Adrien Broom, Beginnings, 2013, courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Welcome to Iraq

The Pavilion of Iraq at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia in 2013 will host a group exhibition curated by Jonathan Watkins comprising works by eleven contemporary Iraqi artists resident in Iraq. Working across a wide range of media, including photography, drawing, painting, video, installation, sculpture, and textiles, they represent two generations of artists from across the country and were selected after many studio visits, other meetings and much careful thinking.

The Peltekian Family, 1999-2000, Photocollage on Arches Paper, 22.5 x 30 inches © Camille Zakharia

In a World of Your Own

Waheeda Malullah Â»
Camille Zakharia Â»

The Kingdom of Bahrain makes its debut at the Venice Biennale with painter Mariam Haji, photographer/installation artist Waheeda Malullah, and photographer/collagist Camille Zakharia.

Mohammed Kazem, Directions, 2005. Video installation, engraved acrylic panels, LED light, leaves, video, variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist.

Mohammed Kazem Â»

The National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates has announced Mohammed Kazem as featured artist and Reem Fadda as curator for the 55th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia.



Mohammed Kazem is a leading conceptual artist in the United Arab Emirates and is known for his incorporation of new media and his sophisticated formalist language. Fadda writes, “Mohammed Kazem, a pioneering contemporary artist and thinker from the UAE, represents a generation that emerged from an avant-garde legacy of arts and artists in the UAE and the surrounding region, one …

Jesper Just, Intercourses, 2013, still from 5-channel video installation at the Danish Pavilion for the 55th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, 2013. Courtesy the artist.

Jesper Just Â»

Intercourses

The Danish Arts Council announces details of Jesper Just’s new film and site-specific installation Intercourses, along with the parallel international graphic campaign by design studio Project Projects for the 55th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, June 1–November 24, 2013.

Jesper Just confronts the paradoxical nature intrinsic to Biennale commissions in the Giardini: the pavilion as physical representation of one country in another country. Using this as a point of departure, Intercourses examines themes of architectural pastiche and cultural disloca…

Jeremy Deller, So Many Ways to Hurt You (The Life and Times of Adrian Street) 2010, Film still. Courtesy of the artist, the Modern Institute and Toby Webster Ldt, Glasgow

Jeremy Deller Â»

Jeremy Deller will present a much-anticipated solo exhibition in the British Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition in Venice from 1st June to 24th November 2013.

Jeremy Deller’s way of working as artist, orchestrator, filmmaker, curator and cultural archivist is both highly influential and often collaborative. People often take centre stage in Deller’s practice and, over the last two decades, the Turner Prize-winning artist has collaborated with groups as diverse as former miners, bat behavioural experts, Depeche Mode fans and numerous musicians. Deller has an…

Gilad Ratman, The Workshop (2013), video still, courtesy of Braverman Gallery

Gilad Ratman Â»

The Workshop

Gilad Ratman presents The Workshop (2013), a multi-channel site-specific installation at the Israeli Pavilion at this year’s 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by the Israel Ministry for Culture and Sport, Ratman is one of the youngest artists ever to be chosen for the Israeli Pavilion. The Workshop is based on a fictional underground journey from Israel to Venice taken by a small community of people. Their epic voyage starts in the caves of Israel, weaves through treacherous subterranean passages before bursting through the floor of the Israel…

Zanele Muholi
Lerato Nkutha, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2010
Silver gelatin print
86.5 x 60.5cm
© Zanele Muholi

Imaginary Fact: Contemporary South African Art and the Archive

Donna Kukama Â» Zanele Muholi Â» Sam Nhlengethwa Â» Andrew Putter Â» Athi-Patra Ruga Â» Penny Siopis Â» Sue Williamson Â» & others

The exhibition aims to showcase artists who use materials of the past to comment on the contemporary. The exhibition is about the protection and preservation of South Africa national heritage and the symbols and artifacts of that heritage. It is also about using the arts to question and challenge the reading of the past, to reach a new understanding of it and to craft a new and inclusive narrative for the country. Gerhard Marx, Maja Marx and Philip Miller recall "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission", through the creation of an installation of seven films with audio; using the sou…

