56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte All the World’s Futures la Biennale di Venezia ©2015 Curator : Okwui Enwezor Photo by Alessandra Chemollo Artext©2015
All the World’s Futures
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56. Esposizione Internazionale di Arte
A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History
All the World’s Futures
MOSTRA
Woman Behind Tree, 2011 Acquerello, gouache, pigmento, carboncino, pastelli su carta. 29 Ă— 24 cm
Adel Abdessemed Also sprach Allah, 2008. Pietra nera su tappeto e video, colore, suono. Dimensioni variabili (tappeto: 145 Ă—215 cm)
Abounaddara Syria: Snapshots of History in the Making, 2014. Video in HD, colore, suono. 52’.
Boris Achour Games Whose Rules I Ignore (Mirror Eyes), 2015. Scultura con media misti, video, colore, suono. Dimensioni variabili. 5’19’’.
Terry Adkins, Darkwater Record (from Darkwater), 2003 2008. Porcelain, cassette tap records with Socialism and the American Negro speech with W.E.B. Du Bois, 78.7 x 30.5 x 35.6 cm. Arrow Fine Art Storage, Elmhurst, Queens, N
Terry Adkins, Matinee, 2007 2013. Bronze, steel, hangers, burnt cork, 188 x 157.5 cm. Arrow Fine Art Storage, Elmhurst, Queens, NY
Saâdane Afif The Speaker’s corner of Hamra Street, Beirut, Meeting Points 6: Locus Agonistes Practice and Logics of the Civic, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, 2011. Performance’s documentation, Hamra Street, Beirut, performed by Nasri Sayegh. Courtesy the Artist; Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; RaebervonStenglin, Zurich. Photo Houssam Mchaiemch
Chantal Akerman NOW, 2015. Video stills, 8 channel HD video installation, surround sound, color, looped. Courtesy the Artist; Marian Goodman Gallery. Photo Š Chantal Akerman.
John Akomfrah Vertigo Sea, 2015. Installazione con video a tre canali, suono, colore. 45’. Dimensioni variabili.
Karo Akpokiere, Nigerian Visa Mystic Temple, 2013. Gouache, marker pens, ink 40.65 x 30.5 cm
Meric Algun Ringborg Souvenirs for the Landlocked, 2015. Installazione con diversi media. 210Ă— 720 Ă— 600 cm.
Kutlug Ataman Sak覺p Sabanc覺. Courtesy the Artist; the Sak覺p Sabanc覺 Museum Istanbul
Maja Bajevic The Unbelievable Lightness of Being, 2015. Installazione con diversi media, tappezzeria, dodici ricami. Tappezzeria: 250 Ă— 330 cm.
Sammy Baloji The Other Memorial, 2015. Brass, copper sculpture, 400 x 200 x 200 cm. Courtesy the Artist
Rosa Barba A Fictional Library - Live, 2014
Eduardo Basualdo Alba, 2014 Legno e metallo. 215 × 81,5× 5 cm.
Walead Beshty ยกLa Voz de Jalisco El Periodico Que Dice Lo Que Otros Callan Mรกs Noticias Mรกs Deportes! (Sรกbado, 10 Agosto 2013: Metro, La Prensa Jalisco, Express Guadalajara), 2013. Daily newspapers, dimensions variable
Huma Bhabha Senza titolo, 2014 Inchiostro e collage su fotografia a colori. 203,2 Ă— 127 cm.
Christian Boltanski Animitas, 2014. Photo Amparo Irarrazaval
Monica Bonvicini LATENT COMBUSTION #1 2015 chainsaws, black polyurethane, matt finish, steel chains approx. 300 x 135 cm © Monica Bonvicini, VG Bild-Kunst Courtesy the artist, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, König Galerie Photo Jens Ziehe
Daniel Boyd Senza titolo (TI3), 2015 Olio, carboncino e colla archivistica su poliestere. 487 Ă— 213 cm.
