outskirts of Cardiff in the 1980s.

Born in Cardiff in 1980, Sean Edwards graduated from Cardiff School of Art & Design before leaving to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. The artist then returned to Wales in 2005 where he has since contributed to the development of the Welsh artistic landscape through his own artistic practice and through supporting the development of emerging artists via artist-led space g39 and now as lecturer in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art and Design.

Edwards has exhibited widely, nationally and internationally, and he is currently developing permanent public artworks with Future City, Cambridge and Studio Response, Cardiff. In 2014 he was awarded the Gold Medal in Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod and is also a former recipient of Arts Council of Wales’s Creative Wales Awards.

On being selected for Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice, Sean Edwards commented:

"I am delighted to have been selected to represent Wales in Venice. I look forward to working with the outstanding team at Tŷ Pawb, independent producer Louise Hobson and again with curator Marie-Anne McQuay. To have the opportunity to produce the exhibition I proposed during the selection process is one thing in itself, to be able to do this under the banner of Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice is an opportunity almost beyond belief."

Curator Marie-Anne McQuay, commented: 

"After a long and productive curator-artist relationship here at Bluecoat, Liverpool's centre for the contemporary arts, and previously at Spike Island, Bristol, I am so pleased to be working with Sean Edwards once more and this time on something as prestigious as Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2019. Edwards is one of Wales's and the UK's leading artists under forty and I know that he will realise an exhibition which will resonate in the contemporary moment. Our enduring partnership with Tŷ Pawb will also give the project depth and reach within Wales and beyond." 

Phil George, Chair of Arts Council of Wales said:

"Arts Council of Wales is absolutely delighted at the prospect of working with Sean Edwards on Cymru yn Fenis / Wales in Venice 2019. Sean is a brilliant artist who will put Wales firmly on the map in this, the most prestigious of international festivals. His unique way of working will use provocations to examine themes that are important to him as an individual but that will also resonate with individuals and communities throughout Wales and the world."

The exhibition from Wales is commissioned and managed by Arts Council of Wales with support of grant in aid from the Welsh Government.

Laure Prouvost alla Biennale per la Francia

Riceviamo dalla galleria Nathalie Obadia la segnalazione che l'artista Laure Prouvost  rappresenterà il padiglione della Francia per la prossima edizione delle Biennale di Venezia 2019.

Born in Lille in 1978, Laure Prouvost lives and works in Antwerp. She was the recipient of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2011 and the Turner Prize in 2013. A major solo exhibition, Ring, sing and drink for trespassing, will open at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris on 22 June. Galerie Nathalie Obadia presented her first solo show in a gallery in France, This is the visit, in 2014, followed by LOOKING AT YOU LOOKING AT US in 2017.
 
They Are Waiting for You at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017) and Bass Museum, Miami (2018); GDM – Grand Dad’s Visitor Center at Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2016); ALL BEHIND, WE’LL GO DEEPER, DEEP DOWN AND SHE WILL SAY at Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfort (2016); We Will Go Far at musée d’art contemporain de Rochechouart (2015).

Miracle Workers Collective

  “If people have been engaging with the possible and ‘the way the world is today is the result of the possibles that they did’ as Sun Ra said, then what would be the results of imagining and engaging with the impossible?”, the collective asks.

In 2019 the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th Venice Biennale will host the Miracle Workers Collective (MWC). The MWC is formed and informed by artists, filmmakers, writers, intellectuals, performers, and activists.

Its founding members include Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, artist and activist Outi Pieski, Associate Curator Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Associate Curator Christopher Wessels and spatial designer Lorenzo Sandoval.

“It is a great honour to work with and as a collective of intelligent and diligent individuals that make up the Miracle Workers Collective, in order to re-imagine The Finnish pavilion in Venice as a space of encounters and discourses, a space of negotiation and  reconciliation, a space for frictions and rehabilitation, a space in which aesthetics and ethics co-exist ”, says Curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung.

