Santa Maria della Misericordia church converted in THE MOSQUE: The First Mosque in the Historic City of Venice (2015) by Christoph Büchel, all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Historically, there have been no mosques in the city of Venice.  Despite the port city’s history as an open gateway to the East and a point of trade that facilitated new cultural, artistic and scientific developments to spread across Europe from trade with the Ottoman Empire and beyond, the city has never permitted the construction or reconstitution of a site of worship for its Muslim population.  Today, in the heated political climate that surrounds international conflicts, not to mention the recent Italian (and, at large, European) controversy regarding immigration from Syria, Lebanon and other regions in North Africa and the Middle East, the prospects for a dedicated Islamic worship site seems even less likely.  For the time being, however, the Venice Biennale has changed this scenario, as the Swiss-born, Iceland-based artist Christoph Büchel opened his frankly-titled installation THE MOSQUE: The First Mosque in the Historic City of Venice this month. (more…)

Golden Lion for Best Pavilion amongst Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas, When counting loses its sense (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

In 1915, during the clashes of WWI, the Ottoman Empire set out on a path of systemic destruction of its Armenian subjects, massacring male Armenians or forcing them into conscripted labor, while leading women, children and the infirm on arduous death marches off into the Syrian desert.  The brutal and politically contentious genocide killed, on estimate, up to 1.5 million citizens, and stands as one of the Twentieth Century’s most horrific episodes of war.  Even so, the political body of Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the term genocide in relation to these war crimes, and the historical scars of the killings run through the distributed population of the Armenian diaspora worldwide. (more…)

Adrian Piper, Everything #21 (2010-2013)

The awards for the 56th Venice Biennale have been announced, with the Armenian National Pavilion taking home the Golden Lion for best exhibition, Adrian Piper winning the Golden Lion for best artist in the main exhibition, and El Anatsui winning the Lifetime Achievement award.  A full list of awards is included below: (more…)

At the entrance to the Biennale’s Central Pavilion, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The Central Pavilion in Venice’s Giardini is the second site for All the World’s Futures, the main curatorial project around which the Biennale centers itself.  Featuring another series of artists spread out inside the exhibition space’s remarkable white facade, the exhibition continues its investigation of debris and late capitalism through a more playful, yet equally critical set of works from its counterpart at the Arsenale. (more…)

Peter Doig, Rain in the Port of Spain (White Oak) (2015), all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Venetian Ettore Tito was one of the first stars of the Venice Biennale at its inception, presenting his work in almost every one of the early exhibitions through at 1920.  The artist’s colorful compositions often tinged with a slightly surreal, impressionist edge, were a prize of the Italian state in the early decades of the twentieth century, and often filled rooms during the first exhibitions in the city.

It’s a fitting parallel then, that the Scottish-born Peter Doig would be tapped for an exhibit at the former home of the artist, and current location of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.  Presenting a body of new works, including fourteen paintings and an additional six large-scale canvases, the exhibition’s intimate locale and rich history offers a strong parallel for Doig’s own interpretive and illusory meditations on modernity, memory and fantasy.

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Ibrahim Mahama, Out of Bounds (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The first open hours have come and gone in the City of Bridges today, and the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures is now open.  Welcoming 89 different countries to exhibit in the city, with 29 in the Arsenale, 31 in the Central Pavilion, and an additional 29 spread across in the City itself, the exhibition is a monumental affair, with a number of auxiliary events, openings and parties.

