La Biennale di Venezia

56. LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 2015
9 May - 22 Nov 2015

Title:
All the World's Futures

Director:
Okwui Enwezor

Introduction:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History

The State of Things
In May 2015, one hundred and twenty years after its first art exhibition, the International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will unfold once again in the Giardini, the historical grounds where the first event took place in 1895. When that first exhibition was inaugurated there were no national pavilions. The only permanent exhibition building that existed at the time was the sepulchral structure of the Central Pavilion, with its neo-classical columns and towering winged victory perched atop the pediment. National pavilions would arrive twelve years later with the Belgian Pavilion in 1907, followed by several others in successive years to where it stands today at nearly ninety five pavilions. The expansion of the pavilions in the Giardini to thirty exhibition buildings designed in various architectural styles, and the overspill of those pavilions unable to secure a plot in the Giardini proper into different areas of the city and the Arsenale area, testify to the unquestionable allure of this most anachronistic of exhibition models dedicated to national representation. Adjacent to the bourgeoning national pavilions is the non-national international exhibition in the Giardini and Arsenale.

Since its first edition in 1895, the visual art exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia has existed at the confluence of many socio-political changes and radical historical ruptures across the fields of art, culture, politics, technology, and economics. Founded in 1893, the institution of la Biennale di Venezia arrived on the world stage at a significant historic period, at a point when forces of industrial modernity, capital, emergent technologies, urbanization, and colonial regimes were remaking the global map and rewriting the rules of sovereignty. Accompanying these developments were several mass movements: from workers’ to women’s movements; anti-colonial to civil rights movements, etc.

One hundred years after the first shots of the First World War were fired in 1914, and seventy-five years after the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the global landscape again lies shattered and in disarray, scarred by violent turmoil, panicked by specters of economic crisis and viral pandemonium, secessionist politics and a humanitarian catastrophe on the high seas, deserts, and borderlands, as immigrants, refugees, and desperate peoples seek refuge in seemingly calmer and prosperous lands. Everywhere one turns new crisis, uncertainty, and deepening insecurity across all regions of the world seem to leap into view.

Surveying these epic events from the vantage point of the current disquiet that pervades our time, one feels as if summoned by Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus. Thanks to the philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin who bought the work in 1921, the painting has acquired a kind of cult status of clairvoyance beyond its actual representation. Benjamin saw in Klee’s picture what in fact, was not registered nor even painted in it. Instead he read Angelus Novus allegorically, seeing the picture with clear historical eyes, while facing another catastrophe unfolding in Europe at a time of immense crisis. By excavating the painting as the very reality unfolding before him, with the state of the world he knew being dismantled right before his very own eyes, Benjamin compels us to revision the representational capacity of art. His novel interpretation of the animated stick figure standing in the middle of Klee’s composition, with shocked expression in its eyes, as the “angel of history,” at whose feet the wreckage of modern destruction reaches new summits, remains a vivid image. If not necessarily for what the picture actually contains and the image it registers, but for the way Benjamin brought a focus to how the work of art can challenge us to see much further and beyond the prosaic appearance of things.

The ruptures that surround and abound around every corner of the global landscape today recall the evanescent debris of previous catastrophes piled at the feet of the angel of history in Angelus Novus. How can the current disquiet of our time be properly grasped, made comprehensible, examined, and articulated? Over the course of the last two centuries the radical changes – from industrial to post-industrial modernity; technological to digital modernity; mass migration to mass mobility, environmental disasters and genocidal conflicts, chaos and promise – have made fascinating subject matter for artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, composers, musicians, etc.
This situation is no less palpable today. It is with this recognition that in 2015, the 56th International Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia proposes All the World’s Futures a project devoted to a fresh appraisal of the relationship of art and artists to the current state of things.

The Exhibition: Parliament of Forms
Rather than one overarching theme that gathers and encapsulates diverse forms and practices into one unified field of vision, All the World’s Futures is informed by a layer of intersecting Filters. These Filters are a constellation of parameters that circumscribe multiple ideas, which will be touched upon to both imagine and realize a diversity of practices. In 2015, the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia will employ the historical trajectory of the Biennale itself, over the course of its one hundred and twenty years existence, as a Filter through which to reflect on both the current “state of things” and the “appearance of things”. All the World’s Futures will take the present “state of things” as the ground for its dense, restless, and exploratory project that will be located in a dialectical field of references and artistic disciplines. The principal question the exhibition will pose is this: How can artists, thinkers, writers, composers, choreographers, singers, and musicians, through images, objects, words, movement, actions, lyrics, sound bring together publics in acts of looking, listening, responding, engaging, speaking in order to make sense of the current upheaval? What material, symbolic or aesthetic, political or social acts will be produced in this dialectical field of references to give shape to an exhibition which refuses confinement within the boundaries of conventional display models? In All the World’s Futures the curator himself, along with artists, activists, the public, and contributors of all kinds will appear as the central protagonists in the open orchestration of the project.
With each Filter superimposed on the other, in a series of rescensions, the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia will delve into the contemporary global reality as one of constant realignment, adjustment, recalibration, motility, shape-shifting. Given this fact, the presentation of All the World’s Futures will play host to a Parliament of Forms whose orchestration and episodic unfolding will be broadly global in scope. At the core of the project is the notion of the exhibition as stage where historical and counter-historical projects will be explored. Within this framework, aspects of the 56th Exhibition will solicit and privilege new proposals and works conceived specifically by invited artists, filmmakers, choreographers, performers, composers, and writers to work either individually or in collaboration for the 56th Art Biennale. These projects, works, and voices, like an orchestra will occupy the spaces of the La Biennale and pre-occupy the time and thinking of the public.

Filters:
Liveness: On epic duration
In the search for a language and method for the exhibition of the 56th Art Exhibition we have settled on the nature of the exhibition as fundamentally a visual, somatic, aural, and narrative event. In so doing, we ask how an exhibition of the scale and scope of the 56th International Art Biennale can address its format and refresh it with the potential of its temporal capacity. In this search the concept of liveness and epic duration serve two complementary purposes: they suggest the idea that All the World’s Futures is both a spatial and temporal manifestation that is relentlessly incomplete, structured by a logic of unfolding, a program of events that can be experienced at the intersection of liveness and display. It will be a dramatization of the space of the exhibition as a continuous, unfolding, and unceasing live event. In doing so All the World’s Futures will activate works that are already existing but also invites contributions that will be realized especially for the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia.

Garden of Disorder
This Filter, located in the Giardini and the Central Pavilion, Corderie, Giardino delle Vergini in the Arsenale, and selected areas in Venice, takes the historical ground of la Biennale in the Giardini as a metaphor through which to explore the current “state of things,” namely the pervasive structure of disorder in global geopolitics, environment and economics. The original concept of the garden derives from Persian antiquity. It conceives of the dimension garden as paradise, an enclosed space of tranquility and pleasure, which over several millennia has been transformed into an allegory for the search for the space of order and purity. For the 56th International Art Biennale in 2015, the exhibition returns to the ancient ground of this ideal to explore the changes in the global environment, to read the Giardini with its ramshackle assemblage of pavilions as the ultimate site of a disordered world, of national conflicts, as well as territorial and geopolitical disfigurations. Proposals that take the concept of the garden as a point of departure will be worked through by artists who have been invited to realized new sculptures, films, performances, and installations for All the World’s Futures.