The performative, discoursive, filmic and sonic arm of the Miracle Workers Collective will manifest itself as a series of punctuated iterations by public intellectual and writer Maryan Abdulkarim, writer and filmmaker Khadar Ahmed, writer and filmmaker Hassan Blasim, choreographer Sonya Lindfors, visual artist and musician Leena Pukki, visual artist and activist Martta Tuomaala, cinematographer Christopher L. Thomas and storyteller Suvi West, among others.

Open Call

Frame Contemporary Art Finland issued an open call for the Pavilion of Finland at the 58th edition of Venice Biennale. The five-member jury included Sabine Breitwieser, Director of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Independent Curator Natasha Ginwala, Artist Terike Haapoja and Maija Tanninen-Mattila, Director of the HAM Helsinki Art Museum. The jury was chaired by Frame’s Director Raija Koli.

“The proposal brings in a fresh and innovative approach towards the art scene and cultural producers in Finland while addressing urgent global issues”, states the jury.

Commissioner 

The exhibition in the Pavilion of Finland is commissioned and produced by Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Frame, an advocate for Finnish contemporary art, supports international initiatives, facilitates professional partnerships, and encourages critical development of the field through grants, visitor programme and residencies, seminars and talks, exhibition collaborations and network platforms.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung is artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary, editor in chief of SAVVY Journal, guest curator of Dak’Art Biennale 2018, and guest professor at Staedelschule Frankfurt, inter alia. He was curator at large for documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.

Outi Pieski (b.1973) is a Finnish-Saami visual artist from Utsjoki, the Saami area in northern Finland. In her practice there is often a strong connection between nature and the local culture. Her work combines Saami handicraft tradition of duodji and contemporary art to reopen conversations about the Saami people within Nordic discourses. After graduating from The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2000 Pieski has been exhibiting her work at the Southbank Centre in London (2017), facade of Helsinki Cathedral Chapel, Lux Helsinki (2017), Felleshus and Grimmuseum in Berlin (2015), Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in London (2014) and Gallery Korjaamo in Helsinki (2014) among several other venues. Pieski has made public art works in the Saami Parliament Houses both in Finland and Norway. She was Ars Fennica Award candidate (2015) and won the Fine Arts Academy of Finland award (2017).

Giovanna Esposito Yussif is a curator and researcher with background in art history, museology, and critical theory. In the past few years she has focused on collective models of inquiry, exercises of criticality, and processes of dissentient imaginations. She is co-founder of NÆS – Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies, a collective-connective research studio focusing on emergent and resilient dynamics of social organization, and is part of the collective committee of Rab-Rab Press. Giovanna has collaborated with diverse institutions such as Checkpoint Helsinki, Frame, HIAP, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Galería OMR, SITAC, among others. She is currently on a curatorial fellowship at Manifesta Foundation.

Christopher Wessels is currently a curator with the Children’s Library Project at Åbo Akademi University. He is founding member of the Museum of Impossible Forms M{if} where he is also one of the Artistic Directors, and he is co-founder of Third Space (2014–2016), a collective of artists and curators in Helsinki. Wessels is also a Cinematographer with seven feature films under his belt. His artistic and curatorial practices look at the un-silencing of counter hegemonic narratives and the building of counter hegemonic institutions with anti-racist, anti-sexist and class consciousness at its foundations.

Lorenzo Sandoval works in the crossing points of artistic practice, curatorial processes and spatial design. He has exhibited internationally as well attended residencies in Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Kenya. He received curatorial prizes such as Inéditos 2011, Can Felipa and Nogueras Blanchard 2012. He won the prize ‘Generación 2017’ presented in Madrid and the grant ‘DKV- Álvarez Margaride’, for his solo show ‘Shadow Writing (Algorith /Quipu)’ at LABoral. He works in a regular basis with Savvy Contemporary. Since 2015, he runs the fictional institution ‘The Institute for Endotic Research’. His recent research deals with the connections between computation, textiles, photography and domesticity.

#finlandinvenice2019

#miracleworkers

Image: (from left) Outi Pieski, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Giovanna Esposito Yussif, Christopher Wessels and Lorenzo Sandoval.

Renate Bertlmann Austria

E' stato annunciato che Renate Bertlmann sarà l'artista per la prossima edizione della Biennale di Venezia per l'Austria. 

