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Venice Biennale Returns After Covid 19 with Feminine Focus and Shows Solidarity with Ukraine
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April 23, 2022
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April 23, 2022
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2:13Now PlayingThe 59th International Art Exhibition opens in Venice after being delayed a year due to the pandemic.
For the first time it has been curated by an Italian woman and many of the exhibits have a feminine slant.
The Venice Biennale has returned to the city after a year's delay, due to the pandemic.
It is back with a feminine touch.
Entitled "The Milk of Dreams," the exhibition is curated for the first time by an Italian woman, Cecilia Alemani. There have been four women curators previously.
Alemani was keen to realise her dream of starting the exhibition with two monumental sculptures: Elephant by Katharina Fritsch for the central pavilion and Brick House in the Arsenale, an iconic sculpture by American artist Simone Leigh.
"If I told you how complicated that was, you would not believe me that we literally installed it two days ago, and up to two days ago I did not know if I could have the room I dreamed of for two and a half years. But I think she's an incredible artist, extremely talented and I wanted to start with this very iconic sculpture that is called Brick House, which is a five meter tall bronze portrait of a Black woman whose torso becomes a form of west African architecture, so mixing the idea and thinking about the idea of the body as a vessel, as a container, as a house, but she stands there with such majesty and beauty and yet she does not have eyes, but she has this very strong gaze. So I'm extremely happy to have that sculpture in the show and for Simone to finally deserve and get the deserved merit at the US pavilion," says Alemani.
Simone Leigh is also the star at the US Pavilion with Sovereignty, a series of art works representing independent Black women.
"Well I think one of the themes throughout her work is this acknowledgement of the women who have come before her, the women who surround her, the women with whom she collaborates over time and are part of this community of creative and caring Black women, what I know our curator calls an ethos of citation as well, this acknowledgement of other women and their role and their importance to Simone Leigh and you see this throughout the exhibition," explains Jill Medvedow, Co-Commissioner of the US Pavilion and exhibit Simone Leigh: Sovereignty.
The main exhibition, 'The Milk of Dreams', includes over 200 artists from 58 countries this year, with a majority of women for the very first time in its 127-year history.
"The Milk of Dreams features a vast majority of women artists and gender non conforming artists, this is the result of many different factors, as a curator I've always worked with many women artists, I think some of the best artists today are women artists, but also let's not forget that in the long history of the Venice Biennale the preponderance of male artists in previous editions has been astonishing in 57 editions so I think this could be a great occasion to show that you can do an amazing show without necessarily having to feature most artists that are male and that unfortunately we still have not solved many issues that pertain to the female gender," says Alemani.
And many of the 80 national participations have also chosen to follow the curator's vision by putting women artists center stage.
One absentee country at the 59th International Art Exhibition is Russia, as the curator and members of the official pavilion quit to protest the invasion of Ukraine.
On the other hand, and with the help of the Biennale, Pavlo Makov and his art have made it to Venice to represent Ukraine with "The Fountain of Exhaustion. Acqua Alta."
The 59th Venice Biennale runs from 23 April to 27 November 2022 at the Giardini and the Arsenale.Subscribe to our YouTube channel
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