Ricardo Brey Black box, 2009
Courtesy the Artist; Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels. Photo Dirk Pauwels, Ghent
Marcel Broodthaers Un Jardin d`Hiver, 1974. Courtesy Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof
Tania Bruguera El susurro de Tatlin #6, Havana version, 2009. Performance’s documentation, 1/5 HD video, formato 16:9 stereo, English subtitles, 40’30’’, second edition of 5 exemplares + 1 P.A. © Tania Bruguera
Teresa Burga Fuerzas Operacionales (FOES), 2012. Ink, pen on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm. Courtesy the Artist; Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin
Keith Calhoun & Chandra McCormick Ditch Digging, 1981 Dalla serie Slavery, The Prison Industrial Complex. Stampa fotografica d’archivio ai pigmenti. 143,5× 110,5 cm.
Cao Fei La Town, 2014 Video in HD, colore, suono. 42’.
Marcel Broodthaers Un Jardin d`Hiver, 1974. Courtesy Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof
Olga Chernysheva Senza titolo (Captured), 2015. Carboncino su carta. 42 Ă— 60 cm.
Tiffany Chung Syria Deeply Day 1387: December 31, 2014 numbers of casualties and refugees, 2015 Inchiostro e olio su vellum e carta. 21Ă— 30 cm.
Cooperativa Crater Invertido MĂŠxico en la piel, 2014. Stampa risografica.
Creative Time Summit, 2012. Courtesy the Artists. Photo Casey Kelbaugh
Elena Damiani Rude Rocks N.2, 2015 Marmo di Brescia scolpito e levigato a mano, rame. 50 Ă— 50 Ă— 50 cm.
Jeremy Deller 56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Photo by Alessandra Chemollo
Thea Djordjadze Our full, 2012.
Marlene Dumas Justice, 1992. Oil on canvas, 25 x 20 cm. Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp. Photo Felix Tirry
Melvin Edwards Dakar, 2004. Welded steel, 68.6 x 43.2 x 18.8 cm. Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London Š by SIAE 2015
Inji Effaltoun, Popular Resistance. Water color, 20 x 30 cm
Inji Effaltoun Popular Resistance. Water color, 20 x 30 cm
Antje Ehmann, Harun Farocki Labour in a Single Shot, 2013-2015. Still from Lucas Penaforte, BA Stock Exchange, Buenos Aires, 2013
Maria Eichhorn Toile/Pinceau/Peinture, Leinwald/Pinsel/Farbe, Tela/Pennello/Colore (Canvas/Brush/Painting), 1992/1994/2015. Settantadue opere a olio su tela, settantadue pennelli, settantadue diverse vernici, attrezzi da pittura, tavolo, sedia, testo, etichette da parete e una copia del libro Riechstoffe und Geruchssinn. Die molekulare Welt der DĂźfte [Profumi e olfatto. Il mondo molecolare delle fragranze]. Tele: 123 Ă— 93 cm ciascuna.
Walker Evans Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Sunday Singing, Tengle Family, 1936 Stampa alla gelatina d’argento. 13 × 19 cm (con cornice: 36 × 46 cm). Copyright Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Harun Farocki Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik in elf Jahrzehnten (Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades), 2006. Installazione con video a dodici canali, suono, colore.
Emily Floyd The Dawn, 2014. Aluminium, two-part epoxy paint, books, variable dimensions. Courtesy the Artist; Anna Schwartz Gallery, Australia. Collection National Gallery of Victoria. Photo Gary Sommerfeld, NGV Photographic Services
Peter Friedl Villa tropicale, 2012–2013. MDF, PVC, brass, Plexiglas, acrylic paint, 14 x 26.7 x 21.4 cm
Coco Fusco Materiale d’archivio raccolto nel corso della produzione di The Confession, 2015 Video digitale, b/n, colore, suono. 30’.
Marco Fusinato THERE IS NO AUTHORITY, 2012 Legno, tappeto, fotocamera, monitor. 925 Ă— 1204 cm.
