Open to the public Venice Biennale 58th International Art Exhibition entitled “May You Live In Interesting Times” (11 May – 24 November 2019) chaired by Paolo Baratta.
«The title of this Exhibition can be read as a sort of curse – declared the President Paolo Baratta – in which the expression “interesting times” evokes the idea of challenging and even threatening times. But it can also be an invitation to always see and consider the course of human events in their complexity, an invitation therefore that seems particularly important to us in times in which too often an excess of simplification, generated by conformism or fear, prevails. And I believe that an art exhibition is worth having in the first place if it intends to bring us before art and artists as a decisive challenge to all inclinations to oversimplification.
«Twenty years have gone by since the presentation, in these same rooms, of my first Exhibition - recalled the President - after the important reform of the Biennale in 1998. I can tell you that they have all been very interesting times. We responded with choices of 'openness' to the many critics who accused the Biennale with its 'country pavilions' of being out of fashion; those were years in which the praise of cosmopolitanism and globalization was in vogue. After twenty years today there are those who raise the doubt whether cosmopolitanism was also a way of exercising a sort of domination (soft power) by the dominant societies and economies.»
The exhibition divided into two parts sees Proposal A at the Arsenale and Proposal B at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, including 79 artists from all over the world. The works exhibited in the two venues, together with the atmosphere they evoke, are quite different, not so much because they develop around separate concepts or principles, but because they show different aspects of each artist's practice
Many of the works on display deal with the most worrying contemporary issues – explains Ralph Rugoff – from the acceleration of climate change to the resurgence of nationalist programs around the world, from the pervasive impact of social media to growing economic inequality. However, we must start from the assumption that art is more than mere documentation of the historical period in which it is made.
The show is flanked by 90 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic center of Venice. There are 4 countries present for the first time at the Biennale Arte: Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia and Pakistan. The Dominican Republic participates for the first time in the Biennale Arte with its own pavilion.
Il Italy Pavilion at the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale, supported and promoted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Directorate General for Contemporary Art and Architecture and Urban Peripheries, is entitled Néaltra Né questa. The Challenge of the Maze and is edited by Milovan
There are 21 Collateral Events admitted by the Curator and promoted by national and international non-profit bodies and institutions. Organized in numerous venues in the city of Venice, they offer a wide range of contributions and participations that enrich the pluralism of voices that characterizes the Exhibition.
Forte Marghera Special Project, Mestre goes to Ludovica Carbotta, among the artists present at the International Exhibition, she was invited by Ralph Rugoff for a specific intervention in Forte Marghera. Carbotta presents a new sculptural installation, Monowe (The Powder Room, 2019), which explores the ways in which the human imagination can unleash powerful emotions even without real imminent danger.
Special Project at the Applied Arts Pavilion, Arsenale, Sale d'Armi
For the fourth consecutive year, the collaboration between La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has made possible the Special Project of the Applied Arts Pavilion hosted in the Sale d'Armi of the Arsenale, jointly organized by the two institutions. Era ora is the title of the exhibition by Marysia Lewandowska, the artist selected by the curator of the Biennale Arte 2019, Ralph Rugoff.
The event program
Meetings on Art is the program of conversations, debates and performances that will take place throughout the opening period of the Exhibition and will see the protagonists of the exhibition dialogue with visitors to reveal something more about May You Live In Interesting Times. Lara Favaretto will discuss with art historian and curator Angela Vettese (June 14); Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Tomàs Saraceno, Margaret Wertheim and Anicka Yi will meet Ralph Rugoff in a
conversation on the relationship between art and technological, social and environmental issues (September 14 and 15). As part of the Special Project of the Applied Arts Pavilion, a symposium on Felicita Bevilacqua La Masa will be held (October 22). Finally, Paolo Baratta and Ralph Rugoff will meet the public on Sunday 24 November at the Teatro alle Tese of the Arsenale to discuss the legacy of the 2019 Art Biennale.
A rich program of performances during the opening weekend and the final days of the Exhibition will bring the spaces around the Biennale Gardens, the external areas and the internal spaces to life in episodes of various nature and duration. A series of performances with a daily schedule, will create a space dedicated to the unfolding of more concentrated narratives at the Teatro alle Tese and the Teatro Piccolo dell'Arsenale (artistic organization Aaron Cezar; with additional support from the Arts Council England and the Delfina Foundation).
In relation to the Thinking Head installation by Lara Favaretto in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini, and for the entire duration of the cloud of vapor that will rise in front of its facade, a series of "clandestine dialogues" will be held in round tables behind closed doors in the Arsenale , within a bunker-like performance space. Spectators are not expected, but the dialogues will be recorded and made available online on the Biennale website.
Biennale Sessions, the project for Universities
For the tenth consecutive year, La Biennale is dedicating the Biennale Sessions project to Universities, Academies and all institutions operating in research and training in the fields of the arts, architecture and related fields. The goal is to facilitate three-day visits organized by them for groups of at least 50 students and teachers, with the possibility of organizing seminars in exhibition venues offered free of charge and assistance in organizing travel and accommodation.
The Jury of this 2019 edition sees:
Stephanie Rosenthal (Germany), President of the Jury, is director of the Gropius Bau in Berlin, one of the main German public galleries dealing with contemporary art. You have curated numerous international solo and group exhibitions, as well as having held the position of artistic director of the Sydney Biennale in 2016.
Defne Ayas (Turkey/Netherlands) is artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale 2020 (together with Natasha Ginwala) and curator currently employed at the VAC Foundation in Moscow. You were director of the Witte de With Art Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (2012-2017); previously Ayas was curator of the Turkish Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
Christian Collu (Italy), is general manager of the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. Since 2012, she has been the director of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto and previously she directed the MAN_Museo d'Arte della Provincia di Nuoro.
Sunjung Kim (Korea) is a curator, currently President of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. For many years you directed the Art Sonje Center, one of the major contemporary art exhibition centers in Seoul, where you initiated the Real DMZ Project, working with artists from all over the world in the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
Hamza Walker (USA) After having been curator of the Renaissance Society of Chicago exhibitions for over twenty years, he currently holds the position of executive director of LAXART, an established non-profit exhibition space in Los Angeles. In 1999 he received the Norton Curatorial Grant and in 2004 the Walter Hopps Award. He was also awarded the Ordway Prize in 2010 for his work as a curator and essayist.
Cover photo: Ludovica Carbotta (Turin, 1982) exhibits the last work of the series Monowe in the former powder magazine of Forte Marghera, a XNUMXth-century fortress across the lagoon from Venice. Connecting to the metaphorical power of the site – a construction designed to protect the external environment from its explosive content – Carbotta presents a new sculptural installation on a warehouse shelving. Monowe (The Powder Room) (2019) explores the ways in which the human imagination can unleash powerful emotions even without real imminent danger.