Richard Mosse, "Platon," North Kivu, Eastern Congo, 2012. Digital c-print. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Richard Mosse Â»

The Enclave

Wed 29 May

Richard Mosse will represent Ireland with The Enclave, a major new multi-media installation at the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The Commissioner and Curator is Anna O'Sullivan, Director of the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland. Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Mosse’s practice resides at the interface between documentary journalism and contemporary art. For centuries, the Congo has compelled and defied the Western imagination. Richard Mosse brings to this subject the…

Akram Zaatari, Letter to a Refusing Pilot (still), 2013. Film and video installation. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut.

Akram Zaatari Â»

Letter to a Refusing Pilot

Wed 29 May 14:30

Akram Zaatari will be presenting a major new work, titled Letter to a Refusing Pilot, in the Lebanese Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, the exhibition marks the debut of Zaatari’s most aesthetically ambitious and politically nuanced project to date, and creates a dialogue between two works, a new 45-minute video and a looping 16mm film, in an immersive environment conceived as a stage awaiting an actor, or a cinema awaiting a spectator.

Mathias Poledna, A Village by the Sea, 2011
35 mm black and white film, optical sound, 5:40 min
35 mm frame enlargement
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna;
Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin; Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles

Mathias Poledna Â»

Wed 29 May 15:30

Mathias Poledna (born 1965 in Vienna) completed his studies at the University of Applied Arts and the University of Vienna. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2000.

His work examines the interconnections between art and entertainment, modernity in architecture and design, the language of film, cinema and the process of image making in our culture. Often informed by extensive research, his projects of recent years have taken the form of minimal and highly evocative film installations that suggest a complex tension between their visceral attraction and concepts circulating aro…

Alfredo Jaar, Lament of the Images, 2002.

Alfredo Jaar Â»

Venezia, Venezia

Wed 29 May 17:00

Alfredo Jaar will represent Chile at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. With an expansive commitment to art in diverse and distinctive cultural, political, and public contexts, his work has been commissioned, exhibited and installed throughout the world, including Biennale in Venice (1987, 2002), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), and Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002). For the Venetian experience Jaar will create a major new site-specific installation. This as reguard Jaar won't be the first partecipation at the Biennale. In…

Joana Vasconcelos, Trafaria Praia (production still), 2013. Ferry at Navaltagus shipyard in Seixal, Portugal. Photograph: DMF, Lisbon. © Unidade Infinita Projectos.

Joana Vasconcelos Â»

Trafaria Praia

Wed 29 May 10:00

For Portugal’s participation in the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, the artist Joana Vasconcelos and the curator Miguel Amado will present Trafaria Praia, a project in which a cacilheiro, or Lisbon ferry, is transformed into a floating pavilion and artwork. The commissioner of the project is the Direção-Geral das Artes, a Portuguese state agency operating under the auspices of the Secretário de Estado da Cultura, Governo de Portugal.

Simryn Gill, Untitled, 2004. Still from Super8 film. Courtesy of the artist.

Simryn Gill Â»

Here art grows on trees

Wed 29 May

The official Australian representation at the 55th International Art Exhibition comprises an exhibition of new works by Simryn Gill and is curated by Catherine de Zegher. Simryn Gill works in the realm of the ephemeral and the domestic, with its daily habits and repetitions. Through her images and collections of objects, she brings into play her, and our, everyday experiences. Once formed, these works have the unexpected capacity to disturb our ideas of order. Be they books and words, landscapes of sublime power, or discarded objects of uncertain value, the different elements of her work exist…

Sylvain Deleu 2011, Installation views, Serpentine Gallery, London 2011 © Photo by Sylvain Deleu

Anri Sala Â»

Ravel, Ravel, Unravel

Anri Sala Represents France at the Germany Pavilion

Wed 29 May 15:00

The piece he is creating for the Biennale is titled Ravel Ravel Unravel, a subtle word play on the verb and the eponymous composer. In 1930, Maurice Ravel created a concerto to be played exclusively by the left hand, and it is upon this composition that the installation pivots. Two films focus separately upon the left hands of two renowned pianists – Louis Lortie and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – who were invited by Sala to perform the piece. The films, played simultaneously, reveal the differences and discrepancies between the two interpretations of the music, as the temporal lapse becom…

