Second Part in Central Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2015

The 56th International Art Exhibition entitled All the World’s Futures, organized by la Biennale di Venezia 2015 at the Giardini della Biennale and at the Arsenale. 89 National Participations will be exhibiting in the historical Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city of Venice. The countries participating for the first time in the Exhibition are Grenada, Mauritius, Mongolia, Republic of Mozambique and Republic of Seychelles. Other countries are participating this year after years of absence: Ecuador, the Philippines (1964), and Guatemala.

The 56th International Art Exhibition forms a unitary itinerary that starts at the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and continues at the Arsenale, with over 136 artists from 53 countries, of whom 89 will be showing here for the first time. Of works on display, 159 are expressly realized for this year edition.

The 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, celebrate the 120th year since the first Exhibition (1895). The curator’s International Exhibition will extend into the Palazzo delle Esposizioni at the Giardini (3,000 m2) and in the Arsenale (8,000 m2) and in addition to the outdoor areas.

Bice Curiger brought us the theme of perception, of ILLUMInation, of light as an autonomous and vivifying element, as well as that of the relationship between artist and viewer , focusing on an artistic concept that emphasizes intuitive knowledge and illuminated thinking, as means to refine and increase our perception skills and therefore our ability to dialogue with art.

Massimiliano Gioni was interested in observing the phenomenon of artistic creation from the inside, and turned his attention to the inner forces that push man and the artist to create images and give life to representations, necessary for himself and to talk with others , and investigated the utopias and anxieties that lead man to the essential need to create. The exhibition opened with the image of a utopian Encyclopedic Palace and with Jung’s illustrated book.

Today the world appears to be crossed by serious fractures and lacerations, by strong asymmetries and uncertainties about the prospects. Despite the colossal progress in knowledge and technology, we experience a sort of “age of anxiety”. And the Biennale returns to observing the relationship between art and the development of human, social and political reality, in pressing on external forces and phenomena.

To investigate how the tensions of the external world stimulate the sensitivities, the vital and expressive energies of the artists, their desires, their movements of the soul (their inner song ). The Biennale also called Okwui Enwezor for its particular sensitivity to these aspects.

Curiger, Gioni, Enwezor, almost a trilogy: three chapters of a research by the Venice Biennale on useful references for making aesthetic judgments on contemporary art, a “critical” question after the end of the avant-garde and “non-art” art.

Highlights

The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale’s director.

Room 11 – Samson Kambalu

Nyau Cinema (2012 – 2015)
Video installation, color and b&w, silent

Room 12

KAPITAL (2013)
Isaac Julien
double-monitor HD video installation, color, sound (31’)

Demonstration Drawings (2015)
Rirkrit Tiravanija
one hundred drawings, graphite on paper, MDF frames

Demonstration Drawings (2007)
by Rirkrit Tiravanija
one hundred drawings, graphite on paper, MDF frames

Everything (2003)
Adrian Piper
photocopied photographs on graph paper, sanded with sandpaper, overprinted with inkjet text

Peru 73 (1973)
Teresa Burga
3 drawings, pen on paper

Room 13 – Marcel Broodthaers

Un Jardin d’Hiver, 1974
Installation with 26 Kentya palm trees, 6 b&w photographs, 16 garden folding chairs, 2 museum vitrines containing art prints and catalogues, rolled fitted carpet

Room 14 – Peter Friedl

Theory of Justice, 1992–2010
Newspaper clippings, sixteen display cases of stainless steel, Plexiglas, and painted plywood

Owls at Noon Prelude: The Hollow Men, 2005
Chris Marker
CD-ROM video for six screens (19’)

Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9.6.72, 1972-2006
Teresa Burga
mixed media installation

Logic of Disappearance, A Marx Archive, 2014
Madhusudhanan
thirty charcoal drawings on paper

Arena

The Arena program has been realized with the support of: LUMA Foundation, Registration of an epic series of live performances in ARENA from the Vinyl Factory, Helga de Alvear, with the technical support of Kwadrat Moroso

