Matino

4th June – 27th November 2011
Giardini of Arsenale

This morning there has been the meeting between the new Director of the 54th International Art Exhibition, Bice Curiger, and the representatives of the countries invited to attend the event, among which for the first time there are Andorra, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Rwanda, as well as Congo and India. Bice Curiger, curator of the upcoming Biennale of Art is an art historian, critic and curator of exhibitions at international level and she has gained a deep understanding and respect in the world of artists.

Among the several institutional roles of Bice Curiger we must remember, above all, that she was curator at the Kunsthaus Zurich, one of the world’s leading museums for modern and contemporary art, co-founder and chief editor of “Parkett”, a magazine of contemporary art among the most influential and innovative in the world, and editorial director of the magazine “Tate etc” of the Tate Gallery in London. She is also the author of various publications and catalogs of contemporary art.

The 54th International Art Exhibition will take place from 4th June to 27th November 2011 at the Giardini of Arsenale (vernissage, 1st 2nd and 3rd June 2011), as well as in other venues in Venice. Since the Biennale is one of the most important forum for knowledge and “enlightenment” of the new developments of international art, the title chosen by Bice Curiger for the 54th Art Exhibition is “ILLUMInations”, as it will be focused on the importance of these developments in a globalized world.

The work of the Venetian painter Tintoretto will play an important symbolic role in ILLUMInations, because, as the same curator explained, we can find “in many contemporary art artists the same quest for light, at once rational and feverish, which animates some of the works of late Tintoretto, and the anxiety of a strong relationship with the viewer”. The presence of Tintoretto will be useful, then, to establish an artistic, historical and emotional relationship with Venice.

In order to strengthen the sense of unity between the International Exhibition and the National Participations, the new Director of the Biennale of Art has also decided to ask 5 questions to the artists of all countries, as well as the artists of ILLUMInations, who will have to answer by means of their works:

Where do you feel at “home”?

Does the future speak English or which other language?

Is the community of art a “country”?

How many other countries do you feel inside you?

If art were a country, what would be written in its Constitution?

surece: http://www.venezia.net