59th Venice Biennale

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59th Venice Biennale
GenreArt exhibition
BeginsApril 23, 2022
EndsNovember 27, 2022
Location(s)Venice
CountryItaly
Previous event58th Venice Biennale (2019)
Next event60th Venice Biennale (2024)

The 59th Venice Biennale is an international

Venice, Italy. Artistic director Cecilia Alemani
curated its central exhibition.

Background

The Venice Biennale is an international

Venice, Italy. Often described as "the Olympics of the art world", participation in the Biennale is a prestigious event for contemporary artists. The festival has become a constellation of shows: a central exhibition curated by that year's artistic director, national pavilions hosted by individual nations, and independent exhibitions throughout Venice. The Biennale parent organization also hosts regular festivals in other arts: architecture, dance, film, music, and theater.[1]

Outside of the central, international exhibition, individual nations produce their own shows, known as pavilions, as their national representation. Nations that own their pavilion buildings, such as the 30 housed on the Giardini, are responsible for their own upkeep and construction costs as well.

Arsenale and palazzos throughout the city.[2]

The 59th Biennale ran from April 23, 2022, through November 27.

Documenta 15, another major contemporary art exhibition.[4]

Central exhibition

"The Milk of Dreams" features 213 artists. Unlike prior shows, in which the majority of artists identified as male, instead less than 10 percent of Alemani's artists identified as male. Alemani underplayed this element and did not describe her show as overtly feminist, but has spoken about questioning the "universal ideal of the white, male 'Man of Reason' as the fixed center of the universe and measure of all things".[6] Many of the central exhibition's artists are associated with the 20th century avant-garde. Nearly half of Alemani's artists are deceased, much higher in proportion than prior Biennales. These avant-garde artists are underrepresented, having been underrecognized in their time, and the Biennale services to highlight their work.[7]

After the exhibition was postponed one year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alemani hoped to use the extra year to prepare new projects and use the opening, which now precedes the Italian

2013 Biennale.[9]

National pavilions

A total of 80 national pavilions participated in the 59th edition, with five countries participating for the first time: Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal, Oman and Uganda.[10][8] Each country selected artists to represent their pavilion, ostensibly with an eye to the Biennale's theme.[1] As a sign of solidarity Ukraine and against war, Russian pavilion curator Raimundas Malašauskas withdrew his project and Russia's pavilion remained closed.[11] In a statement, Alexandra Sukhareva, one of the artists participating in Russia's Pavilion, posted in a statement on Instagram that “there is no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles, when citizens of Ukraine are hiding in shelters [and] when Russian protestors are getting silenced”.[12]

Unlike prior biennales, in which there were clear frontrunners for the jury recognition of best national pavilion, such as Germany's Faust in 2017 or Lithuania's

Sun & Sea in 2019, there was no such frontrunner in 2022.[13]

Nation/
region
Location Artist(s) Curator(s) Ref
Albania Arsenale Lumturi Blloshmi Adela Demetja [14]
Argentina Arsenale Mónica Heller Alejo Ponce de León [15]
Australia Giardini Marco Fusinato [Wikidata] Alexie Glass-Kantor [16][17]
Austria Giardini Jakob Lena Knebl [de] and Ashley Hans Scheirl Karola Kraus [de] [18][19]
Belgium Giardini Francis Alÿs Hilde Teerlinck [20]
Bolivia Around Venice Warmichacha Collective Roberto Aguilar Quisbert - Mamani Mamani, Judith Cuba
Brazil Giardini Jonathas de Andrade Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, José Olympio da Veiga Pereira [15]
Canada Giardini Stan Douglas Reid Shier [21][15]
Catalonia Around Venice Lara Fluxà Oriol Fondevila [15]
Denmark Giardini Uffe Isolotto Jacob Lillemose [15]
Estonia Giardini (Dutch pavilion) Kristina Norman and Bita Razavi Corina Apostol, Maria Arusoo [15]
Finland Giardini Pilvi Takala Christina Li [22]
France Giardini Zineb Sedira [23][24]
Germany Giardini Maria Eichhorn Yilmaz Dziewior [25]
Great Britain Giardini Sonia Boyce TBD [26]
Hong Kong Around Venice Angela Su Freya Chou [27]
Iceland Around Venice Sigurður Guðjónsson Mónica Bello [16]
Ireland Arsenale Niamh O'Malley
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios
Curatorial Team
[28]
Israel Giardini Ilit Azoulay Dr. Shelley Harten [29]
Italy Arsenale Gian Maria Tosatti Eugenio Viola [30]
Republic of Kosovo Arsenale Jakup Ferri Inke Arns
Luxembourg Around Venice Tina Gillen [16]
Malta Arsenale Arcangelo Sassolino, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Brian Schembri Keith Sciberras, Jeffrey Uslip [1]
Namibia La Certosa Renn Marco Furio Ferrario [31]
Netherlands Around Venice Melanie Bonajo Maaike Gouwenberg, Geir Haraldseth, Soraya Pol [32]
Nepal Around Venice Tsherin Sherpa Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Hit Man Gurung [33][34]
New Zealand Around Venice Yuki Kihara Natalie King [16][35]
Nordic Pavilion Giardini Pauliina Feodoroff, Máret Ánne Sara, Anders Sunna [36]
Poland Giardini Małgorzata Mirga-Tas Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Wojciech Szymański, Joanna Warsza [37]
Spain Giardini Ignasi Aballí Beatriz Espejo [16]
Switzerland Giardini Latifa Echakhch Francesco Stocchi [38]
Taiwan Around Venice Sakuliu Pavavaljung Patrick Flores [16]
Turkey Around Venice Füsun Onur Bige Örer [39]
Ukraine Arsenale Pavlo Makov Lizaveta German, Maria Lanko, Borys Filonenko [34]
United Arab Emirates Around Venice Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim Maya Allison [40]
United States Giardini Simone Leigh Eva Respini [41]
Venezuela Giardini Palmira Correa, César Vázquez, Mila Quast, Jorge Recio Zacarías García [42]

