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Towards the 55th International Art Exhibition

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Curator: Massimiliano Gioni

10 | 25 | 2012

1st June to 24th November 2012

The President of la Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the Director of the 55th International Art Exhibition, Massimiliano Gioni, met on October, 25th 2012 the representatives of theparticipating Countries. The Countries participating for the first time are 8: Bahamas, Kingdom of Bahrain, Republic of Kosovo, Kuwait, Maldives, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria, Paraguay. The vice-President of the promoting committee for the Holy See’s pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2013 was also present on the occasion.

 

The 55th International Art Exhibition will take place in Venice from June, 1st to November, 24th 2013 at the Giardini and at the Arsenale (preview: May 29th, 30th and 31st  2013), as well as in various venues the city.

 

“The Biennale will again use the "dual" form defined in 1998: a great International Exhibition directed by a curator chosen for this purpose and the National Participations.” In this way Paolo Baratta has introduced the 55th International Art Exhibition, remembering that “the individual national pavilions are a very important feature of the Venice Biennale. It is an old formula and yet one that is more vital than ever. It is precious in times of globalization, because it gives us the primary fabric of reference on which the always new, always varied, autonomous geographies of the artists can be observed and better highlighted. It may be asked to what extent these pavilions also bring with them desires for representation of the country that organises them - although the autonomy left to the curators is broad. Each one has its own history and style. It may certainly be said that in them the countries reveal the role attributed to contemporary art as messenger of their present and their cultural wealth. But the pavilions also provide revelations on more profound realities and riches than those of the usual official and stereotyped images or pretexts.”

 

The title chosen by Massimiliano Gioni for the 55th International Art Exhibition is: Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace.

 

 

Massimiliano Gioni introduced the choice of theme evoking the artist self-taught Italian-American Marino Auriti that“on November 16, 1955 filed a design with the US Patent office depicting his Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), an imaginary museum that was meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite. Auriti’s plan was never carried out, of course, but the dream of universal, all-embracing knowledge crops up throughout history, as one that eccentrics like Auriti share with many other artists, writers, scientists, and prophets who have tried - often in vain - to fashion an image of the world that will capture its infinite variety and richness. These personal cosmologies, with their delusions of omniscience, shed light on the constant challenge of reconciling the self with the universe, the subjective with the collective, the specific with the general, the individual with the culture of her time.”

 

“Today, as we grapple with a flood of information, such attempts to structure knowledge into all-inclusive systems seem even more necessary and even more desperate – explained Gioni. The 55th International Exhibition of Art will explore these flights of the imagination in a show that—like Auriti’sEncyclopedic Palace—will combine works of contemporary art with historical artefacts and found objects.”

 

The exhibition will place at its heart “a reflection on the ways in which images have been used to organize knowledge and shape our experience of the world.” Inspired by what scholar Hans Belting has called “an anthropology of images”, the Biennale Arte 2013 curated by Massimiliano Gioni will attempt “an inquiry in the realms of the imaginary and the functions of imagination.

What room is left for internal images - for dreams, hallucinations and visions - in an era besieged by external ones? And what is the point of creating an image of the world when the world itself has become increasingly like an image? How far does the domain of the imaginary extend, when people are still fighting in the name of images?”

 

“Like the theatres of memory devised in the 16th century by Venetian philosopher Giulio Camillo - mental cathedrals invented to order knowledge through pictures and magical associations - the exhibition “Encyclopedic Palace” will compile - concluded Gioni - a cartography of our image-world, composing a bestiary of the imagination.”

 

The 55th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will present, as usual, the National Participations with their own exhibitions in the historic Pavilions of the Giardini, and in the centre of Venice.

 

This edition will also include selected Collateral Events, proposedby international bodies and institutions, who will present their exhibitions and initiatives in Venice concurrently with the 55th Exhibition.

 

 

Biographical notes

Massimiliano Gioni (Busto Arsizio, 1973) is a curator and contemporary art critic.

He is currently Artistic Director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan as well as Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

In 2010 he was the youngest and first European director of the 8th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. In 2003 he was the curator of the section entitled “La Zona” within the 50th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia; In 2004 he co-curated the 5th edition of the travelling biennale Manifesta and in 2006 he organized the 4th Berlin Biennale in collaboration with artist Maurizio Cattelan and curator Ali Subotnic. With Cattelan and Subotnick he founded the magazine Charley and the non-profit space The Wrong Gallery, initially opened in 2002 in New York and later hosted by Tate Modern in London in 2005.

Gioni has curated numerous group exhibitions – among them “Ghosts in the Machine”, “Ostalgia”, and “After Nature” at the New Museum – and solo shows by, among others, Pawel Althamer, Tacita Dean, Urs Fischer, Fischli and Weiss, Paul McCarthy, Pipilotti Rist, Anri Sala, Tino Sehgal, and Paola Pivi.

Editor of Flash Art magazine from 2000 to 2003, Gioni has also regularly contributed to many contemporary art magazines including Artforum, Art Press, Frieze, and Parkett and has published his writings in catalogues and volumes edited by Charta, Mondadori, Phaidon, Les Presses du Reel, and Rizzoli.