Dayanata Singh, Continuous Cities/House of Love, 2010
© Dayanita Singh, Frith Street Gallery

The German Pavilion 2013

France and Germany exchange Pavilions

Romuald Karmakar Â»
Santu Mofokeng Â»
Dayanita Singh Â»
Ai Weiwei Â»

Wed 29 May 11:00

In 2013 Gaensheimer carries forward this critical investigation of the significance of traditional forms of national representation in the national pavilions at the Venice Biennale. Contemporary artistic production in Germany, as elsewhere, is characterized by multilayered forms of cooperation between artists from all over the world and by international intellectual and cultural exchange. Therefore, at the Venice Biennale, Germany will not be represented as a hermetic national unit but as an active participant in a complex, worldwide constellation. For this reason Gaensheimer has invited four …

Koki Tanaka, swinging a flash light while we walk at night, photograph and text, 2012, 730X1100mm, created with blanClass, Yokohama, supported by The Japan Foundation

Koki Tanaka Â»

abstract speaking - sharing uncertainty and collective acts

Wed 29 May

The Japan Foundation has invited the artist Koki Tanaka and curator Mika Kuraya to provide the Japan Pavilion contribution to the 55th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, opening 1 June 2013. Koki Tanaka and Mika Kuraya will address through a video installation the theme, “How is it possible to take on the experiences of others as one’s own?”

Having experienced the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a disaster on an unprecedented scale, what message should Japan be sending to the world? This is the question that inspired the plan proposed by Tanaka and…

Antti Laitinen, Forest Square II (2013), © Antti Laitinen

Falling Trees

Terike Haapoja Â»
Antti Laitinen Â»

Wed 29 May 15:00

Finland presents two solo exhibitions under the heading Falling Trees: Terike Haapoja in the Nordic Pavilion and one of Antti Laitinen in the Finnish Aalto Pavilion. True to its title, the exhibition concept revisits a dramatic event at the 2011 biennale: the abrupt falling of a large tree that left the Finnish pavilion severely damaged and effectively closed the exhibition ahead of time. With this singular event as its starting point, Falling Trees reassesses our relationship with nature through multiple means of re-enactment and repetition.

Fakhriyya Mammadova, Wedding: “Girlish Dreams”, 2013, 75 digital photographs, wooden frames, variable dimensions

Ornamentation

Sanan Aleskerov Â»
Fakhriyya Mammadova Â» &others

Wed 29 May

From Baku to Venice : six contemporary artists from the land of fire.

Fakhriyya Mammadova´s (born 1974) photographs show the fragments of a story of a young bride. The traditional Azeri wedding ceremony is observed from an exterior point of view, changing between a documentary and intimate perspective.

The Polaroid series of Sanan Aleskerov (born 1956) shows his personal vision of social and aesthetical changes in cities and landscapes in Azerbaijan.

Kimsooja, To Breathe: Bottari, 2013. Mixed media. Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio.

Kimsooja Â»

To Breathe: Bottari

Thu 30 May

The notion of bottari (bundle) as a whole and totality and the concept of sewing have been the central components of Kimsooja’s work for over three decades. Posing various questions about the formal aspects of tableau, sculpture, object and installation, bottari encompasses issues of body, self and others and the relationship of yin and yang to life and death. Bottari explores problems of location and dislocation, migration, exile, and war, while posing existential and cognitive questions in space and time.

ALİ KAZMA, "RESISTANCE”, 2013, VIDEO STILL

Ali Kazma Â»

Resistance

Thu 30 May

Resistance is a survey on the discourses, techniques and management tactics developed for the body today and focuses on the interventions and strategies that both release the body from its own restrictions and restrict it in order to control it. Ali Kazma attempts to read the complex meanings and the enigma produced by the body as a physical and conceptual space from within a broad network of relations. In this multi-channel video installation to be premiered in Venice, Kazma researches the networks that shape the body within social, cultural, economic, political, scientific and mental layers.…

Jasmina Cibic, Framing the Space, 2013. Single-channel HD video, sound, 10:45 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Škuc Gallery. Photo: Pete Moss. © Jasmina Cibic.

