The Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea, also known as the Florence Biennale is an art exhibition held in Florence, Italy. Since 1997 it has been held every two years in the exhibition spaces of the
Fortezza da Basso
Fortezza da Basso is a fort inserted in the fourteenth century walls of Florence. Its official name is the Fortress of Saint John the Baptist (Fortezza di San Giovanni Battista). In modern times it is home to numerous conferences, concerts and ...
,
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
.
The list of the famous participants include
Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audienc ...
,
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
,
Christo & Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and ...
,
Gilbert & George
Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy), and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom), are two artists who work together as the collaborative art d ...
,
Anish Kapoor
Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the elite all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the UK ...
,
El Anatsui
El Anatsui ( h-nah-ch-wee born 1944) is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria. He has drawn particular international attention for his " bottle-top installations". These installations consist of thousands of aluminum piec ...
and others.
The exhibition is held under the patronage of the
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
(the Italian Commission),
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
, Italian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Tuscany Region, and Municipality of Florence.
History
The Biennale in its current form was begun in 1997 by Piero and Pasquale Celona.
The first Art Director of the Florence Biennale was the art historian Stefano Francolini. From 1998 to 2005 the Art Director in charge was the art historian and critic
John Spike
John Thomas Spike (born November 8, 1951, in New York City) is an American art historian, curator, and author, specializing in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods. He is also a contemporary art critic and past director of the Florence Bien ...
. Emanuel von Lauestein Massarani, Secretary of Culture and Superintendent of Cultural Heritage of
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
took over the job in 2007. Stefano Francolini was made art director again in 2009 and 2011. Florentine art historian and critic Rolando Bellini was appointed in 2013 and is currently in charge.
Criticism
The cost of the Florentine Biennale is borne directly by the participating artists. At the time this has given rise to criticism that the Florence Biennale is a
vanity exhibition, but this changes as the artworks are judged before admission by a professional jury of leading international experts. Over the years, the Biennale has been positively assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Juried artists shown in the exhibition pay a participation fee between $2700-$4000.
References
External links
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Florence Biennale, un'invasione di arte contemporanea in città / FOTO
{{Authority control
Art biennials
Art exhibitions in Italy
Arts organisations based in Italy