59th Venice Biennale
The 59th Venice Biennale is an upcoming international contemporary art exhibition to be held between April and November 2022. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Cecilia Alemani will curate its central exhibition. Background. The Venice Biennale is an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Often described as "the Olympics of the art world", participation in the Biennale is a prestigious event for contemporary artists. The festival has become a constellation of shows: a central exhibition curated by that year's artistic director, national pavilions hosted by individual nations, and independent  exhibitions throughout Venice. The Biennale parent organization also hosts regular festivals in other arts: architecture, dance, film, music, and theater. Outside of the central, international exhibition, individual nations produce their own shows, known as pavilions, as their national representation. Nations that own their pavilion buildings, such as the 30 housed on the Giardini, are responsible for their own upkeep and construction costs as well. Nations without dedicated buildings create pavilions in the Venice Arsenale and palazzos throughout the city. The 59th Biennale will run from April 23, 2022, through November 27. Originally scheduled for the year prior, the COVID-19 pandemic  postponed the 2020 architecture biennale into 2021 and the art biennale into 2022. As a result of the displacement, the art biennale will coincide with Documenta 15, another major contemporary art exhibition. Central exhibition. Cecilia Alemani, chief curator of High Line Art, will serve as the 59th Venice Biennale's artistic director. Her central exhibition is titled "The Milk of Dreams", after a book by the English-born Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington filled with magical tales in which everything can be transformed through imagination. The exhibition follows three themes: body representation and metamorphosis, human relationships with technology, and the  relationship between the body and Earth. Alemani developed the concept from conversations with artists and questions following the COVID-19 pandemic. Her curator's essay invokes feminist activist Silvia Federici and science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin. "The Milk of Dreams" features 213 artists. Unlike prior shows, in which the majority of artists identified as male, instead less than 10 percent of Alemani's artists identified as male. Alemani underplayed this element and did not describe her show as overtly feminist, but has spoken about questioning the "universal ideal of the white, male 'Man of Reason' as the fixed center of  the universe and measure of all things". Many of the central exhibition's artists are associated with the 20th century avant-garde. Nearly half of Alemani's artists are deceased, much higher in proportion than prior Biennales. These avant-garde artists are underrepresented, having been underrecognized in their time, and the Biennale services to highlight their work. After the exhibition was postponed one year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alemani hoped to use the extra year to prepare new projects and use the opening, which now precedes the Italian Liberation Day, to mark an occasion of togetherness. Alemani is the  first Italian woman to serve as the Biennale's artistic director. She previously curated the 2017 Biennale's Italian pavilion. Her husband, Massimiliano Gioni, curated the 2013 Biennale. National pavilions. A total of 80 national pavilions participated in the 59th edition, with five countries participating for the first time: Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal, Oman and Uganda. Each country selected artists to represent their pavilion, ostensibly with an eye to the Biennale's theme. As a sign of solidarity Ukraine and against war, Russian pavilion curator Raimundas Malašauskas withdrew his project and Russia's pavilion remained closed. In a statement, Alexandra Sukhareva , one of the artists participating in Russia's Pavilion, posted in a statement on instagram that “there is no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles, when citizens of Ukraine are hiding in shelters [and] when Russian protestors are getting silenced”. Unlike prior biennales, in which there were clear frontrunners for the jury recognition of best national pavilion, such as Germany's "Faust" in 2017 or Lithuania's "Sun & Sea" in 2019, there was no such frontrunner in 2022. Awards. An jury presented the three main prizes: The 59th Biennale's Golden Lion for lifetime  achievement went to Katharina Fritsch and Cecilia Vicuña.