Displaying items by tag: Venice Biennale

The organizers of the Venice Biennale, which closed on Sunday (November 22), say that the 56th edition, which included 89 official national pavilions, drew more than 500,000 visitors. The last edition in 2013 attracted 475,000 people though it ran for a shorter period (June 1-November 24); this year’s event started three weeks earlier than usual, opening on May 9.

The high-profile artist duo Allora and Calzadilla, who represented the US at the 2011 Venice Biennale, will unveil later this month one of their most ambitious and audacious works off Puerto Rico’s southwest coast.

The pair have installed a work by Dan Flavin—Puerto Rican Light (to Jeanie Blake), 1965—deep inside a natural limestone cave located in a remote conservation area on the Caribbean island between the municipalities of Guayanilla and Peñuelas. Solar panels at the mouth of the cave will power Flavin’s work, which is made from pink, yellow and red fluorescent lightbulbs.

In the almost 70 years since the term was first coined, “outsider art” — a somewhat dismissive designation for the work of self-taught artists — has been steadily finding its way inside the mainstream art world. These days, it is no longer unusual to see pieces by artists with no formal training displayed in even the most prestigious venues; just the past two years have seen such works included in exhibitions mounted by the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

For much of the past half-century, though, the significance of self-taught art was largely recognized only by a few enthusiasts.

With a $200,000 donation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation will be the lead foundation donor for the US pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Last week, curator Okwui Enwezor announced the 136 artists and collectives included in the “All the World's Futures," the Biennale's main exhibition.

The gift was announced by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, the organizer of the US pavilion, which will feature an immersive multimedia installation from veteran video and performance artist Joan Jonas, inspired by the work of writer Halldór Laxness as well as other literary sources.

A 54-minute “essay film” that refers to IRA martyrdom, Marxist theory and anthropomorphic ketchup dispensers as it explores the value of art won its maker Duncan Campbell the 2014 Turner prize.

It was by no means a surprise. Campbell, aged 42 and probably the best known of the four artists shortlisted, had been the bookmakers’ favorite all along to take a prize created 30 years ago to “promote discussion of new developments in contemporary British art.”

His film, "It for Others," was first seen at the Scottish pavilion of the Venice Biennale in the summer of 2013.

Leading curators have given their preliminary verdict on Okwui Enwzor’s curatorial vision for the 56th Venice Biennale, which opens next spring (9 May-22 November). At a recent press conference, Enwezor, the director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, outlined his plans for the world’s oldest and most prestigious biennial.

His broad curatorial framework for the presentation in the Arsenale and Central Pavilion in the Giardini, entitled “All the World’s Futures,” appears to tap in to potent political and social topics of our time.

After just one edition in Paris, the New York institution Outsider Art Fair (OAF) already feels at home in France—and it's no surprise. Paris, home turf of art brut father Jean Dubuffet, is natural territory for the genre. These days outsider art is supported year-round by galleries and institutions like the Halle Saint Pierre and such foundations as Bruno Decharme's abcd (art brut connaissance & diffusion) and Antoine de Galbert's La Maison Rouge. The art world's current frenzy of interest in the genre─epitomized by Massimiliano Gioni's "Encyclopedic Palace" exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale─doesn't hurt either. No wonder OAF is settling in so well.

The program for the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale was revealed today by its curator, Okwui Enwezor, and Paolo Baratta, the organization’s president, at a conference at the Biennale headquarters at Ca’ Giustinian.

Enwezor, a curator, writer, critic and director of Munich’s Haus der Kunst since 2011, has given the biennial the title “All the World’s Futures.” The event, which opens to the public on 9 May and runs until 22 November, promises to be critically engaged with the events of today.

Public transport in Venice is like an endless sightseeing tour, and not only for the amount of tourists on the central vaporetto routes.

The waterfront architecture is truly spectacular, from Palladian churches to private palazzos.

And now during the Biennale contemporary artworks and installations are scattered around the city.

Venturing along the waterways leads to some unmissable exhibitions, where art and architecture blend into a beautiful dialogue.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced plans for an international architecture exhibition that will take place in the city in late 2015. Modeled after Italy’s prestigious Venice Architecture Biennale, officials hope that the Chicago Architecture Biennial will boost tourism and help develop the city’s reputation as a progressive design center.

The inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial will be co-curated by Sarah Herda, director of the Graham Foundation, which provides project-based grants to individuals and organizations and supports architecture’s role in the arts, culture, and society, and Joseph Grima, former editor-in-chief of the architecture and design magazine, Domus. Grima previously co-curated the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennial. Herda and Grima will develop the Biennial’s program with help from a swath of influential architects including, David Adjaye, Elizabeth Diller, Frank Gehry, Jeanne Gang, and Stanley Tigerman, as well as curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Pritzker Prize Jury Chair Peter Palumbo. The team will draw inspiration from Chicago’s rich architectural landscape, which includes buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Louis Sullivan.