Charles Gaines Notes on Social Justice: Dey’s All Put on De Blue, (1880), 2013. Each 86.4 x 71.3 cm. Detail. Courtesy the Artist; Paula Cooper Gallery
Ellen Gallagher Dr. Blowfins, 2014 Inchiostro, grafite e carta su tela. 188,2 Ă— 202,9 cm. Collezione privata.
Ana Gallardo El pedimento, 2009-2015 Installazione con diversi media, suolo, legno. Dimensioni variabili
Theaster Gates performance with the Black Monks of Mississipi at St. Laurence Catholic Church, Chicago, 2014. Film still
Isa Genzken Two Orchids, 2015. Fusione di alluminio, acciaio inossidabile, pittura. 1038,2 ×242,6 × 201,3 cm e 872,5 × 208,3 × 212,7cm
GLUKLYA/ Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya Clothes for the demonstration against false election of Vladimir Putin, 2011-2015. Particolare Fufaika with Poetry, 2012. Tessuto, calligrafia, legno. Dimensioni variabili (abiti: 70 Ă— 40 cm ciascuno; tecche di legno: 300 Ă— 40 cm ciascuna)
Sonia Gomes Trouxa, 2004 Cuciture, nodi, diversi tessuti e pizzi. 48 Ă— 50 Ă— 26 cm.
Katharina Grosse Das Bett, 2004 Acrilico su parete, pavimento e oggetti vari. 280 Ă— 450 Ă— 400 cm.
Gulf Labor Coalition (GLC) Stendardo al Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (5 novembre 2014)
Rupali Gupte & Prasad Shetty Transactional Objects, Object 1: Poky Shop, 2015 Legno. Diametro 180 cm
Andreas Gursky May Day IV, 2000-2014. C-print / Dibond / con cornice. 38,3 × 101,3 × 4 cm. Copyright Andreas Gursky / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015.
Hans Haacke Gallery-Goer’s Residence Profile, Part 2, 1970-71. Detail of Installation at Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2005. Photo Werner Kaligofsky
Hans Haacke, Gallery-Goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profile, Part 1, 1969
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige Wonder Beirut, The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer - Diasec #1, 1997-2006 Stampa fotografica montata a vista. 70 Ă— 100 cm.
Newell Harry (Senza titolo) Anagram: Heat Hate Meat Mate, 2013 Inchiostro su Tongan Ngatu (tessuto tapa). Circa 279 Ă— 118 cm.
Kay Hassan Senza titolo, 2014 Costruzione di carta. 272 × 155 × 5 cm.
Thomas Hirschhorn Photo by Isabella Balena
Carsten Holler Slide House Project (Independent Monument Accra No. 1/1), 1999 Inchiostro su fotografia a colori. 26 Ă— 41 cm.
Im Heung-soon Factory Complex, 2014 Installazione con video in HD, colore, suono. 81’.
Invisible Borders: The Trans-African Project Ray Daniels Okeugo. Following priest (en route Bitam), 2012 Fotografia digitale a colori. Dimensioni variabili.
Tetsuya Ishida Toyota Ipsum, 1996. Acrilico su carta, pannello. 59,4 × 84,1 cm (con cornice: 62,2 × 87,1 cm).
Tetsuya Ishida Toyota Ipsum, 1996. Acrilico su carta, pannello. 59,4 × 84,1 cm (con cornice: 62,2 × 87,1 cm).
Isaac Julien KAPITAL, 2013. Installazione con video in HD su doppio monitor.
Isaac Julien KAPITAL, 2013. Installazione con video in HD su doppio monitor.
Samson Kambalu A Note in which Guy Debord addresses Sanguinetti as ‘Engels’, 2015 Fotografia digitale. Dimensioni variabili.
Ayoung Kim Zephethwhale oil from the Hanging Gardens to you, Shell, 2014. Four channel sound installation. Courtesy the Artist
Emily Kame Kngwarreye Earth’s Creation, 1994. Synthetic polymer paint on linen, 4 panels, each 275 x 160 cm. Courtesy Mbantua Gallery; Cultural Museum. Photo Mbantua Gallery
Emily Kame Kngwarreye painting Earth’s Creation, 1994. Courtesy Dacou Gallery
Runo Lagomarsino La Muralla Azul, 2014. Timbro di gomma su parete, cinque stampe su carta esposte al sole, sole e acqua del Mediterraneo. 75 Ă— 105 cm ciascuna.