Capital: A Live Reading
Beyond the distemper and disorder in the current “state of things,” there is one pervasive preoccupation that has been at the heart of our time and modernity. That preoccupation is the nature of Capital, both its fiction and reality. Capital is the great drama of our age. Today nothing looms larger in every sphere of experience, from the predations of the political economy to the rapacity of the financial industry. The exploitation of nature through its commodification as natural resources, the growing structure of inequality and the weakening of broader social contract have recently compelled a demand for change. Since the publication of Karl Marx’s massive Capital: Critique of Political Economy in 1867, the structure and nature of capital has captivated thinkers and artists, as well as inspired political theorists, economists, and ideological structures across the world. In All the World’s Futures, the aura, effects, affects, and specters of Capital will be felt in one of the most ambitious explorations of this concept and term.

A core part of this program of live readings, is “Das Kapital” a massive meticulously researched bibliographic project, conceived by the artistic director in the Central Pavilion. This program, occurring everyday for nearly seven months, without stop, will commence with a live reading of the four volumes of Marx’s Das Kapital and gradually expand into recitals of work songs, librettos, readings of scripts, discussions, plenaries, and film screenings devoted to diverse theories and explorations of Capital. Over the course of the 56th Art Biennale, theater ensembles, actors, intellectuals, students, and members of the public will be invited to contribute to the program of readings that will flood and suffuse surrounding galleries with voices in an epic display of orality. A major inspiration for this unusual operatic performance is in the opening lines of Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar’s book Reading Capital.

“Of course, we have all read, and do read Capital. For almost a century we have been able to read it every day, transparently, in the dramas and dreams of our history, in its disputes and conflicts, in the defeats and victories of the workers’ movement which is our only hope and our destiny. Since we ‘came into the world’, we have read Capital constantly in the writings and speeches of those who have read it for us, well or ill, both the dead and the living, Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, Stalin, Gramsci, the leaders of the workers’ organizations, their supporters, and opponents, philosophers, economists, politicians. We have read bits of it, the ‘fragments’ which the conjuncture had ‘selected’ for us. We have even all, more or less read Volume One, from ‘commodities’ to the ‘expropriation of the expropriators.’

But some day it is essential to read Capital to the letter. To read the text itself, complete, all four volumes, line by line, to return ten times to the first chapters, or to the schemes of simple reproduction and reproduction on an enlarged scale, before coming down from the arid table-lands and plateaus of Volume Two into the promised land of profit, interest, and rent...

That is how we decided to read Capital...And we present them in their immediate form without making alterations so that all the risks and advantages of this adventure are reproduced; so that the reader [and listener] will be able to find in them new-born the experience of a reading; and so he in turn will be dragged in the wake of his first reading into a second one which will take us still further.”

With this outlook, All the World’s Futures, through its constellation of Filters will delve into the “state of things” and question “the appearance of things”, shifting from the guttural enunciation of the voice to the visual and physical manifestations between artworks and the public.