CS

Dear Ladies and Gentlmen,
Curator Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein announced her nomination for the Austrian contribution at the Biennale Arte 2019 at a press conference in Vienna yesterday. Renate Bertlmann, born in Vienna in 1943, will represent Austria next year at the Venice Art Biennale. "2019 will mark the first time in the history of Austria’s participation in the Venice Biennale that a female artist, namely Renate Bertlmann, will put on a solo presentation at the Pavilion. With this, we are setting an example as a society; an example that is in accordance with the idea of art and examines structural imbalances. In Renate Bertlmann, I have chosen an artist whose methods in terms of both concepts and aesthetics will continue a Venetian art history of provocation in the best sense of the word", explains curator Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein her choice. In Austria, Renate Bertlmann has long been regarded as a leading feminist artist and a pioneer of performance art. In recognition of her groundbreaking work, she was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize in 2017. Her works were presented at large events, such as the Gwangju Biennale, as well as in seminal exhibitions, such as The World Goes Pop at Tate Modern, London (2014), Self-Timer Stories at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York (2014), Renate Bertlmann – Maria Lassnig at Sotheby’s Gallery, London (2017), and Sex Work: Feminist Art & Radical Politics, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Frieze Art Fair, London (2017). The Biennale Arte will take place for the 58th time and will open in Venice on 11 May 2019. Accompanying the preparations for the Austrian contribution, four Biennial Lectures will be held in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Eva Rothschild per l'Irlanda

Per l'Irlanda è stata scelta l'artista Eva Rothschild

CS

The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan today announced the selection of artist, Eva Rothschild and Curator, Mary Cremin to represent Ireland at the 58th Venice Art Biennale in 2019.

The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan today, Monday 23rd April, announced the selection of artist, Eva Rothschild with Mary Cremin as curator to represent Ireland at the 58th Venice Art Biennale in 2019. 

The Venice Arts Biennale is one of the most important international stages for the visual arts, attracting over half a million visitors. The selection of the team to represent Ireland was made following an open competitive process with international jury members. Ireland at Venice is a partnership initiative of Culture Ireland and the Arts Council.

The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan said “The Venice Biennale serves as a global showcase for artists and offers a prominent platform for Eva Rothschild as the selected Irish artist to engage with international audiences, curators and gallerists and increase international opportunities and awareness of our strong visual arts sector. I wish Eva and curator Mary Cremin every success in developing their exhibition for the Biennale”.

Eva Rothschild has proposed a pavilion that will build on current dialogues around notions of precarity, environmental change and the ongoing political instability - and how that impacts us personally. Through her use of materials and sculptures she will create an immersive environment that asks the audience to question what our role is as global citizens and how do we affect change in the current political stage.

Eva Rothschild; ‘I am delighted and honoured to have been chosen to represent Ireland at Venice 2019, I look forward to working closely with Mary Cremin and the team at Void to develop the pavilion. My intention is to make a sculptural environment which engages with current social changes through embodiment, presence and materiality. I want to create a situation that suggests multiple sculptural possibilities for rearrangement and reordering in which it becomes difficult to distinguish renewal from collapse’.

Commissioner/Curator for Ireland at Venice 2019, Mary Cremin, is Director, Void Gallery in Derry~Londonderry, which will be supporting the delivery of the exhibition. Cremin says, ‘Eva Rothschild is a significant artist of international and national importance.  I am very excited and honoured to be working with her on the Irish Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2019. We will be supported by the fantastic team at Void Gallery. This project will be one of Ireland’s most exciting and visually dynamic pavilions, highlighting the strength and diversity of Irish artistic practice and build on the existing reputation of Irish artists internationally’.

Cathy Wilkes per la Gran Bretagna

Il British Council ha comunicato che sarà Cathy Wilkes a partecipare alla prossima edizione della Biennale di Venezia del 2019


CS

The British Council is delighted to announce that Cathy Wilkes has been selected to represent Great Britain at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, presenting a major solo exhibition of new work opening on 11 May 2019 and running till 24 November 2019. 

