Open to the public from Saturday
May 11th to Sunday
November 24th 2019, at the
Giardini and the Arsenale, the
58th International Art Exhibition,
titled “May You Live In
Interesting Times,” will be curated
by Ralph Rugoff and organized
by La Biennale di Venezia
chaired by Paolo Baratta.
The awards ceremony and inauguration
will be held on Saturday
May 11th 2019.
“The title of this exhibition
could be interpreted as a sort
of curse,” stated President Paolo Baratta, “where the expression ‘interesting
times’ evokes the idea of challenging or even ‘menacing’ times,
but it could also simply be an invitation to always see and consider the
course of human events in their complexity, an invitation, thus, that
appears to be particularly important in times when, too often, oversimplification
seems to prevail, generated by conformism or fear. And I believe
that an exhibition of art is worth our attention, first and foremost,
if it intends to present us with art and artists as a decisive challenge to
all oversimplifying attitudes. Twenty years have passed since, in this
same location, I presented my first exhibition after the Biennale underwent
major reform in 1998. Let me tell you, they have been very interesting
times. At the beginning we were criticized for the presence of the
pavilions, considered old-fashioned in times of cosmopolitanism and
globalization, we live in times where some people raise the doubt that
cosmopolitanism might also have been a way for the most influential
cultural and political realities to exert a sort of soft power. We are an
international exhibition that since those years put the word ‘open’ and
‘plateau of humankind’ as the subtitle for all the following biennials.”
The exhibition will develop from the Central Pavilion (Giardini) to the
Arsenale, and will include 79 artists from all over the world, including
works by Halil Altındere from Turkey. Ralph Rugoff has declared: “May
You Live in Interesting Times will no doubt include artworks that reflect upon precarious aspects of existence today, including different threats
to key traditions, institutions and relationships of the ‘post-war order.’
But let us acknowledge at the outset that art does not exercise its forces
in the domain of politics. Art cannot stem the rise of nationalist movements
and authoritarian governments in different parts of the world,
for instance, nor can it alleviate the tragic fate of displaced peoples
across the globe (whose numbers now represent almost one percent of
the world’s entire population). But in an indirect fashion, perhaps art
can be a kind of guide for how to live and think in ‘interesting times.’
The 58th International Art Exhibition
will not have a theme per
se, but will highlight a general
approach to making art and a
view of art’s social function as
embracing both pleasure and
critical thinking. The exhibition
will focus on the work of
artists who challenge existing
habits of thought and open up
our readings of objects and images,
gestures and situations.
Art of this kind grows out of a
practice of entertaining multiple
perspectives: of holding in
mind seemingly contradictory
and incompatible notions, and
juggling diverse ways of making
sense of the world. Artists
who think in this manner offer
alternatives to the meaning of
so-called facts by suggesting
other ways of connecting and
contextualising them. Animated
by boundless curiosity
and puncturing wit, their work
encourages us to look askance
at all unquestioned categories,
concepts and subjectivities. It
invites us to consider multiple
alternatives and unfamiliar
vantage points, and to discern
the ways in which “order” has
become the simultaneous presence
of diverse orders.”
The exhibition will also include 90 National Participations in the historic
Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the historic city
centre of Venice. Four countries will be participating for the first time
at the Biennale Arte: Ghana, Madagascar, Malaysia and Pakistan. The
Dominican Republic for the first time at the Biennale Arte with its own
national pavilion. Also 21 Collateral Events which are admitted by the
curator and promoted by non-profit national and international bodies
and institutions, take place in several locations; they offer a wide range
of contributions and participations that enrich the diversity of voices
that characterizes the exhibition of Venice.