Okwui Enwezor


ARTISTS

1. ABBOUD, Jumana Emil
b. 1971 Palestine, lives and works in Jerusalem

2. ABDESSEMED, Adel
b. 1971 Algeria, lives and works in London

3. ABONNENC, Mathieu Kleyebe
b. 1977 France, lives and works in Metz

4. ABOUNADDARA
founded 2010 Syria, based in Syria

5. ACHOUR, Boris
b. 1966 France, lives and works in Paris

6. ADKINS, Terry
b. 1953 - d. 2014, United States

7. AFIF, Saâdane
b. 1970 France, lives and works in Berlin

8. AKERMAN, Chantal
b. 1950 Belgium, lives and works in Paris

9. AKOMFRAH, John
b. 1957 Ghana, lives and works in London

10. AKPOKIERE, Karo
b. 1981 Nigeria, lives and works in Lagos and Berlin

11. AL SOLH, Mounira
b. 1978 Lebanon, lives and works in Beirut and Amsterdam

12. ALGÜN RINGBORG, Meriç
b. 1983 Turkey, lives and works in Stockholm

13. ALLORA, Jennifer & CALZADILLA, Guillermo
b. 1974 United States, b. 1971 Cuba, live and work in San Juan

14. ATAMAN, Kutlug [video]
b. 1961 Turkey, lives and works in London

15. BAJEVIC, Maja
b. 1967 Bosnia, lives and works in Paris and Sarajevo

16. BALLESTEROS, Ernesto
b. 1963 Argentina, lives and works in Buenos Aires

17. BALOJI, Sammy
b. 1978 Democratic Republic of Congo, lives and works in Lubumbashi and Brussels

18. BARBA, Rosa
b. 1972 Italy, lives and works in Berlin

19. BASELITZ, Georg
b. 1938 Germany, lives and works in Munich

20. BASUALDO, Eduardo
b. 1977 Argentina, lives and works in Buenos Aires

21. BAUER, Petra
b. 1970 Sweden, lives and works in Stockholm

22. BESHTY, Walead
b. 1976 United Kingdom, lives and works in Los Angeles

23. BHABHA, Huma
b. 1962 Pakistan, lives and works in Poughkeepsie

24. BOLTANSKI, Christian
b. 1944 France, lives and works in Paris

25. BONVICINI, Monica
b. 1965 Italy, lives and works in Berlin

26. BOYCE, Sonia
b. 1962 United Kingdom, lives and works in London

27. BOYD, Daniel
b. 1982 Australia, lives and works in Sydney

28. BREY, Ricardo
b. 1955 Cuba, lives and works in Gent

29. BROODTHAERS, Marcel
b. 1924 - d. 1976, Belgium

30. BRUGUERA, Tania
b. 1968 Cuba, lives and works in New York

31. BURGA, Teresa
b. 1935 Peru, lives and works in Lima

32. CALHOUN, Keith & McCORMICK, Chandra
b. 1955/b. 1957 United States, live and work in New Orleans

33. CAO, Fei
b. 1978 China, lives and works in Beijing

34. CHAMEKH, Nidhal
b. 1985 Tunisia, lives and works in Tunis and Paris

35. CHERNYSHEVA, Olga
b. 1962 Russia, lives and works in Moscow

36. CHUNG, Tiffany
b. 1969 Vietnam, lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City

37. COOPERATIVA CRÁTER INVERTIDO
an artistic cooperative founded 2011, based in Mexico City

38. CREATIVE TIME SUMMIT
a non-profit organization founded in 1974, based in New York

39. DAMIANI, Elena
b. 1979 Peru, lives and works in Copenhagen

40. DELLER, Jeremy
b. 1966 United Kingdom, lives and works in London

41. DJORDJADZE, Thea
b. 1971 Georgia, lives and works in Berlin

42. DUMAS, Marlene
b. 1953 South Africa, lives and works in Amsterdam

43. E-FLUX JOURNAL
a publishing platform founded in 2008, based in New York

44. EDWARDS, Melvin
b. 1937 United States, lives and works in New York

45. EFFLATOUN, Inji
b. 1924 - d. 1989 Egypt

46. EHMANN, Antje & FAROCKI, Harun
b. 1968 Germany, lives and works in Berlin / b. 1944 – d. 2014 Germany

47. EICHHORN, Maria
b. 1962 Germany, lives and works in Berlin

48. EVANS, Walker
b. 1903 - d. 1975 United States

49. FAROCKI, Harun
b. 1944 - d. 2014, Germany

50. FLOYD, Emily
b. 1972 Australia, lives and works in Sydney

51. FRIEDL, Peter
b. 1960 Austria, lives and works in Berlin

52. FUSCO, Coco
b. 1960 United States, lives and works in New York

53. FUSINATO, Marco
b. 1964 Australia, lives and works in Melbourne

54. GAINES, Charles
b. 1944 United States, lives and works in Los Angeles

55. GALLAGHER, Ellen
b. 1965 United States, lives and works in Rotterdam

56. GALLARDO, Ana
b. 1958 Argentina, lives and works in Buenos Aires

57. GARCIA, Dora
b. 1965 Spain, lives in Barcelona

58. GATES, Theaster
b. 1973 United States, lives and works in Chicago

59. GENZKEN, Isa
b. 1948 Germany, lives and works in Berlin

60. GLUKLYA / Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya
b. 1969 Russia, lives and works in Saint Petersburg

61. GOMES, Sônia
b. 1948 Brazil, lives and works in Belo Horizonte

62. GROSSE, Katharina
b. 1961 Germany, lives and works in Berlin

63. GULF LABOR
a transnational coalition of international artists founded in 2010

64. GUPTE, Rupali & SHETTY, Prasad
b. 1974 India, live and work in Mumbai

65. GURSKY, Andreas
b. 1955 Germany, lives and works in Düsseldorf

66. HAACKE, Hans
b. 1936 Germany, lives and works in New York

67. HADJITHOMAS, Joana & JOREIGE, Khalil
b. 1969 Lebanon, live and work in Paris and Beirut

68. HARRY, Newell
b. 1972 Australia, lives and works in Sydney

69. HASSAN, Kay
b. 1956 South Africa, lives and works in Johannesburg

70. HIRSCHHORN, Thomas
b. 1957 Switzerland, lives and works in Paris

71. HÖLLER, Carsten
b. 1961 Belgium, lives and works in Stockholm

72. HOLT, Nancy & SMITHSON, Robert
b. 1938 - d. 2014 / b.1938 - d. 1973 United States

73. IM, Heung Soon
b. 1969 South Korea, lives and works in Seoul

74. INVISIBLE BORDERS: Trans-African Photographers
an artists’ organization founded in 2011, based in Lagos

75. ISHIDA, Tetsuya
b. 1973 – d. 2005 Japan

76. JI, Dachun
b. 1968 China, lives and works in Beijing

77. JULIEN, Isaac
b. 1960 United Kingdom, lives and works in London

78. K., Hiwa
b. 1975 Iraq, lives and works in Berlin

79. KAMBALU, Samson
b. 1975 Malawi, lives and works in London

80. KIM, Ayoung
b. 1979 South Korea, lives and works in Seoul

81. KLUGE, Alexander
b. 1932 Germany, lives and works in Munich

82. KNGWARREYE, Emily Kame
b. 1910 - d. 1996, Australia

83. LAGOMARSINO, Runo
b. 1977 Sweden, lives and works in Stockholm and Sao Paulo

84. LEBER, Sonia & CHESWORTH, David
b. 1959 Australia, b. 1958 United Kingdom, live and work in Melbourne

85. LIGON, Glenn
b. 1960 United States, lives and works in New York

86. MABUNDA, Gonçalo
b. 1975 Mozambique, lives and works in Maputo

87. MADHUSUDHANAN
b. 1956 India, lives and works in New Delhi and Kerala

88. MAHAMA, Ibrahim
b. 1987 Ghana, lives and works in Tamale

89. MALJKOVIC, David
b. 1973 Croatia, lives and works in Zagreb

90. MAN, Victor
b. 1974 Romania, lives and works in Berlin

91. MANSARAY, Abu Bakarr
b. 1970 Sierra Leone, lives and works in Freetown and the Netherlands

92. MARKER, Chris
b. 1921 - d. 2012, France

93. MARSHALL, Kerry James
b. 1955 United States, lives and works in Chicago

94. MARTEN, Helen
b. 1985 United Kingdom, lives and works in London

95. MAURI, Fabio
b. 1926 - d. 2009 Italy

96. McQUEEN, Steve
b. 1969 United Kingdom, lives and works in Amsterdam

97. MOHAIEMEN, Naeem
b. 1969 United Kingdom, lives and works in Dhaka (Bangladesh) and New York

98. MORAN, Jason
b. 1975 United States, lives and works in New York

99. MÜLLER, Ivana
b. 1972 Croatia, lives and works in Paris

100. MUNROE, Lavar
b. 1982 Bahamas, lives and works between Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Washington DC.

101. MURILLO, Oscar
b. 1986 Colombia, lives and works in London

102. MUTU, Wangechi
b. 1972 Kenya, lives and works in New York

103. NAM, Hwayeon
b. 1979 South Korea, lives and works in Seoul and Berlin

104. NAUMAN, Bruce
b. 1941 United States, lives and works in New Mexico

105. NDIAYE, Cheikh
b. 1970 Senegal, lives and works in New York, Dakar and Lyon

106. NICOLAI, Olaf
b. 1962 Germany, lives and works in Berlin

107. OFILI, Chris
b. 1968 United Kingdom, lives and works in Trinidad

108. OGBOH, Emeka
b. 1977 Nigeria, lives and works in Lagos and Berlin

109. PARRENO, Philippe
b. 1964 France, lives and works in Paris

110. PASCALI, Pino
b. 1935 - d. 1968, Italy

111. PIPER, Adrian [video]
b. 1948 United States, lives and works in Berlin

112. PONIFASIO, Lemi [video]
b. 1964 Samoa, lives and works in Auckland

113. QIU, Zhijie [video]
b. 1969 China, lives and works in Beijing

114. RAISSNIA, Raha
b. 1968 Iran, lives and works in New York

115. RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE
(NARULA, Monica; BAGCHI, Jeebesh; SENGUPTA, Shuddhabrata)
a collective founded 1992 India, based in New Delhi

