Both physical and virtual, the show will include video, performance, and sculpture, all exploring the way our feelings and actions have been profoundly altered and speculations on what the future will bring. Picking apart the layers of hybridity, the 22 artists included examine how this situation “influences our globally networked world.”
The 2017 Venice Biennale is on at various locations around the city, opening May 13 and running to November 26.
The international art exhibition is now in its 57th year, and takes the title Viva Art Viva as “an exclamation, a passionate outcry for art and the state of the artist,” according to this year’s curator Christine Macel. In a statement about the Biennale’s title, Macel notes “Today, in a world full of conflicts and shocks, art bears witness to the most precious part of what makes us human. Art is the ultimate ground for reflection, individual expression, freedom, and for fundamental questions. Art is the last bastion, a garden to cultivate above and beyond trends and personal interests. It stands as an unequivocal alternative to individualism and indifference.” Artists to look out for include Phillippe Parreno, Rachel Rose, Guan Xiao, Agnieszka Polska, Shimabuku, and Frances Stark.
Held across the Central Pavilion, Giardini and the Arsenale venues, the programme will present 120 artists from 51 countries, and it is worth noting that of the participating galleries, 103 are taking part for the first time.
There are also a number of ‘Collateral Events‘ featured throughout the programme, including Open Table, Artist Practices Project, Unpacking My Library and Projects and Performance. Here are a handful of event and exhibition recommendations:
GuanXiao is presenting solo exhibition Living Sci-Fi, under the red stars at Berlin’s Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, opening April 28 and running to July 1.
The Beijing-based artist will present a series of new sculptures looking at the urban environment and the increased change on our habitat by economic and technological development. There will also be a new video ‘Dengue Dengue Dengue’ which was made for exhibition A Temporary Futures Instituteat Antwerp’s M HKA, which also opens on April 28.
The three-channel film looks at how “habits contaminate our behavior, spreading around the world like an infectious disease. The infection is a transformation happening inside of us; the work calls for a retreat from these dynamics in order to learn the possibilities of breaking habits.”
Inspired by a quote from TwentyThousand Leagues Under the Sea, curator Zoe De Luca describes the exhibition’s premise as being divided into two topics: “the utopia of the defined archive in digital era” and “the claim of cultures shelved by dominant visual culture.”**