Leber Sonia & Cheswoth David
All the World’s Futures Photo by Alessandra Chemollo
Glenn Ligon Senza titolo (bruise/blues), 2014. Neon e vernice. 292,1 × 81,3 cm e 256,5 × 81,3 cm.
Goncalo Mabunda The Knowledge Throne, 2014 Bracci saldati smontati. 117 × 86 × 60 cm.
Madhusudhanan Penal Colony, 2015. Series of 70 charcoal drawings on paper, each 73.6 x 53.3 cm. Courtesy the Artist
Ibrahim Mahama Occupation and Occupation, Railways, 2014
David Maljkovic Photo by Alessandra Chemollo
Victor Man Luminary Petals on a Wet, Black Bough (after Giorgione), 2014–2015. Oil on canvas mounted on wood, 40 x 30 cm. Courtesy the Artist; Gladstone Gallery, NY; Plan B, Cluj
Abu Bakarr Mansaray THE MASSAKA, 1997. Matita e inchiostro nero e rosso su carta. 21 Ă— 30 cm.
Chris Marker Senza titolo (Passengers #129), 2008-2010 Fotografie montate su Sintra bianco. 33,6 Ă— 36,2 cm ciascuna.
Kerry James Marshall Senza titolo (Pink Towel), 2014. Acrilico su pannello in PVC. 62,5 Ă— 55,5 cm.
Helen Marten Guild of Pharmacists, 2014. Carved, routed, lacquered hardwoods, valchromat, stitched fabric, formica, ash, walnut, feathered silver, leafed tennis ball, Fedex envelopes, cable, alabaster fruit, rope, toy snake, leale, feather, coconut fibre, foil, nail tacks, aluminium, steel tube, cardboard ring, 292.4 x 372 x 108.5 cm. Š Helen Marten. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
Fabio Mauri Macchina per fissure acquerelli, detail, 2007. Iron, wood, rubber. GC.AC—Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea di Monfalcone, Monfalcone. Photo Sandro Mele
Naeem Mohaiemen Last Man in Dhaka Central (The Young Man Was, Part 3), 2015. Installazione con video a due canali, suono, colore. 88’ e 44’.
Jason Moran Staged, 2015. Sketch, pencil on notebook paper. Courtesy the Artist; Luhring Augustine, New York
Lavar Munroe To Protect and Serve, 2012 Acrilico, vernice spray, vernice di lattice, sacchi per l’immondizia, nastro isolante, nastro per delimitare la scena di un crimine, cartone, tessuto, corda, testa di una bambola su tela tagliata. 214 × 175 cm.
Oscar Murillo I don’t work Sundays, 2014. Oil on canvas on stainless steel, canvas 386 x 270 cm, rail 400 cm
Wangechi Mutu Bird Flew, 2014. Mixed media, ink, collage on Mylar, 114.3 x 170.2 cm. Courtesy the Artist; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Collection Bill and Charlotte Fors, New York
Bruce Nauman Human Nature / Life Death / Knows Doesn’t Know 1983/refrabricated exhibition Neon 107 ½ x107 x 5 ¾ Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Modern and Contemporary Art Council Fund
Chris Ofili Frogs in the Shade, 2014. Oil on linen, 310 x 200 x 4 cm. Š Chris Ofili. Courtesy the Artist; David Zwirner, New York / London. Photo Maris Hutchinson
Philippe Parreno With a Rhythmic Instinction to be Able to Travel Beyond Existing Forces of Life (green, Rule #1), 2014. Video LED, colore, suono. 336 Ă— 228 cm. Collezione Maja Hoffmann.
Pino Pascali Cannone Semovente (Gun), 1965. Legno, rottami di metallo e ruote. 251,5 Ă— 340,4 Ă— 246,4 cm.
