56th Venice Biennale

Genre| Art exhibition
Begins| May 9, 2015
Ends| November 22, 2015
Location(s)| Venice
Country| Italy
Previous event| 55th Venice Biennale (2013)
Next event| 57th Venice Biennale (2017)

The 56th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between May and November 2015. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Okwui Enwezor curated its central exhibition, "All The World's Futures".

## Overview

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Okwui Enwezor, the Biennale's curator and its first from Africa

The Biennale is the world's most prestigious art exhibition,[1] an international show of contemporary art. It is a major event for art world cosmopolitans.[2] The 56th Biennale began one month sooner than usual, and ran between May 9 and November 22, 2015.[2] The opening coincided with the Frieze Art Fair in New York, which affected early attendance.[1] At the 56th Biennale, 136 artists represented 88 nations. Nearly a third of the artists had exhibited in a previous Biennale. The 56th Biennale was the first for the newly constructed Australian pavilion, the 30th national pavilion in the Giardini, and the first in the new millennium.[2] Kenya and Costa Rica both withdrew from this year's Biennale.[1]

Okwui Enwezor served as the 56th Biennale's curator, its first from Africa.[1] His theme was "All The World's Futures". Enwezor created the Arena, an interdisciplinary space for live performance in Giardini's Central Pavilion. The Arena's main performance was a live reading of Das Kapital (Karl Marx). It also hosted a performance by Olaf Nicolai and a memorial for Julius Eastman.[2] Enwezor also curated the Arsenale, a group exhibition for 200 artists without permanent national pavilions. Additionally, 44 events sanctioned by Enwezor ran in conjunction with the Biennale.[2] The most common media throughout the Biennale were film, photography, and documents.[1]

## Reception

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Artnet News recommended the American, German, Danish, Belgian, Icelandic, and Cyprian pavilions. Of the external events, the magazine recommended the collaboration between Shilpa Gupta and Rashid Rana (of India and Pakistan, respectively), the installation by Simon Denny (New Zealand), and the exhibitions of Peter Doig and Cy Twombly.[2]

The Guardian's Laura Cumming wrote that the Biennale felt "more like a glum trudge than the usual exhilarating adventure".[1] Most of the Biennale's art, she described, was "flat" in the Giardini and thematically "straight into the heart of darkness", highlighting international issues such as work conditions, pollution and ecology, arms trade, prisons, and asylums. Sarah Lucas in the British pavilion, for instance, stood out for her lack of political themes but also signaled "the end of the YBA revivals at Venice".[1] Cumming highlighted a disassembled Nigerian magazine in the German pavilion as particularly lazy.[1]

Cumming wrote that the Biennale was steeped in its contradictory dependence on and criticism of capitalism, which she felt was embodied by British artist Isaac Julien's participation in both the Rolls-Royce pavilion and the Arena Das Kapital live reading.[1]

She recommended the Russian, Japanese, Albanian, American, and Australian pavilions. Fiona Hall in the Australian pavilion made a "museum of wondrous objects" that used present materials to make ancient objects, like "warrior masks knitted out of military fatigues".[1] She praised Hall for her response to current politics instead of "simply rehearsing the usual art-scene rhetoric".[1] The Japanese pavilion, an installation of red nets carrying thousands of keys, was Cumming's "clear winner, by general consent".[1] In comparison, Cumming described the Das Kapital performance's audience as nearly empty and likened the other pavilions to Commonwealth Institute lectures.[1]

Hyperallergic later named Enwezor's central exhibition among the decade's best,[3] and following his death in 2019, curators said his exhibition embodied his career of internationalizing contemporary art beyond Europe and North America.[4]

## Awards

[edit]

* Golden Lion for best national participation: Armenia
* Golden Lion for best artist in the central exhibition: Adrian Piper
* Silver Lion for a promising young artist: Im Heung-soon
* Golden Lion for lifetime achievement: El Anatsui
* Special Golden Lion for services to the arts: Susanne Ghez[5][6]

## See also

[edit]

* The Mosque

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cumming, Laura (May 10, 2015). "56th Venice Biennale review – more of a glum trudge than an exhilarating adventure". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved July 9, 2015.
2. ^ a b c d e f Chu, Christie (May 2, 2015). "Everything You Need To Know About the Venice Biennale 2015". Artnet News. Archived from the original on July 18, 2015. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
3. ^ "The Best Art Shows of the Decade". Hyperallergic. December 23, 2019. Archived from the original on December 25, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
4. ^ "Who Was the Most Influential Curator of the Decade? Dozens of Art-World Experts Told Us Their Judgment, and Why". Artnet News. December 24, 2019. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
5. ^ "Armenia, Adrian Piper Win Venice Biennales Golden Lions". ARTnews. May 9, 2015. Archived from the original on January 29, 2019. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
6. ^ Cascone, Sarah (April 23, 2015). "El Anatsui Wins Venice Biennale Golden Lion". Artnet News. Archived from the original on June 16, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2019.