Room 15 – Wangechi Mutu

Forbidden Fruit picker, 2015
Collage painting and She’s got the whole world in her hands, 2015 – mixed media, paper, wax

The End of Carrying All, 2015
Wangechi Mutu
three-channel animated video installation, color sound (14’)

Room 16 – Victor Man

Untitled, 2015
Victor Man
Oil on canvas mounted on wood, gold leaf wall drawing

Room 16 – Mika Rottemberg

Time and a Half, 2003
Single channel video, color, sound (3’ 40”)

Toyota Ipsum, 1996
Tetsuya Ishida
acrylic on paper, panel

Room 18

Awakening, 1998
Tetsuya Ishida
acrylic on panel

Rise and Shine, 1999
Tetsuya Ishida
acrylic on canvas

Jellyfish’s Dream, 1997
Tetsuya Ishida
acrylic on panel

Recalled, 1998
Tetsuya Ishida
acrylic on paper, panel

Room 19

Dew Breaker
Ellen Gallagher

Atlas, 2015
Huma Bhabha
recycled tire

With Blows, 2015
With Words, 2015
Mechanic, 2015
Against What? Against Whom?, 2014
Huma Bhabha
cork, Styrofoam, cardboard, acrylic paint, oil stick, nail polish, wood

Earth’s Creation, 1994
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
synthetic polymer paint on linen mounted on canvas, four panels

Room 20 – Glenn Ligon

Come Out #12; #13; #14; #15, 2015
Silkscreen on canvas

Room 21 – Adrian Piper

Everything #21, 2010–2013
Four vintage wall blackboards in lacquered wood frames, each mounted on wall at eye-level in landscape orientation and covered with single handwritten sentence repeated twenty-five times in white chalk handwritten cursive text

I numeri malefici, 1978
Fabio Mauri
blackboards, photographic print, metal cage, sound and lithography by Giorgio De Chirico

Room 22

Realized and Unrealized Outdoor Projects, 1986-2013
Isa Genzken
mixed media

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1936)
Walker Evans

Venice Biennale 2015
The 2015 Art Biennale closes a sort of trilogy that began with the exhibition curated by Bice Curiger in 2011, Illuminations, and continued with the Encyclopedic Palace of Massimiliano Gioni (2013). With All The World’s Futures, La Biennale continues its research on useful references for making aesthetic judgments on contemporary art, a “critical” issue after the end of the avant-garde and “non-art” art.

Through the exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor, La Biennale returns to observe the relationship between art and the development of human, social and political reality, in the pressing of external forces and phenomena: the ways in which, that is, the tensions of the external world solicit the sensitivities, the vital and expressive energies of the artists, their desires, the motions of the soul (their inner song ).

La Biennale di Venezia was founded in 1895. Paolo Baratta has been its President since 2008, and before that from 1998 to 2001. La Biennale, who stands at the forefront of research and promotion of new contemporary art trends, organizes exhibitions, festivals and researches in all its specific sectors: Arts (1895), Architecture (1980), Cinema (1932), Dance (1999), Music (1930), and Theatre (1934). Its activities are documented at the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC) that recently has been completely renovated.

The relationship with the local community has been strengthened through Educational activities and guided visits, with the participation of a growing number of schools from the Veneto region and beyond. This spreads the creativity on the new generation (3,000 teachers and 30,000 pupils involved in 2014). These activities have been supported by the Venice Chamber of Commerce. A cooperation with Universities and research institutes making special tours and stays at the exhibitions has also been established. In the three years from 2012-2014, 227 universities (79 Italian and 148 international) have joined the Biennale Sessions project.

In all sectors there have been more research and production opportunities addressed to the younger generation of artists, directly in contact with renowned teachers; this has become more systematic and continuous through the international project Biennale College, now running in the Dance, Theatre, Music, and Cinema sections.