Awards

A jury presented the three main prizes:

The 59th Biennale's Golden Lion for lifetime achievement went to Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña.[13][43]

Reception

The 2022 Biennale was its most attended edition with over 800,000 tickets sold. While the 2022 Biennale had sold a third more tickets than the 2019 Biennale, it was also 14 percent longer, lasting 197 days.[44]

Recounting the year's biggest moments, ArtNews said that two Black women winning the Beinnale's top awards was both a "legendary moment and a possible sign that the canonization of Black female artists was ... underway". The effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was another big moment, felt at the Biennale with the closure of the Russian pavilion and conspicuous absence of Russian oligarchs.[45]

References

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  2. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original
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  3. ^ from the original on June 13, 2021. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
  4. ^ from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  5. ^ a b "Biennale Arte 2022 | Statement by Cecilia Alemani". La Biennale di Venezia. June 9, 2021. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  6. ^
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  10. ^ Solomon, Tessa (February 1, 2022). "Nepal to Make Venice Biennale Debut with Pavilion by Tsherin Sherpa". ARTnews.com. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  11. ^ Volner, Ian (April 22, 2022). "The Venice Biennale, Without the Russians (or Their Yachts)". Vulture. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  12. ^ Harris, Gareth (April 21, 2022). "Artist protests against war outside Russian Pavilion at Venice Biennale". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  13. ^ a b "Sonia Boyce and Simone Leigh Win Golden Lions at the Venice Biennale for Work Honoring the Visions of Black Women". April 23, 2022.
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  27. ^ Tsui, Enid (June 17, 2021). "Artist Angela Su to represent Hong Kong at 2022 Venice Biennale". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
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  29. ^ "For Ilit Azoulay, The Kingdom Has Crashed. Long Live The Queendom!". Whitewall. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  30. ^ Smee, Sebastian (April 22, 2022). "A great Venice Biennale unfolds, against all the odds". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  31. ^ https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2022/national-participations/namibia
  32. Artnet News. Archived
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  35. ^ Long, Lauren (September 17, 2019). "Yuki Kihara to Represent New Zealand at 59th Venice Biennale". ArtAsiaPacific. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
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  40. ^ Chaves, Alexandra (September 28, 2020). "Emirati artist Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim to represent the UAE at 2022 Venice Biennale". The National. Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
  41. ^ Sheets, Hilarie (October 14, 2020). "Simone Leigh Is First Black Woman to Represent U.S. at Venice Biennale". New York Times. Archived from the original on February 7, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2021.
  42. ^ "Biennale Arte 2022 | Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)". La Biennale di Venezia. April 12, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  43. ^ "Sonia Boyce's British pavilion wins Venice Biennale's coveted Golden Lion for best national exhibition". April 23, 2022.
  44. ^ "Venice Biennale Posts Record Attendance, Wellcome Collection Axes 'Racist, Sexist, and Ableist' Display, and More: Morning Links for November 28, 2022". ARTnews. November 28, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  45. ^ "The Defining Art Events of 2022". ARTnews. December 7, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2023.

Further reading

External links