116. REYNAUD-DEWAR, Lili
b. 1975 France, lives and works in Grenoble

117. RIDNYI, Mykola
b. 1985 Ukraine, lives and works in Kharkiv

118. ROBERTS, Liisa
b. 1969 France, lives and works in Helsinki and Saint Petersburg

119. ROTTENBERG, Mika
b. 1976 Argentina, lives and works in New York

120. SCHÖNFELDT, Joachim
b. 1958 South Africa, lives and works in Johannesburg

121. SELMANI, Massinissa
b. 1980 Algeria, lives and works in Algiers and Tours

122. SENGHOR, Fatou Kandé
b 1971 Senegal, lives and works in Dakar

123. SIBONY, Gedi
b. 1973 United States, lives and works in New York

124. SIMMONS, Gary
b. 1964 United States, lives and works in New York

125. SIMON, Taryn
b. 1975 United States, lives and works in New York

126. SIMPSON, Lorna
b. 1960 United States, lives and works in New York

127. SMITHSON, Robert
b. 1938 - d. 1973, United States

128. SUBOTZKY, Mikhael
b. 1981 South Africa, lives and works in Johannesburg

129. SUHAIL, Mariam
b. 1979 Pakistan, lives and works in Bengaluru

130. SZE, Sarah
b. 1969 United States, lives and works in New York

131. THE PROPELLER GROUP
a collective founded 2006 Vietnam/US, live and work in Ho Chi Minh City

132. the TOMORROW
a journal founded 2014 Italy, based in Milan

133. TIRAVANIJA, Rirkrit
b. 1961 Thailand, lives and works in New York, Berlin and Chiang Mai

134. TOGUO, Barthélémy [video]
b. 1967 Cameroon, lives and works in Paris and Bandjoun

135. XU, Bing
b. 1955 China, lives and works in Beijing

136. YOUNIS, Ala
b. 1974 Jordan, lives and works in Amman



NATIONAL PARTICIPATIONS

ALBANIA
Albanian Trilogy: A Series of Devious Stratagems
Armando Lulaj
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curator: Marco Scotini. Deputy Curator: Andris Brinkmanis. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
www.albanianpavilion.org

ANDORRA
Inner Landscapes. Confrontations
Roqué, Joan Xandri
Commissioner: Henry Périer. Deputy Commissioner: Joana Baygual, Sebastià Petit, Francesc Rodríguez
Curator: Paolo de Grandis, Josep M. Ubach. Venue: Spiazzi, Castello 3865
www.andorra-biennal.ad

ANGOLA
On Ways of Travelling
António Ole, Binelde Hyrcan, Délio Jasse, Francisco Vidal, Nelo Teixeira
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Rita Guedes Tavares. Curator: António Ole. Deputy Curator: Antonia Gaeta. Venue: Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello - Palazzo Pisani, San Marco 2810

ARGENTINA
The Uprising of Form
Juan Carlos Diste ́fano
Commissioner: Magdalena Faillace. Curator: Mari ́a Teresa Constantin. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi

ARMENIA, Republic of (open until 3 November)
Armenity / Haiyutioun. Contemporary Artists from the Armenian Diaspora [video]
Haig Aivazian, Lebanon; Nigol Bezjian, Syria/USA; Anna Boghiguian Egypt/Canada; Hera Büyüktasçiyan, Turkey; Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Argentina/Germany; Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas, Iran/Palestine/USA; Mekhitar Garabedian, Belgium; Aikaterini Gegisian, Greece; Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, Italy; Aram Jibilian, USA; Nina Katchadourian, USA/Finland; Melik Ohanian, France; Mikayel Ohanjanyan, Armenia/Italy; Rosana Palazyan, Brazil; Sarkis, Turkey/France; Hrair Sarkissian, Syria/UK
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia. Deputy Commissioner: Art for the World Europa, Mekhitarist Congregation of San Lazzaro Island, Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Italy, Vartan Karapetian. Curator: Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg. Venue: Monastery and Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni
www.armenity.net

AUSTRALIA
Fiona Hall: Wrong Way Time [video]
Fiona Hall
Commissioner: Simon Mordant AM. Deputy Commissioner: Charles Green. Curator: Linda Michael. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.australiacouncil.gov.au

AUSTRIA
Heimo Zobernig
Commissioner: Yilmaz Dziewior. Curator: Yilmaz Dziewior. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.austrianpavilion.at

AZERBAIJAN, Republic of
Beyond the Line
Ashraf Murad, Javad Mirjavadov, Tofik Javadov, Rasim Babayev, Fazil Najafov, Huseyn Hagverdi, Shamil Najafzada
Commissioner: Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Curators: de Pury de Pury, Emin Mammadov. Venue: Palazzo Lezze, Campo S.Stefano, San Marco 2949

Vita Vitale
Edward Burtynsky, Mircea Cantor, Loris Cecchini, Gordon Cheung, Khalil Chishtee, Tony Cragg, Laura Ford, Noemie Goudal, Siobhán Hapaska, Paul Huxley, IDEA laboratory and Leyla Aliyeva, Chris Jordan with Rebecca Clark and Helena S.Eitel, Tania Kovats, Aida Mahmudova, Sayyora Muin, Jacco Olivier, Julian Opie, Julian Perry, Mike Perry, Bas Princen, Stephanie Quayle, Ugo Rondinone, Graham Stevens, Diana Thater, Andy Warhol, Bill Woodrow, Erwin Wurm, Rose Wylie
Commissioner: Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Curators: Artwise: Susie Allen, Laura Culpan, Dea Vanagan. Venue: Ca’ Garzoni, San Marco 3416

BELARUS, Republic of (open until 14 September)
War Witness Archive
Konstantin Selikhanov
Commissioner: Natallia Sharanhovich. Deputy Commissioners: Alena Vasileuskaya, Kamilia Yanushkevich. Curators: Aleksei Shinkarenko, Olga Rybchinskaya. Scientific Committee: Dmitry Korol, Daria Amelkovich, Julia Kondratyuk, Sergei Jeihala, Sheena Macfarlane, Yuliya Heisik, Hanna Samarskaya, Taras Kaliahin, Aliaksandr Stasevich. Venue: Riva San Biagio, Castello 2145

BELGIUM
Personnes et les autres: Vincent Meessen and Guests
Vincent Meessen and Guests, Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sammy Baloji, James Beckett, Elisabetta Benassi, Patrick Bernier & Olive Martin, Tamar Guimara~es & Kasper Akhøj, Maryam Jafri, Adam Pendleton
Commissioner: Wallonia-Brussels Federation and Wallonia-Brussels International. Curator: Katerina Gregos. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.personne-et-les-autres.be

BRAZIL
So much that it doesn't fit here [video]
Antonio Manuel, André Komatsu, Berna Reale
Commissioner: Luis Terepins. Curator: Luiz Camillo Osorio. Deputy Curator: Cauê Alves. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.bienal.org.br

CANADA
Canadassimo [video]
BGL art collective - Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère, Nicolas Laverdière
Commissioner: National Gallery of Canada, Marc Mayer. Yves Théoret. Curator: Marie Fraser. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.gallery.ca/venice

CHILE
Poéticas de la disidencia | Poetics of dissent: Paz Errázuriz - Lotty Rosenfeld
Paz Errázuriz, Lotty Rosenfeld
Commissioner: Antonio Arèvalo. Deputy Commissioner: Juan Pablo Vergara Undurraga. Curator: Nelly Richard. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
www.bienalvenecia.cl