Adrian Piper Everything Will Be Taken Away 2 (Erasuers), 2003. Graph paper, photocopied photo overprint, erasure, inkject text overprint, 21.6 x 28 cm. Courtesy the Artist
Qiu Zhijie JINLING Chronicle Theater Project, 2014. Exhibition view at the Red Brick Contemporary Art Museum, Beijin
Raqs Media Collective Coronation Park, 2015. Studi preparatori. Nove sculture di vetroresina su piedistalli di legno ricoperti di bitume, con piastre in polimero acrilico. Dimensioni variabili.
Lili Reynaud Dewar My Epidemic (Small Bad Blood Opera), 2015. Studio preparatorio per installazione con media misti, suono, video, tessuto, vernice, inchiostro, metallo, altoparlanti, amplificatori, video, LED. Dimensioni variabili.
Mykola Ridnyi Blind Spot, 2014-2015. Vernice acrilica spray su C-print. 42 Ă— 59,4 cm
Lisa Roberts Petersburg Underground (2015) Dodici C-print incorniciate Dimensioni variabili
Mika Rottenberg NoNoseKnows, 2015. Installazione con media misti, video, colore, suono. Circa 22’. Dimensioni variabili.
Joachim Schonfeldt Factory Drawing Drawn In Situ (Anvil 7), 2010-2015. Matita B1 e B2 su carta Cartridge/Sketch da 180 g. 42 Ă— 30 cm.
Massinissa Selmani Walk Under A White Sky, 2015. Grafite su carta. 50 Ă— 60 cm ciascuno (trittico).
Fatou Kande Senghor Giving Birth, 2014. Video, sound, color, 30’ loop. Courtesy the Waru Studio
Gedi Sibony The Great Escape, 2015. Semi-rimorchio in alluminio. 266,7 Ă— 216,9 cm.
Taryn Simon Paperwork, and the Will of Capital, 2015. Pressa di cemento pigmentata, specie floreali seccate, stampe a getto d’inchiostro d’archivio, testo su pagine di erbario, graffe di acciaio. 74,1 × 52,4 × 11,2 cm.
Lorna Simpson Three Figures, 2014. Inchiostro e serigrafia su tavola d’argilla. 296,5 × 247,7 cm.
Robert Smithson Dead Tree, 1969, reconstructed 2015. Tree, mirrors, dimensions variable
Mikhael Subotzky 56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte - la Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures
Sara Sze Triple Point (Observatory), 2013. Specchi, fotografia di roccia stampata su Tyvek, legno, alluminio, metallo, diversi media. Dimensioni variabili (circa 216 Ă— 896,6 Ă— 652,8 cm). Copyright Sarah Sze
The Propeller Group A Universe Of Collisions (working title), 2015.
Rirkrit Tiravanija Demonstration Drawings, 2015. Grafite su carta, cornice in MDF. Dimensioni variabili.
Barthélémy Toguo The New World Climax, 2000–2014. Installation with wooden stamps, tables, ink prints on paper. Courtesy Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg; Bandjoun Station Cameroun. Photo Mario Todeschini
Xu Bing Phoenix, 2012-2013.
Ala Younis Plan for Greater Baghdad, 2015. Studio preparatorio per installazione con stampe bi- e tridimensionali, materiali d’archivio e modello. Dimensioni variabili.
The State of Things In May 2015, one hundred and twenty years after its first art exhibition, the International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will unfold once again in the Giardini, the historical grounds where the first event took place in 1895. When that first exhibition was inaugurated there were no national pavilions. The only permanent exhibition building that existed at the time was the sepulchral structure of the Central Pavilion, with its neo-classical columns and towering winged victory perched atop the pediment. National pavilions would arrive twelve years later with the Belgian Pavilion in 1907, followed by several others in successive years to where it stands today at nearly ninety five pavilions. The expansion of the pavilions in the Giardini to thirty exhibition buildings designed in various architectural styles, and the overspill of those pavilions unable to secure a plot in the Giardini proper into different areas of the city and the Arsenale area, testify to the unquestionable allure of this most anachronistic of exhibition models dedicated to national representation. Adjacent to the bourgeoning national pavilions is the non-national international exhibition in the Giardini and Arsenale.