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The Venice Biennale, via Art Observed

As May begins, the city of Venice is preparing for the the 56th edition of the Biennale, set to open doors to press this week.  With the sheer scale of events, openings and exhibitions set to open this coming Wednesday through Saturday, the art world will turn its attention to the City of Bridges in earnest. (more…)

Controversy has struck at the Venice Biennale this year, after the Kenyan government officially denounced its national pavilion at the exhibition this year, and accused the curators awarded to the space of misrepresenting themselves as affiliated with the nation’s arts community while presenting a predominantly Chinese body of artists.   “We hereby declare that the artists are in no way Kenyan,” a statement from the Kenyan government states.  “Neither through birth nor naturalization and have no business using OUR NAME or flying OUR FLAG at the art Olympics. We demand that the government act by not only stopping the use of the Kenyan name and flying of the Kenyan flag at the Venice Biennale but also demanding the false information be pulled down from all publicity material including the Venice Biennale website.” (more…)

The MAK Vienna has purchased artist Harm van den Dorpel’s Event Listeners screen-saver work with Bitcoins, making it the first museum in the world to use the digitally-centered currency.  The work will be shown at this year’s inaugural Vienna Biennale, running June 11 to October 4. (more…)

This year’s Armenian pavilion at the Venice Biennale will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre of more than one million Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the First World War.  The exhibition, titled Armenity and held on San Lazzaro degli Armeni island (home to the Armenian Catholic Monastery), will feature works by artist Sarkis, and is curated by Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg, who has often worked with the artist.  “It is very important for me to keep the production going, for culture but also to keep the dialogue open,” Sarkis  says.  “We are the link between two pavilions. We are the breath. Whoever thinks otherwise is free to think so, of course.” (more…)

The continued instability of Ukraine has led to cancellation of the second Kiev Biennale, the New York Times reports.  The 2014 edition had been postponed due to conflict, and the ongoing military confrontation in the eastern portion of the country has ultimately led to the event’s cancellation.  “Due to the fact that the armed conflict in the East of Ukraine does not stop,” a release from the organization says, the event has become “absolutely impossible.”  (more…)

The artist roster for the 2015 edition of the Venice Biennale has been announced, featuring a diverse group of artists selected by curator Okwui Enwezor, and featuring Marlene Dumas, Theaster Gates, e-Flux Magazine, and and many others , as well as a special theatrical performance directed by Kara Walker, and a marathon reading of all three volumes of Marx’s Das Kapital.  “Here, Das Kapital will serve as a kind of Oratorio that will be continuously read live, throughout the exhibition’s seven months’ duration,” the curator says. (more…)

The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice has announced an expansion plan that will double the institution’s exhibition space to 10,000 sq. meters by April of next year, just in time for the 2015 Biennale.  The project was made possible by a grant from Samsung and US non-profit Venetian Heritage, and marks “the conclusion of a project that has been close to our hearts for a long time, after a restoration that has lasted more than ten years,” says Giovanna Damiani, head of the Venetian museums authority. “We hope it is the beginning of a long collaboration.”  (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Eastern Woodlands Room (2014), Photo: Anders Sune Berg Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne, Maureen Paley, London, David Zwirner, New York

The 8th edition of the Berlin Biennale has opened its doors, taking up space within the Haus am Waldsee and Museum Dahlem, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, as well as a number of satellite events, projects and talks spread across Berlin, running through the beginning of August.  Curated by Juan Gaitán, the exhibition this year features an explicit look at the nature of images in contemporary society, in their proliferation, reception and interpretation.

Tonel, Commerce (2014), Photo: Anders Sune Berg; Courtesy Tonel (more…)

The list of artists participating in this summer’s Manifesta biennial has been released, including Guy Ben-Ner, Maria Lassnig, and Francis Alÿs, among others.  The 10th edition of the event will begin on June 28th in St. Petersburg. (more…)

The Venice Biennale will reportedly move its opening date up a month, The Art Newspaper reports.  Scheduled to open on May 9th next year, the new dates are forcing art fairs to readjust their scheduling plans for that summer.  “We haven’t finalized the 2015 dates yet, but we’re aware of the potential crunch points in the calendar next year and are looking to make a decision in the forthcoming weeks,” says a spokeswoman for Frieze. (more…)