CHINA, People’s Republic of
Other Future
LIU Jiakun, LU Yang, TAN Dun, WEN Hui/Living Dance Studio, WU Wenguang/Caochangdi Work Station
Commissioner: China Arts and Entertainment Group, CAEG. Deputy Commissioners: Zhang Yu, Yan Dong. Curator: Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Giardino delle Vergini
other.future.bcaf.org.cn

CROATIA
Studies on Shivering: The Third Degree
Damir Ocko
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Nevena Tudor Perkovic. Curator: Marc Bembekoff. Venue: Palazzo Pisani, S. Marina

CUBA
El artista entre la individualidad y el contexto
Lida Abdul, Celia-Yunior, Grethell Rasúa, Giuseppe Stampone, LinYilin, Luis Edgardo Gómez Armenteros, Olga Chernysheva, Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo
Commissioner: Miria Vicini. Curators: Jorge Fernández Torres, Giacomo Zaza. Venue: San Servolo Island
www.venicebiennalecuba.com

CYPRUS, Republic of
Two Days After Forever
Christodoulos Panayiotou
Commissioner: Louli Michaelidou. Curator: Omar Kholeif. Deputy Curator: Daniella Rose King. Venue: Palazzo Malipiero, Sestiere San Marco 3079
www.cyprusinvenice.org

CZECH Republic and SLOVAK Republic
Apotheosis
Jirí David
Commissioner: Adam Budak. Deputy Commissioner: Barbara Holomkova. Curator: Katarina Rusnakova. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.czechandslovakpavilion.cz

DENMARK
Danh Vo
Commissioner: The Danish Arts Foundation Committee for Visual Arts Project Funding: Gitte Ørskou (chair), Claus Andersen, Bodil Nielsen, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Jacob Tækker. Curator: Marianne Torp and Tine Vindfeld. Deputy Curator: Amy Zion. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.danishpavilion.org

ECUADOR
Gold Water: Apocalyptic Black Mirrors
Maria Veronica Leon Veintemilla
Commissioner: Andrea Gonzàlez Sanchez. Deputy Commissioner: Paolo De Grandis. Curator: Ileana Cornea. Deputy Curator: Maria Veronica Leon Veintemilla. Venue: Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello 3701

EGYPT
CAN YOU SEE?
Ahmed Abdel Fatah, Gamal Elkheshen, Maher Dawoud
Commissioner: Hany Al Ashkar. Curator: Ministry of Culture. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.biennalevenezia-egypt.com

ESTONIA
Not Suitable For Work. A Chairman’s Tale
Jaanus Samma
Commissioner: Maria Arusoo. Deputy Commissioner: Rebeka Põldsam. Curator: Eugenio Viola. Venue: Palazzo Malipiero, Campo San Samuele, San Marco 3199

FINLAND (Pavilion Alvar Aalto)
Hours, Years, Aeons
IC-98
Commissioner: Raija Koli. Curator: Taru Elfving. Deputy Curator: Anna Virtanen. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.frame-finland.fi/en/venice-biennale

FRANCE
rêvolutions [video]
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
Commissioner: Institut Français, with Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Curator: Emma Lavigne. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.institutfrancais.com

GEORGIA
Crawling Border
Rusudan Khizanishvili, Irakli Bluishvili, Dimitri Chikvaidze, Joseph Sabia, Ia Liparteliani, Nia Mgaloblishvili, Sophio Shevardnadze
Commissioner: Ana Riaboshenko. Deputy Commissioner: George Aptsiauri. Curator: Nia Mgaloblishvili. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi

GERMANY
Fabrik [video]
Jasmina Metwaly / Philip Rizk, Olaf Nicolai, Hito Steyerl, Tobias Zielony
Commissioner: ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. Deputy Commissioner: Elke aus dem Moore, Nina Hülsmeier. Curator: Florian Ebner. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.deutscher-pavillon.org

GREAT BRITAIN
Sarah Lucas [video]
Commissioner: Emma Dexter. Curator: Richard Riley. Deputy Curator: Katrina Schwarz. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org

GRENADA *
Present Nearness [video]
Oliver Benoit, Maria McClafferty, Asher Mains, Francesco Bosso and Carmine Ciccarini, Giuseppe Linardi, Susan Mains
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curators: Susan Mains, Francesco Elisei. Venue: Opera don Orione Artigianelli, Sala Tiziano, Fondamenta delle Zattere ai Gesuati, Dorsoduro 919

GREECE
Why Look at Animals? AGRIMIKÁ.
Maria Papadimitriou
Commissioner: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs. Curator: Gabi Scardi. Deputy Curator: Alexios Papazacharias. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
greeceatvenice.culture.gr

GUATEMALA
Sweet Death
Sabrina Bertolelli, Mariadolores Castellanos, Max Leiva, Pier Domenico Magri, Adriana Montalto, Elmar Rojas (Elmar René Rojas Azurdia), Paolo Schmidlin, Mónica Serra, Elsie Wunderlich, Collettivo La Grande Bouffe
Commissioner: Daniele Radini Tedeschi. Curators: Stefania Pieralice, Carlo Marraffa, Elsie Wunderlich. Deputy Curators: Luciano Carini, Simone Pieralice. Venue: Officina delle Zattere, Dorsoduro 947, Fondamenta Nani
www.biennaleguatemala.com

HOLY SEE
In Principio... la parola si fece carne
Commissioner: Em.mo Card. Gianfranco Ravasi, Presidente del Pontificio Consiglio della Cultura. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi

HUNGARY
Sustainable Identities
Szilárd Cseke
Commissioner: Monika Balatoni. Curator: Kinga German. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.sustainableidentities.com

ICELAND
The Mosque
Project by Christoph Büchel in collaboration with the Muslim community of Iceland and Muslim community of Venice, Italy
Commissioner: Björg Stefánsdóttir. Curator: Nína Magnúsdóttir. Venue: Santa Maria della Misericordia, Campo de l'Abazia, Cannaregio 3548/49
www.mosque.is

INDONESIA, Republic of
Voyage Trokomod
Heri Dono
Commissioner: Sapta Nirwandar. Deputy Commissioner: Soedarmadji JH Damais. Curator: Carla Bianpoen, Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum. Scientific Committee: Franco Laera, Asmudjo Jono Irianto, Watie Moerany, Elisabetta di Mambro. Venue: Venue: Arsenale
www.indonesiavenice.com

IRAN
Iranian Highlights
Samira Alikhanzaradeh, Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar, Jamshid Bayrami, Mohammed Ehsai

The Great Game
Lida Abdul, Bani Abidi, Adel Abidin, Amin Agheai, Ghodratollah Agheli, Shahriar Ahmadi, Parastou Ahovan, Farhad Ahrarnia, Rashad Alakbarov, Furat al Jamil, Nazgol Ansarinia, Reza Aramesh, Alireza Astaneh, Sonia Balassanian, Mahmoud Bakhshi Moakhar, Wafaa Bilal, Mehdi Farhadian, Shadi Ghadirian, Shilpa Gupta, Ghasem Hajizadeh, Shamsia Hassani, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sitara Ibrahimova, Pouran Jinchi, Amar Kanwar, Babak Kazemi, Ryas Komu, Farideh Lashai, Farokh Mahdavi, Ahmad Morshedloo, Mehrdad Mohebali, Huma Mulji, Azad Nanakeli, Jamal Penjweny, Imran Qureshi, Sara Rahbar, Rashid Rana, Atefeh Samaei, T.V. Santhosh, Walid Siti, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Mohsen Taasha Wahidi, Mitra Tabrizian, Parviz Tanavoli, Newsha Tavakolian, Sadegh Tirafkan, Hema Upadhyay, Saira Wasim
Commissioner: Majid Mollanooruzi. Deputy Commissioner: Marco Meneguzzo, Mazdak Faiznia. Curators: Marco Meneguzzo, Mazdak Faiznia. Venue: Calle San Giovanni 1074/B, Cannaregio