## Further reading

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* Abrams, Amah-Rose (January 25, 2016). "Christine Macel to Curate 2017 Venice Biennale". Artnet News. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* "Africa in Venice". Frieze. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
* Archey, Karen (May 14, 2015). "Why Does Okwui Enwezor's Biennale Feel So Out of Date?". Vulture. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
* Bloom, Lisa E. (May 18, 2016). "Review of 'La Biennale di Venezia. 56th International Art Exhibition: All the World's Futures' by Okwui Enwezor". caa.reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2016.64. ISSN 1543-950X.
* Cembalest, Robin (May 11, 2015). "Venice Highlights 2015: Pavilions and Collateral Events". Art in America. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
* "Dark Star: Australia Reinvents the Black Box for the Venice Biennale". Town & Country. May 2015. Archived from the original on November 15, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
* Deitz, Bibi (May 21, 2015). "A Sweeping Look at the Venice Biennale 2015". Vice. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
* Diallo, Aïcha (May 5, 2015). "Venice Biennale 2015: 'Our strategy is pretty much about a dialogue between generations'". Contemporary And. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
* Droitcour, Brian (August 28, 2015). "Pavilion Problems". Art in America. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
* "El Anatsui Awarded Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at Venice Biennale". Artforum. April 23, 2015. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* Forbes, Alexander (May 7, 2015). "Okwui Enwezor's Venice Biennale Is an Unpleasant Experience—And That's a Good Thing". Artsy. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
* Green, Dominic (September 2015). "Nostalgia in Venice". New Criterion. 34 (1): 19. ISSN 0734-0222. EBSCOhost 109210972.
* Greenberger, Alex (August 18, 2020). "The Top 10 Venice Biennale Controversies: Censorship, Fake Art, Financial Strife, and More". ARTnews.com. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
* Guerrero, Inti (May 18, 2015). "Field Trip Latin American Pavilions At The 56th Venice Biennale". ArtAsiaPacific. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
* Kennedy, Randy (April 30, 2015). "Swiss Artist Plans a Mosque Installation for Venice Biennale". ArtsBeat. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* Kennedy, Randy (March 12, 2015). "Venice Biennale Shows its Political Stripes". ArtsBeat. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
* Kuo, Michelle (May 2015). "Okwui Enwezor on Okwui Enwezor talks with Michelle Kuo about the upcoming 56th Venice Biennale". Artforum. Vol. 53, no. 9\. ISSN 0004-3532.
* Morgan, Jessica (September 1, 2015). "Too Much Too Soon". Artforum International. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
* Norman, Will (August 2015). "State of the Union - The Home Nations at the 56th Venice Biennale". British Journal of General Practice. 65 (637): 424. doi:10.3399/bjgp15X686353. ISSN 0960-1643. PMC 4513729. PMID 26212837.
* O'Toole, Sean (May 28, 2015). "All the World's Futures". Frieze. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
* Poggi, Christine (May 18, 2016). "Review of 'La Biennale di Venezia. 56th International Art Exhibition: All the World's Futures' by Okwui Enwezor". caa.reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2016.62. ISSN 1543-950X.
* Pollack, Barbara (May 7, 2015). "In Deep Water: The Pavilions of Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Tuvalu in Venice". ARTnews. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* Searle, Adrian (May 11, 2015). "Venice Biennale: the world is more than enough". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.
* Sooke, Alastair (May 11, 2015). "Venice Biennale 2015, International Art Exhibition, review: 'hectoring and joyless'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235.
* Thackara, Tess (May 9, 2015). "Adrian Piper and Armenia Take Golden Lions, But Does the Prize Matter?". Artsy. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* Tromble, Meredith (June 2016). "Vulnerability, brutality, hope: Complexism and the 56th Venice Biennale". Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research. 14 (1/2): 71–82\. doi:10.1386/tear.14.1-2.71_1. ISSN 1477-965X.
* "Venice Biennale Shrinks as Costa Rica, Kenya Cancel Pavilions". Artforum. May 1, 2015. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
* Wainwright, Lisa (May 18, 2016). "Review of 'La Biennale di Venezia. 56th International Art Exhibition: All the World's Futures' by Okwui Enwezor". caa.reviews. doi:10.3202/caa.reviews.2016.63. ISSN 1543-950X.
* Ward, Ossian (May 13, 2015). "Pavilion party: the 20 best artistic offerings from the Venice Biennale 2015". Wallpaper*. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
* Wendt, Selene (June 15, 2017). "The Stories that Need to be Told: 56th Venice Biennale". Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. 40 (1): 68–81\. doi:10.1215/10757163-3885940. ISSN 2152-7792. S2CID 192680647. Project MUSE 662674.

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[edit]

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