Precursor to the 54th International Art Exhibition at Venice

Headed by its mayor, Riccardo Selvatico, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution on 19th April 1893 to set up a biennial exhibition of Italian art, to be inaugurated on 22nd April 1894. However, the event took place in 1895, two years later than it had been planned. On 30th April, the 1st International Art Exhibition was inaugurated.

The 54th International Art Exhibition, directed by Bice Curiger, will run June 4th to November 27th, 2011 at the Giardini and Arsenale venues (Preview on June 1-2-3) and elsewhere around Venice. The show is titled ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations, and will be set up in the Central Pavilion at Giardini and at the Arsenale forming a single itinerary that will feature 82 artists from all over the world, including 32 young artists born after 1975, as well as 32 women artists.

There are 89 participating countries this year (as against 77 in the last edition). For every edition, the states’ administrations managing pavilions (or those entrusted by their respective states of pavilion’s management) appoint a curator and a commissioner. This is a record for the Art Biennale.

The countries that will be participating for the first time include Andorra, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, and Haiti. Other countries will be participating after a long period of absence. More than 40 Collateral Events will be arranged by international organizations and institutions, which will set up their exhibitions and initiatives in various locations around the city.

Placed at the centre, in parallel to the series of countries’ Pavilions, the International Exhibition this year will be organized by Bice Curiger, who chose as title ILLUMInations (with 82 participating artists). The curator has been expressly requested to create a “boundless” exhibition. La Biennale has appointed neither committees nor different curators for different areas. It rather relies on one single curator (supported by his/her advisors and the Biennale’s structures for the implementation).

The choices made by the National pavilions’ curators and those of the Biennale’s curator turn out to be either shared or diverging. The dialectic relationship among these different choices represents a qualifying element of its international focus: an exhibition characterized by many eyes, many points of view.