IRAQ
Invisible Beauty
Latif Al Ani, Salam Atta Sabri, Rabab Ghazoul, Haider Jabbar, Akam Shex Hadi
Commissioner: Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Iraq (RUYA). Deputy Commissioner: Nuova Icona - Associazione Culturale per le Arti. Curator: Philippe Van Cauteren. Venue: Ca' Dandolo, San Polo 2879

IRELAND
Adventure: Capital
Sean Lynch
Commissioner: Mike Fitzpatrick. Curator: Woodrow Kernohan. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
www.adventure-capital.ie

ISRAEL
Tsibi Geva | Archeology of the Present
Tsibi Geva
Commissioner: Arad Turgem, Michael Gov. Curator: Hadas Maor. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.israelipavilion2015.tsibigeva.com

ITALY
Codice Italia
Alis/Filliol, Andrea Aquilanti, Francesco Barocco, Vanessa Beecroft, Antonio Biasiucci, Giuseppe Caccavale, Paolo Gioli, Jannis Kounellis, Nino Longobardi, Marzia Migliora, Luca Monterastelli, Mimmo Paladino, Claudio Parmiggiani, Nicola Samorì, Aldo Tambellini
Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo - Direzione Generale Arte e Architettura Contemporanee e Periferie Urbane. Commissioner: Federica Galloni. Curator: Vincenzo Trione. Venue: Padiglione Italia, Tese delle Vergini at Arsenale
www.codiceitalia2015.com

JAPAN
The Key in the Hand [video]
Chiharu Shiota
Commissioner: The Japan Foundation. Curator: Hitoshi Nakano. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
2015.veneziabiennale-japanpavilion.jp

KOREA, Republic of
The Ways of Folding Space & Flying [video]
MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho
Commissioner: Sook-Kyung Lee. Curator: Sook-Kyung Lee. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.koreanpavilion2015.com

KOSOVO, Republic of
Speculating on the blue
Flaka Haliti
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. Curator: Nicolaus Schafhausen. Deputy Curator: Katharina Schendl. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
www.kosovopavilion.com

LATVIA
Armpit
Katrina Neiburga, Andris Eglitis
Commissioner: Solvita Krese (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art). Deputy Commissioner: Kitija Vasiljeva. Curator: Kaspars Vanags. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
www.armpit.lv

RUSSIA
The Green Pavilion [video]
Irina Nakhova
Commissioner: Stella Kesaeva. Curator: Margarita Tupitsyn. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.ruspavilion.ru

SAN MARINO
Repubblica di San Marino “ Friendship Project “ China
Xu De Qi, Liu Ruo Wang, Ma Yuan, Li Lei, Zhang Hong Mei, Eleonora Mazza, Giovanni Giulianelli, Giancarlo Frisoni, Tony Margiotta, Elisa Monaldi, Valentina Pazzini
Commissioner: Istituti Culturali della Repubblica di San Marino. Curator: Vincenzo Sanfo. Venues: Ateneo Veneto San Marco, 1987 - Telecom Italia Future Centre San Marco, 4826 Campo San Salvador - Palazzo Rota Ivancich Castello, 4421 - Scuola dei Mercanti, Cannaregio, Campo Madonna dell’Orto

SERBIA
United Dead Nations
Ivan Grubanov
Commissioner: Lidija Merenik. Deputy Commissioner: Ana Bogdanovic. Curator: Lidija Merenik. Deputy Curator: Ana Bogdanovic. Scientific Committee: Jovan Despotovic. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
eng.msub.org.rs/serbian-pavilion-at-56th-la-biennale-di-venezia
SEYCHELLES, Republic of *
A Clockwork Sunset
George Camille, Léon Wilma Loïs Radegonde
Commissioner: Seychelles Art Projects Foundation. Curators: Sarah J. McDonald, Victor Schaub Wong. Venue: European Cultural Centre - Palazzo Mora
www.seychellesartprojects.org

SINGAPORE
Sea State
Charles Lim Yi Yong
Commissioner: Paul Tan, National Arts Council, Singapore. Curator: Shabbir Hussain Mustafa. Scientific Committee: Eugene Tan, Kathy Lai, Ahmad Bin Mashadi, June Yap, Emi Eu, Susie Lingham, Charles Merewether, Randy Chan. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
seastate.sg/venice-biennale-2015

SLOVENIA, Republic of
UTTER / the violent necessity for the embodied presence of hope
JAŠA
Commissioner: Simona Vidmar, UGM I Maribor Art Gallery. Deputy Commissioner: Rosa Lux, WEARE Production. Curators: Michele Drascek and Aurora Fonda. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale - Artiglierie
www.utter-project.net

SPAIN
The Subjects [video]
Pepo Salazar, Cabello/Carceller, Francesc Ruiz and Salvador Dalí
Commissioner: Ministerio Asuntos Exteriores. Gobierno de España. Curator: Marti Manen. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.accioncultural.es

SOUTH AFRICA
What Remains Is Tomorrow
Willem Boshoff; Angus Gibson, Gerald Machona, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Mark Lewis, Mohau Modisakeng, Nandipha Mntambo, Brett Murray; Jo Ractliffe, Robin Rhode, Warrick Sony, Diane Victor, Jeremy Wafer
Commissioner: CG Saul Molobi Consul General South Africa. Deputy Commissioner: Ilaria Casati.
Curators: Christopher Till, Jeremy Rose
Venue: Arsenale - Sale d’Armi
thesouthafricanpavilion.co.za

SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC
Origini della civiltà
Narine Ali, Ehsan Alar, Felipe Cardeña, Fouad Dahdouh, Aldo Damioli, Svitlana Grebenyuk, Mauro Reggio, Liu Shuishi, Nass ouh Zaghlouleh, Andrea Zucchi, Helidon Xhixha
Commissioner: Christian Maretti. Curator: Duccio Trombadori. Venue: Redentore – Giudecca, San Servolo Island

SWEDEN
Lina Selander. Excavation of the Image: Imprint, Shadow, Spectre, Thought
Lina Selander
Commissioner: Ann-Sofi Noring. Curator: Lena Essling. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale

SWITZERLAND
Our Product
Pamela Rosenkranz
Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Sandi Paucic and Marianne Burki. Deputy-Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Rachele Giudici Legittimo. Curator: Susanne Pfeffer. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.biennials.ch