Jasmina Cibic Â»

For our Economy and Culture

Thu 30 May 19:00

The Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana and Škuc Gallery are proud to present Jasmina Cibic at the Slovenian Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, the 55th International Art Exhibition. Cibic’s project, For our Economy and Culture, is commissioned by Blaž Peršin and curated by Tevž Logar, artistic director of Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana.

Currently based between London and Ljubljana, Jasmina Cibic is one of a new generation of Slovenian artists whose practice, although conscious of and addressing specific national political and theoretical concerns, operate…

Stefanos Tsivopoulos, History Zero (still), 2013. Video. Courtesy of the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani.

Stefanos Tsivopoulos Â»

History Zero

Thu 30 May 10:30

Stefanos Tsivopoulos will represent Greece at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia with his work History Zero, which will be unveiled at the Giardini during the preview on 29 May 2013. The project is curated by Syrago Tsiara, Director of the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art, Greece, and has been commissioned by the Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports.

History Zero comprises a film of three episodes alongside an archive of text and images. The film questions the value of money and the role money plays in the fo…

Ikuru Kuwajima, Astana winter urbascapes. Courtesy of the artist.

WINTER

Saodat Ismailova Â» Ikuru Kuwajima Â» Aza Shade Â»

Thu 30 May 9:00

The title of the exhibition WINTER is inspired by the poem of the 19th century Kazakh poet and thinker Abay Qunanbayuli who left a great intellectual legacy to the region of Central Asia and whose work was concerned with questions of social justice in his time.

In our curatorial project for the International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia 2013, we recontextualize this poem to current day Central Asia, employing the key of the metaphorical to address the current socio-political context in the region and the issue of artistic agency. We aim to broaden the political debate in t…

Zsolt Asztalos, Fired but Unexploded – IV (still), 2011. Video, four-minute loop. Audio: Washing-up. Courtesy of the artist.

Zsolt Asztalos Â»

Fired but Unexploded

Thu 30 May

Each bomb has its own story, which is essentially one of two kinds. Bombs may explode and thus fulfill their role as objects made specifically for the purpose of destruction, and then enter history books and the personal histories that families maintain. Zsolt Asztalos in his turn looks into the other possible story in an installation he has prepared for the 55th International Art Exhibition in Venice: the story of the malfunctioning device (unexploded bomb) as it leaves behind its original function, assumes a life of its own, starts writing a narrative, becoming a director of our lives throug…

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, 1284, from (In) Beautification series. Courtesy of The Third Line and Tarek Al-Ghoussein.

Tarek Al Ghoussein Â»

National Works

Exhibitors: Sami Mohammad, Tarek Al-Ghoussein

Thu 30 May 18:00

The exhibition National Works explores two major works by sculptor Sami Mohammad (b. 1943) along with a new photographic production by Tarek Al-Ghoussein (b. 1962). Curated by Ala Younis, National Works disassembles symbols of grandeur in paused/post glorious times, in an attempt to re-interpret Kuwait’s modernization project.

For this exhibition, Tarek Al-Ghoussein tracks encounters with grandness in sites significant to Kuwait's history. This chapter of his K Files, a work in-progress, marks returns to sites of proportion and vastness, with an attempt to consider…

Dénes Farkas, Evident in Advance (detail), 2013. Inkjet print, 1500 x 2000 mm. © Dénes Farkas.

Dénes Farkas Â»

Evident in Advance

Fri 31 May 17:00

“If I don’t trust this evidence why should I trust any evidence?,” Wittgenstein examined himself in On Certainty. Dénes Farkas’ work is haunted by a drama of not delivering a trust to a singular evidence of this world, a world as he found it. Hysterically reproduced, paper maquettes of choreographed architecture, imprisoned within a clumsy, photographic frame, are abstract shelters for imagined and unspoken texts. Words are characters in performance of a world as a text. As a proposition, Farkas’ Evident In Advance is “an absent book” and yet &l…