Biennale arte Venice
8.5.-11.5.2019 and 1.11.-2.11.2019
ACE KIBLA and X-OP to Venice

Snežana Štabi, Peter Tomaž Dbrila, Bojana Križanec, Živa Kleindienst

https://www.labiennale.org/en/art/2019

The 58th International Art Exhibition, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, took place from 11th May to 24th November 2019. The title is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; “interesting times”, exactly as the ones we live in today. The 58th Exhibition was curated by Ralph Rugoff.

Association X-OP’s members visited the biennial prior to the official opening, during the »professional preview« period, where all the exhibitions were accompanied by various programs and events, such as networking events, official openings, lectures, performances, concerts and educatonal events. Each national pavillion had an accompanying program that supported the exhibition consisting of performances, artist talks, debates, film projections, lectures etc. We visited the main group exhibition in Arsenale and the main exhibition in Giardini, as well as numerous national pavillions; to point out few outstanding exhibitions or events were the Macedonian Pavillion with Nada Prlja’s project Subversion to Red and a debate between leading professionals and political thinkes Chantal Mouffe, Maurizio Lazzaratto, Charles Esche, Laura Raicovich, Vlad Morariu and Artan Sadiku; Bosnian Pavillion by Danica Dakić and her project Zenic Trilogy; French Pavillion and Laurie Provoust’s distopian »liquid« installation, Ukrainina Pavillion with it’s collective curation and live debates instead of actual exhibition; works by Jon Rafman, Hito Steyerl, Shilpa Gupta,  Ed Atkins, and many more.

In addition to the Biennial, there are many other events in Venice at the time of the preview, however, not part of the Biennial’s program, there were certain exhibitions not to be missed. For us, Pinchuk Center’s Future Generation Art Prize exhibition of all the nominees was especially interesting, dealing with topics related to migration, social and political reconfigurations, identity, environment as well as relationship between human, technology and nature. There was also an opening of Roma Pavillion and exhibition Heartbreak at Ca’ del Duca, which both content wise relate to our field of interest in the scope of RC project.

Study visit was a great way to research and be introduced to new artistic practices, artists and other professionals in the field, to experience and see in person artworks and connect with artists themselves to build future collaborations.