THAILAND
Earth, Air, Fire & Water
Kamol Tassananchalee
Commissioner: Chai Nakhonchai, Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC), Ministry of Culture. Curator: Richard David Garst. Deputy Curator: Pongdej Chaiyakut. Venue: Paradiso Gallerie, Giardini della Biennale, Castello 1260

TURKEY
Respiro
Sarkis
Commissioner: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Curator: Defne Ayas. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d’Armi
turkiyepavyonu15.iksv.org

TUVALU
Crossing the Tide
Vincent J.F. Huang
Commissioner: Taukelina Finikaso. Deputy Commissioner: Temate Melitiana. Curator: Thomas J. Berghuis. Scientific Committee: Andrea Bonifacio. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
www.tuvalupavilion.com

UKRAINE (open until 31 July)
Hope!
Yevgenia Belorusets, Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Mykola Ridnyi & SerhiyZhadan, Anna Zvyagintseva, Open Group, Artem Volokitin
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture. Curator: Björn Geldhof. Venue: Riva dei Sette Martiri
pinchukartcentre.org/en/biennale2015

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates
Abdullah Al Saadi, Abdul Qader Al Rais, Abdulraheem Salim, Abdulrahman Zainal, Ahmed Al Ansari, Ahmed Sharif, Hassan Sharif, Mohamed Yousif, Mohammed Abdullah Bulhiah, Mohammed Al Qassab, Mohammed Kazem, Moosa Al Halyan, Najat Meky, Obaid Suroor, Salem Jawhar
Commissioner: Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation. Curator: Hoor Al Qasimi. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale – Sale d'Armi
nationalpavilionuae.org

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Joan Jonas: They Come to Us Without a Word [video]
Joan Jonas
Commissioner: Paul C. Ha. Deputy Commissioner: MIT List Visual Arts Center. Curators: Ute Meta Bauer, Paul C. Ha. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
joanjonasvenice2015.com

URUGUAY
Global Myopia II (Pencil & Paper)
Marco Maggi
Commissioner: Ricardo Pascale. Curator: Patricia Bentancour. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini
www.marcomaggi.org

VENEZUELA, Bolivarian Republic of
Te doy mi palabra (I give you my word)
Argelia Bravo, Félix Molina (Flix)
Commissioner: Oscar Sotillo Meneses. Deputy Commissioner: Reinaldo Landaeta Díaz. Curator: Oscar Sotillo Meneses. Deputy Curator: Morella Jurado. Venue: Pavilion at Giardini

ZIMBABWE, Republic of
Pixels of Ubuntu/Unhu: Exploring all the different facets of social, physical and cultural identities of our contemporary societies from the past, present and future
Chikonzero Chazunguza, Masimba Hwati, Gareth Nyandoro
Commissioner: Doreen Sibanda. Curators: Raphael Chikukwa, Tafadzwa Gwetai. Scientific Committee: Saki Mafundikwa, Biggie Samwanda, Fabian Kangai, Reverend Paul Damasane, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Stephen Garan'anga, Dominic Benhura. Venue: Santa Maria della Pietà

ITALO-LATIN AMERICAN INSTITUTE
Voces Indígenas
Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal. Curator: Alfons Hug. Deputy Curator: Alberto Saraiva. Venue: Pavilion at Arsenale
www.iila.org
ARGENTINA
Sofia Medici and Laura Kalauz
PLURINATIONAL STATE OF BOLIVIA
Sonia Falcone and José Laura Yapita
BRAZIL
Adriana Barreto
Paulo Nazareth
CHILE
Rainer Krause
COLOMBIA
León David Cobo,
María Cristina Rincón and Claudia Rodríguez
COSTA RICA
Priscilla Monge
ECUADOR
Fabiano Kueva
EL SALVADOR
Mauricio Kabistan
GUATEMALA
Sandra Monterroso
HAITI
Barbara Prézeau Stephenson
HONDURAS
Leonardo González
PANAMA
Humberto Vélez
NICARAGUA
Raúl Quintanilla
PARAGUAY
Erika Meza
Javier López
PERU
José Huamán Turpo
URUGUAY
Gustavo Tabares
Ellen Slegers


COLLATERAL EVENTS

001 Inverso Mundus. AES+F
The medieval engraving Inverso Mundus depicts a pig gutting the butcher, a child punishing its teacher, a man carrying a donkey on his back, men and women exchanging roles and costumes, and a beggar in rags majestically giving alms to a rich man. In this engraving there are demons, chimeras, fish flying through the sky, and death itself, either with a scythe, or behind the mask of Doctor Plague. In our interpretation of Inverso Mundus, absurd scenes of the medieval carnival appear as episodes of contemporary life. Characters act out scenes of absurd social utopias, changing their own masks. Metrosexual cleaners shower the city with debris. Women-inquisitors torture men on IKEA-style devices. Children and seniors are locked in a kickboxing match. Inverso Mundus is a world where chimeras are pets and the Apocalypse entertainment.
Magazzino del Sale n. 5, Dorsoduro, 262 - Fondamenta delle Zattere ai Saloni;
Palazzo Nani Mocenigo, Dorsoduro, 960 (Event closed)
May 7th – November 22nd
10:30 am - 6:30 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: VITRARIA Glass + A Museum
www.vitraria.com
www.inversomundus.com

Catalonia in Venice: Singularity
If today Raymond Williams were to decide on more entries for his celebrated text Keywords, he would surely include “singularity.” The term refers to the moment when artificial intelligences surpass human capacity and human control. In mathematics it describes a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined or “well-behaved,” for example, infinite or not differentiable. The filmmaker Albert Serra Juanola takes this notion as a point of departure in his new film. Serra’s cinema makes the statement that being aware of the world is not simply a result of the mind’s existence, but rather it is the mind in action. To link cinema with the singularity condition means to foster belief in the notion that thought, will, and imagination are not made of the same substance as the world, objects, and things, but of images, feelings, and ideas.
Cantieri Navali, Castello, 40 (Calle Quintavalle)
May 9th - November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: Institut Ramon Llull
www.llull.cat
http://venezia2015.llull.cat

Conversion. Recycle Group
This site-specific installation proposes that the globalization of information networks and the cult of new technologies are in some ways comparable to the historic conversion to Christianity. The Recycle Group frequently turns to history to illustrate topical issues and shocking aspects of contemporary lifestyle. Their sculptures and bas-reliefs in modern materials frequently take on the appearance of ancient monuments that display the ravages of time, like artifacts from some lost civilization. Although the forms and compositions of this project are influenced by traditional Christian iconography, they introduce contemporary motifs. Conversion proposes a parallel between the Christian enlightenment and the digital technological revolution where sacred knowledge formerly residing in the heavens is now located in the intangible space of “The Cloud.
Chiesa di Sant’Antonin, Castello (Campo Sant’Antonin)
May 6th - November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Tuesday
Organization: Moscow Museum of Modern Art
www.mmoma.ru