A noble attempt at transnational harmony between France and Germany at the Venice Biennale has hit a stumbling block, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Exchanging exhibition pavilions in honor of the 1963 Franco-German reconciliation treaty, the two parties have complained of issues with their respective spaces and environments.  The awkward nature of Germany’s Nazi-commissioned pavilion has made for some gaffes in presentation, while Germany has complained of insufficient storage for some of its works.  “I’m looking forward to the next edition of the Biennale,” said Giulia de Manincor, a staff member at the French pavilion. “Hopefully France will be France again, and Germany Germany.” (more…)

Bashir Makhou, Giardino Occupato (Installation View) (2013) All photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Otherwise Occupied is an exhibition of Palestinian artists organized by al Hoash, a Palestinian art organization based in Jerusalem, as part of the 55^th International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2013. The show is one of 48 Collateral Events hosted around the city. The exhibition features the work of two prominent, internationally renowned artists: Bashir Makhoul and Aissa Deebi. Makhoul is the head of the Winchester School of Art, England, while Deebi is a founding member of ArteEast, a Brooklyn-based organization that supports Middle Eastern art and culture. Both have exhibited work at the Elga Wimmer Gallery in Manhattan, and mainly work with photography. In the past, both have addressed the themes of diaspora, exile and, more broadly, Palestinian politics, unsurprising given that both artists were born inside the 1948 borders of Palestine, and have since immigrated to become citizens of other states. Currently, they are working in the globalized art world, exemplified by Massimiliano Gioni’s Central Pavilion, The Encyclopedic Palace. Nevertheless, the artists still consider themselves Palestinian, underlining the complex political identities of modernity Gioni expressed in his press conference.

Bashir Makhou, Giardino Occupato (Installation View) (2013)

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Damien Hirst, Death or Glory (2001)

In conjunction with the events and exhibitions of the 55th Venice Biennale this summer, Le Stanze del Vetro (“Rooms for Glass”), the joint project by La Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Siftung, is currently presenting Fragile?, an exhibition dedicated to the presence and use of glass in contemporary art.  Perhaps one of the more interesting conceits for a Biennale exhibition, the show on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore looks at glass as an aesthetic and and figurative medium in current practice, featuring works by Ai Weiwei, Marcel Duchamp, Pipliotti Rist, Joseph Beuys, and many more.

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Tino Sehgal with his Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale, via The Guardian

At a press conference this morning, the officials for the 55th Venice Biennale announced the winners of this year’s event’s Golden Lion awards.  British artist Tino Seghal took home the Best Artist in the International Exhibition award for his bizarre, kinetic performance piece at The Encyclopedic Palace, while first-time Biennale attendee Angola was given the award for best national participation.  A full account of awards is listed below:

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Outside the 55th Venice Biennale

The press preview for the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale, the international art world’s largest stage, kicked off this week, sprawling across the narrow alleyways and watery causeways of the Italian city.  Art Observed was on site to cover the opening ceremonies, and has this selection of pictures documenting the first day of the fair.

The Opening Reception, with Paolo Barata and Massimo Gioni (more…)

The Venice Biennale

Every two years, the floating city of Venice floods with with the multitudes of art visitors, customers, gallerists and exhibitions that are all a part of the Venice Biennale. This year, marking the 55^th edition of the world’s largest art fair, sees the continuation of an event that first began in 1896. Between June 1^st and November 24^th over 300,000 visitors will travel to Venice for the expansive installations of exhibitions of work from artists in 88 nations, at both official and fringe sites. Art Observed will be on-site this week, with photos from variety of events around the city.

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In the run-up to this year’s Venice Biennale, curator Massimiliano Gioni spoke with the New York Times, discussing the event, his approach to curating, and his perspective on the event’s long history.  “Klimt showed there in 1905,” he says. “That is mind-blowing to me. Since then there has been Morandi and Picasso, Rauschenberg, Johns and so on. Maybe I’m romanticizing, but the past is still very present.” (more…)

Frieze Magazine is currently running an interview with Massimiliano Gioni, the New Museum Curator who is currently preparing for the opening of The Encyclopedic Palace at this year’s 55th Venice Biennale.  In the interview, the curator discusses his practice, and his plans for the upcoming opening of the Biennale this summer. (more…)