by massimiliano maccari
In the text accompanying the participation of Albania at the 54. Venice Biennale, Riccardo Caldura wonders if it still makes sense expecting arts to be a display for a nation’s public representation and if it is worth – in the real moment it is set – breaking through to discover what is hidden behind it. read more »
by zbyszek sypniewski
The Spanish presentations during the last editions of the Venice Biennale have been strongly connected with audience as an active participant and inseparable part of the projects. In this year’s edition the Spanish pavilion is curated by Katya García-Antón, director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, who has picked the artist Dora García to establish the intellectual and organizational core of the project untitled L’inadeguato / Lo Inadecuado / The Inadequate. read more »
by salvatore bellavia
The artist Lee Yongbaek, expressing from decades his poetic research through new media, presents in the Korean pavilion at the 54 Venice Biennale a group of works in progress, based on the surprise effect, sociopolitical contents and a Buddhist sense for the universe. read more »
by orsola mileti
After having presented two years ago The Collectors (a transnational collective show curated by Elmgreen & Dragset) at the Venice Biennale, the Danish Arts Council Committee has chosen for this year’s edition to pursue its research on the reviewal of the concept of national representativeness, hosting – following a competition of five curators, all foreigners – the curatorial project by Katerina Gregos (with a Greek background, based in Brussels) with the title Speech Matters. read more »
by salvatore bellavia
Crystal of Resistance is another amazing “cave” by Thomas Hirschhorn.
Visitors can enter the Swiss pavilion, discovering it entirely covered – as a contemporary horror vacui representation – with the usual materials of the artist’s temporary large-scale installations: plastic chairs and other plastic items, cardboard and cans, aluminium foil, bottles and glass slivers. read more »
by salvatore bellavia
At the 54th Venice Biennial, the US pavilion is “protected” by a full size tank, literally turned upside down, with a treadmill fixed to one of its tracks, where at intervals an athlete performs his run. Overturning with entertaining, yet sharp irony the conventional meaning and function of symbols and devices of power, defusing them through an interdisciplinary artistic language, is a specific feature of the works by Allora & Calzadilla, who present – in association with the Exhibition Commissioner, Lisa Freiman, senior curator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art – apart from the tank Track and Field, five other new works for the exhibition project Gloria. read more »
by rossella caruso
Christian Boltanski’s recurring subjects are parts of the complex installation – conceived for the 54. Venice Biennale and curated by Honorary Director of Centre Pompidou, Jean-Hubert Martin, selected by the artist himself – which consists in three parts and reflects on the ambiguous idea of fate: Chance comprises both the indefiniteness of human existence and the opportunities everybody happens to have. read more »
by zbyszek sypniewski
This year’s Polish pavilion went political (yet controversial) taking on board the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana. The project …and Europe will be stunned is both unusual and courageous, not only because of an unprecedented non-Polish nationality of the artist, but primarily due to an entirely new approach to the Polish-Jewish relations taking even more universal context of cultural and religious integration. read more »