Country
An exhibition that is the result of Italian artist Giorgia Severi’s one-and-a-half-year stay in the Australian territories, in direct contact with the indigenous artist community. Her journey involved various stopovers in art spaces throughout the continent. Country is a melting pot of different cultures, its works an investigation into memory and tradition.
Deploying an array of media from handcrafts to sound art, we are invited to contemplate the volatile equilibrium between Humans and Nature.
Gervasuti Foundation Foundamentalis, Cannaregio, 4998 (Calle Lunga Santa Caterina)
May 9th - November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: Gervasuti Foundation
www.gervasutifoundation.com
www.project-australia.blogspot.com

Dansaekhwa
Dansaekhwa describes a Korean art form and movement that arose in the early 1970s and continued through the ’80s. Although Dansaekhwa can be understood as sharing similarities with Western monochrome art and minimalism, it is distinct from both in terms of its historical background, aesthetic practice, and underlying social criticism. Dansaekhwa articulates a painterly flexibility and affinity by removing the excess of color. Brushing, plucking, scratching at paint, and pushing oil paints through the back of the canvas is a physical act, appearing as an element and important performance of the production process, and making painting unpredictable. The background of Dansaekhwa is seminal elements considering constantly changing aesthetic values and the ongoing history of activism and political critique reflecting social phenomena.
Palazzo Contarini-Polignac, Dorsoduro, 874 (Accademia)
May 8th – August 15th
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: The Boghossian Foundation
www.venice-dansaekhwa.com

Dispossession
Organized by the city of Wroclaw, the 2016 European Capital of Culture, the exhibition takes as its departure point the city’s post- War history of displacements. Stemming from this historical context, it explores contemporary dimensions of displacements, of loss of home and seeking a refuge in a new, often hostile, foreign place. Artists from Poland, Ukraine, and Germany are guided by the recognition of a universal and atemporal dimension of dispossession and its psychological and material manifestations. Dispossession, pertaining to both deprivation and exorcism, hints at a distinction between “our,” “one’s own,” and an unwelcomed “other.” It is in this loss and desire for belonging that we analyze a complex relationship between space and identity.
Palazzo Donà Brusa, Campo San Polo, 2177
May 7th - November 22nd
10:30 am - 6:30 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016
http://wroclaw2016.pl/biennale/

EM15 presents Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf
The Leisure Principle is the curatorial theme driving EM15’s premiere presentation at la Biennale and manifests through two newly commissioned artistic outputs: Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf, a fully playable, artist-designed miniature golf course which visitors are invited to play, and Sunscreen (www.sun-screen.uk), an online project which explores the blurred space that exists between work and leisure. The Leisure Principle considers the concept of tourism and trade as a metaphor to explore current global economic complexities through one of the defining principles of leisure—that of consumption and how this consumption shapes our identity. EM15 is a collective from the East Midlands, UK, and comprises Beacon Art Project, One Thoresby Street, QUAD, and New Art Exchange in association with Nottingham Trent University.
Arsenale Docks, Castello, 40A, 40B, 41C
May 6th - July 26th
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: EM15
www.em15venice.co.uk

Eredità e Sperimentazione
This event develops through the representation of a decorative process created by the English artist Joe Tilson involving an undecorated facade of the Art Nouveau building of the Grande Hotel Ausonia & Hungaria on the Venice Lido. There is a day vision with material and three-dimensional instruments and a night vision with video media instruments. Night vision: a multimedia representation with a projection of the proposed decoration for a facade of the hotel. Day vision: two didactic exhibitions with pieces built to scale. Outside, in the garden, there is a 12-square-meter structure with Murano glass tiles and structural support, the prototype of the coating that will be put in place on the wall. Next to the lobby of the hotel, in the historic Meeting Hall, there is an exhibition of historical documents, sketches, paintings by the artist, and plans.
Grand Hotel Hungaria & Ausonia, Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, 28, Lido di Venezia
May 9th - November 22nd
Organization: Istituto Nazionale di BioArchitettura - Sezione di Padova
www.bioarchitettura.it
www.ereditaesperimentazione.org

Frontiers Reimagined
The phenomenon of globalization, where cultures are colliding and melding as never before, offers rich and complex sources of inspiration for artists. Frontiers Reimagined examines the results of these cultural entanglements through the work of forty-four painters, sculptors, photographers, and installation artists who are exploring the notion of cultural boundaries. These emerging and established artists—who come from a vast geographical landscape stretching from the West to Asia to Africa—share a truly global perspective, both in their physical existence, living and working between cultures, and their artistic endeavors. Each demonstrates the intellectual and aesthetic richness that emerges when artists engage in intercultural dialogue.
Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Castello, 4858 (Ramo Grimani)
May 9th - November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: Tagore Foundation International; Soprintendenza speciale per il patrimonio storico, artistico ed etnoantropologico e per il polo museale della città di Venezia e dei comuni della Gronda lagunare
www.frontiersreimagined.org

Glasstress Gotika
The exhibition presents contemporary art works made in glass, all with a Gothic theme, by over fifty invited artists from more than twenty countries who have created works with the glass maestros of Murano. These works are juxtaposed with medieval glass artifacts chosen from the permanent collection of The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, one of the oldest and most celebrated museums in the world. Glasstress Gotika explores how medieval ideas have imperceptibly crept into the modern consciousness despite all the technological advances of today’s society and how the Gothic concept informs contemporary art.
Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, San Marco, 2847 (Campo Santo Stefano); Fondazione Berengo, Campiello della Pescheria, 15, Murano
May 9th — November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm open daily, admission with fee
Organization: The State Hermitage Museum
www.hermitagemuseum.org
www.glasstress.org

Graham Fagen: Scotland + Venice 2015
The ambition of Fagen’s work and the complexity of his vocabulary positions him as one of the most influential artists working in Scotland today. He draws on a fascination for poetry, specific musical forms, and theatrical artifice in order to focus on ideas of the national, social, and political. Working with writers, theater directors, musicians, and composers enables him to draw on expertise, knowledge, and specialisms outside of his own. In this new work, contributions from classical composer Sally Beamish, reggae singer and musician Ghetto Priest, and music producer Adrian Sherwood are clearly embedded, yet Fagen’s authorship is never distracted or eroded. Fagen’s installation draws the viewer on a journey, a choreographed route.
Palazzo Fontana, Cannaregio, 3829 (Strada Nova)
May 9th - November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Monday
Organization: Scotland + Venice
www.scotlandandvenice.com

Grisha Bruskin. An Archaeologist’s Collection
A journey to the future among the ruins of the Soviet Empire. A large installation of thirty- three sculptures that emerge from archaeological excavations inside an ancient church. They are the pseudoartifacts of a recent, perished civilization. For this project, Bruskin uses characters from his painting Fundamental’nyi leksikon (1985–1986), a collection of archetypes from the USSR. He reproduces the figures life-size, then destroys the sculptures, gathers the fragments, and casts them in bronze. He then buries them in Tuscany for three years alongside the already buried ruins of the Roman Empire. He finally digs them out, and now the statues emerge from the cloudy waters in which Venice lies. Various perished empires meet in the present.
Former Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Cannaregio, 4941-4942
May 7th – November 22nd
10 am - 6 pm, closed on Tuesday
Organization: Centro Studi sulle Arti della Russia (CSAR), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
www.unive.it/csar