Since the late 1990s, Glasgow-based Cathy Wilkes (b. 1966, Dundonald, Belfast) has built a considerable reputation for sculptural installations of profound and mysterious intensity, which often evoke interiors and places of loss. Cathy Wilkes insists on the private life of the artist, and questions how art can relate to human experience. Cathy Wilkes’s work is tender, intimate, autobiographical – yet universal, inspiring the writer Laura McLean-Ferris to describe Wilkes’s recent survey at MoMA PS1 in New York earlier this year as “this magnificent exhibition”. 

The fierce integrity of her work is widely acknowledged, and, in 2016, she was awarded the inaugural Maria Lassnig Prize – a prestigious honour to recognise the achievements of mid-career artists.

To widen access to international working for UK visual arts professionals, the British Council has for the first time, created an opportunity for a UK-based mid-career curator to curate the British Pavilion. The British Council is delighted to announce that, following an open call selection process, Dr Zoe Whitley, Curator International Art, Tate, has been appointed to this position.

Emma Dexter, British Council Director Visual Arts, Commissioner of the British Pavilion and Chair of the British Pavilion Selection Committee, said: “The British Council is delighted that Cathy Wilkes has been selected to represent the UK at the Biennale Arte 2019. Cathy Wilkes’s distinctive and highly personal sculptural installations, evoking the rituals of daily life while alluding to existential questions at the core of human existence, will trigger complex new meanings and atmospherics within the grand domestic architecture of the British Pavilion. I am in no doubt that her exhibition will be a unique and powerful contribution to the Biennale Arte 2019. We are also really excited that Dr Zoe Whitley will be working alongside both the British Council and the artist to help bring this fascinating artist’s work to the global audience for La Biennale di Venezia.”

Hugh Mulholland, Senior Curator at The Mac, Belfast and member of the British Pavilion Selection Committee, said: “Cathy Wilkes is a deeply thoughtful artist; central to her practice is a desire to give voice to an inner world, to understand the human condition and to address an emotional deficit at the core of society, a preoccupation which could not be more apt for the current world order. Her presence at the Biennale Arte 2019 is a fitting acknowledgement of her considerable achievements to date.”

Fiona Bradley, Director of The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and member of the British Pavilion Selection Committee, said: “I am pleased to have been part of this year’s Selection Committee and for Cathy Wilkes to be the selected artist. Cathy Wilkes’s work is eloquent and engaging, with an uncompromising visual intelligence that will reach across national borders to appeal to the many and diverse audiences for the Biennale Arte 2019.”

Dr Zoe Whitley, Curator at Tate Modern and Curator of the British Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019 said: “It’s a privilege and the most wonderful responsibility to be entrusted with curating the British Pavilion. I'm thrilled to collaborate with Cathy Wilkes and the British Council in such a unique capacity; to consider, to learn from and to convey the work of such a significant artist is an exciting challenge.”

Amanda Catto, Head of Visual Arts, Creative Scotland, said: “The Scotland + Venice partners – Creative Scotland, National Galleries of Scotland and British Council Scotland – are delighted to hear that Cathy Wilkes has been selected to represent Great Britain at the Biennale Arte 2019. Cathy Wilkes is a remarkable artist, making complex and emotionally powerful work.  This is a tremendous accolade for Cathy Wilkes and an affirmation of the exceptional quality of art making that is taking place in Scotland today.”

Suzanne Lyle, Head of Visual Arts, Arts Council of Northern Ireland said: “It is so delightful to have an artist of Cathy’s calibre, with a Northern Ireland connection, representing the UK at the Biennale Arte 2019. Her work and her role in Venice will be an inspiration to the rich seam of visual artists from these shores. The British Council’s selection of Cathy Wilkes’s work is recognition of her artistic excellence; it is well-deserved and we send her our heartfelt congratulations.”

The 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, which is the foremost global presentation of visual art, will run from 11 May 2019 to 24 November 2019. 

The British Council has been responsible for the British Pavilion in Venice since 1937, showcasing the best of the UK's artists, architects, designers and curators. In 2014 the British Council created the Venice Fellowships programme to offer students, artists and architects the opportunity to spend a month at the Biennale conducting research alongside the exhibition.