The 57th Venice Biennale is about to open its doors in May 13th. With the title, Viva Art Viva curator Christine Macel intends to celebrate artists, their work and life in this year’s edition.
The selection made by Macel was based upon a theme instead of the traditional diagram which divided the event in countries. Of the 120 artists invited, 103 are exhibiting their work for the first time at the Biennial, the organisers are thus encouraging an innovative aesthetic experience. Among the newcomers we find artists such as Kader Attia, Sebastian Diaz Morales, Tibor Hajas, Mai Lara, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa and more. The idea behind the project, as stated by both, curator and the president of the event, M. Paolo Baratta was to celebrate humanism and art’s capacity to liberate the mind.
Taking us on a journey, the 9 pavilions are “like chapters of a book” connecting with each other. The first one, Pavilion of Artists and books delves in the importance of research and productive idleness for an artist. It is during this period of time that artists acquire knowledge and can create new ways of seeing the world. In a tension between purposely inaction, this pavilion aims at demonstrate how artists work and construct environments like workshops or studios to achieve their goals. The next chapter, The Pavilion of joys and fears is an introspective chamber where the artist and the spectator are confronted to negative emotions, feelings of alienation resounding in the political arena. Once again the rise of populism and the fear of the “other”, the stranger is scrutinized through the artist’s prisms.
Other pavilion name’s include the pavilion of traditions which analyses the proliferation of religion and of conservative morals; the pavilion of the earth examining ecological utopias and nostalgic futures; the Dionysian pavilion who celebrates the female body and so on. Viva Arte Viva is an organic and living habitat emulating the pulse of time and its mutating nature. It celebratory narratives aims at giving hope, by giving voice to young and lesser known artists, the Biennial design is to include in the contemporary art circuit those struggling to be part of the system.
Viva Arte Viva is a clamour by artists, it goes beyond art and reveres life itself. In dark times, art appears as a possibility giving hope.
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