The 57th Venice Biennale was an international
contemporary art exhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...
held between May and November 2017. The
Venice Biennale takes place
biennially in
Venice, Italy
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...
. Artistic director
Christine Macel
Christine Macel (born 1969) is a French curator. She was the director of the 2017 Venice Biennale, and is chief curator at the Centre Pompidou.
Early life
Christine Macel was born in Paris in 1969.
Career
Macel is a contributor to several m ...
, the chief curator at the
Centre Pompidou, curated its central exhibition, "Viva Arte Viva", as a series of interconnected pavilions designed to reflect art's capacity for expanding humanism. The curator also organized a project, "Unpacking My Library", based on a
Walter Benjamin essay, to list artists' favorite books.
Macel was the first French director since 1995 and the fourth woman to direct the Biennale.
A trend of presenting overlooked, rediscovered, or "emerging dead artists" was a theme of the 57th Biennale.
Awards
* Golden Lion for best national participation:
German pavilion
The German pavilion houses Germany's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
Background
The Venice Biennale is an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Often described as "the Olympics of ...
(
Anne Imhof)
* Special mention as national participation:
Brazilian pavilion
Brazilian commonly refers to:
* Something of, from or relating to Brazil
* Brazilian Portuguese, the dialect of the Portuguese language used mostly in Brazil
* Brazilians, the people (citizens) of Brazil, or of Brazilian descent
Brazilian may also ...
(
Cinthia Marcelle
Cinthia Marcelle was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 1974. She is a Brazilian multimedia artist focusing in photography, video and installation work. She studied at the Universitadad Federal de Minas Gerais.
She lives and works in Belo Horizo ...
)
* Golden Lion for best artist in the central exhibition:
Franz Erhard Walther Franz Erhard Walther (born July 22, 1939, in Fulda, Germany) is an interdisciplinary installation and conceptual artist known for his fabric objects and activations.
Early life and education
Born in 1939 in Fulda, Walther studied successively at t ...
* Silver Lion for most promising young artist in the central exhibition:
Hassan Khan
* Special mentions:
Charles Atlas
Charles Atlas (born Angelo Siciliano; October 30, 1892 – December 24, 1972) was an Italian-born American bodybuilder best remembered as the developer of a bodybuilding method and its associated exercise program which spawned a landmark advert ...
and
Petrit Halilaj
Petrit Halilaj (born 1986) is a Kosovar visual artist living and working between Germany, Kosovo and Italy. His work is based on documents, stories, and memories related to the history of Kosovo.
With his husband Alvaro Urbano, Halilaj is a jo ...
* Golden Lion for lifetime achievement:
Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and ...
The Diaspora Pavilion
The Diaspora Pavilion was an exhibition of 19 contemporary artists held during the 57th Venice Biennale. It was exhibited at the Palazzo Pisani Santa Maria from the 13th of May - 26 November 2017.
The Diaspora Pavilion was established in order to diversify the Venice Biennale and address the lack of representation of people of colour within the visual arts more widely. The Pavilion provided a space for artists from diverse backgrounds to exhibit work exploring the concept of diaspora. This created a critical counter-narrative to the Venice Biennale by questioning the very idea of nationhood and challenging the prevalence of the nation state at the Biennale.
The Diaspora Pavilion was co-founded by David Bailey,
Nicola Green
Nicola Green (born 1972) is a British portrait painter, social historian, and public speaker. Her subjects have included the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, and Diana, Princess of Wales.
In 2005, Green married the Labour politician David Lammy, wh ...
, Peter Clayton, and
David Lammy
David Lindon Lammy (born 19 July 1972) is an English politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Tottenh ...
, and curated by David Bailey and Jessica Taylor. This was the product of a wider programme - The Diaspora Platform - which provided mentoring workshops and networking opportunities to emerging BAME artists in conjunction with a curators programme established by the International Curators Forum.
References
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External links
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{{Portal bar, Italy, Visual arts
2017 in art
2017 in Italy
May 2017 events in Italy
Venice Biennale exhibitions