‘Art here is meant and treated as a continuous evolution.’ - Paolo Baratta

‘ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations’ conceptualized by her is carefully laid out in the captivating Central Pavilion in the Giardini and in the Arsenale where the Padiglione Italia as part of the keenly awaited National Participations program courtesy the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage & Activities as well as PaBAAC – General Direction for landscape, fine arts, architecture & contemporary art.

More than 40 Collateral Events are slated to be held by international institutions and organizations that will set up their initiatives and exhibitions in various important locations around the city on the occasion of the 2011 Biennale. The Venice Biennale President, Paolo Baratta, states: “Art here is meant and treated as a continuous evolution.

“If a museum primarily qualifies itself for the artworks it owns (though not exclusively, as directors today are asked to be also impresarios and managers), a platform like the Biennale qualifies itself more for its ‘modus operandi’, for the methods that it implements, for the choices that are made on method and principles, for the rules behind its organization, for the spaces available, and for the nature of the subjects who take part: in short, for the Shape of the Institution reflected in the Shape given to the Exhibit hosted every two years.

“It’s on the quality of this Shape the achievement of our main objective relies: being held in high esteem by the art world. After 116 years, the current Shape of the Exhibition is the one fully and truly defined in 1999, confirmed and subsequently improved. It’s in fact from that year the exhibit designed by pavilions has been arranged, in a distinct and clear manner, with the exhibit that the curator must organize and position as an ‘international exhibition’, with specific task (the curator is not in charge of the Italian pavilion’s selection).”

Undoubtedly, the 54th International Art Exhibition is one of the major highlights of the 201 Venice Biennale.