Since its first edition in 1895, the visual art exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia has existed at the confluence of many socio-political changes and radical historical ruptures across the fields of art, culture, politics, technology, and economics. Founded in 1893, the institution of la Biennale di Venezia arrived on the world stage at a significant historic pe riod, at a point when forces of industrial modernity, capital, emergent technologies, urbanization, and colonial regimes were remaking the global map and rewriting the rules of sovereignty. Accompanying these developments were several mass movements: from workers’ to women’s movements; anti-colonial to civil rights movements, etc. . One hundred years after the first shots of the First World War were fired in 1914, and seventy-five years after the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the global landscape again lies shattered and in disarray, scarred by violent turmoil, panicked by specters of economic crisis and viral pandemonium, secessionist politics and a humanitarian catastrophe on the high seas, deserts, and borderlands, as immigrants, refugees, and desperate peoples seek refuge in seemingly calmer and prosperous lands. Everywhere one turns new crisis, uncertainty, and deepening insecurity across all regions of the world seem to leap into view.
Surveying these epic events from the vantage point of the current disquiet that pervades our time, one feels as if summoned by Paul Klee’s painting Angelus Novus. Thanks to the philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin who bought the work in 1921, the painting has acquired a kind of cult status of clairvoyance beyond its actual representation. Benjamin saw in Klee’s picture what in fact, was not registered nor even painted in it. Instead he read Angelus Novus allegorically, seeing the picture with clear historical eyes, while facing another catastrophe unfolding in Europe at a time of immense crisis. By excavating the painting as the very reality unfolding before him, with the state of the world he knew being dismantled right before his very own eyes, Benjamin compels us to revision the representational capacity of art. His novel interpretation of the animated stick figure standing in the middle of Klee’s composition, with shocked expression in its eyes, as the “angel of history,” at whose feet the wreckage of modern destruction reaches new summits, remains a vivid image. If not necessarily for what the picture actually contains and the image it registers, but for the way Benjamin brought a focus to how the work of art can challenge us to see much further and beyond the prosaic appearance of things.
The ruptures that surround and abound around every corner of the global landscape today recall the evanescent debris of previous catastrophes piled at the feet of the angel of history in Angelus Novus. How can the current disquiet of our time be properly grasped, made comprehensible, examined, and articulated? Over the course of the last two centuries the radical changes – from industrial to post-industrial modernity; technological to digital modernity; mass migration to mass mobility, environmental disasters and genocidal conflicts, chaos and promise – have made fascinating subject matter for artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, composers, musicians, etc. This situation is no less palpable today. It is with this recognition that in 2015, the 56th International Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia proposes All the World’s Futures a project devoted to a fresh appraisal of the relationship of art and artists to the current state of things.
The Exhibition: Parliament of Forms Rather than one overarching theme that gathers and encapsulates diverse forms and practices into one unified field of vision, All the World’s Futures is informed by a layer of intersecting Filters. These Filters are a constellation of parameters that circumscribe multiple ideas, which will be touched upon to both imagine and realize a diversity of practices. In 2015, the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia will employ the historical trajectory of the Biennale itself, over the course of its one hundred and twenty years existence, as a Filter through which to reflect on both the current “state of things” and the “appearance of things”. All the World’s Futures will take the present “state of things” as the ground for its dense, restless, and exploratory project that will be located in a dialectical field of references and artistic disciplines. The principal question the exhibition will pose is this: How can artists, thinkers, writers, composers, choreographers, singers, and musicians, through images, objects, words, movement, actions, lyrics, sound bring together publics in acts of looking, listening, responding, engaging, speaking in order to make sense of the current upheaval? What material, symbolic or aesthetic, political or social acts will be produced in this dialectical field of references to give shape to an exhibition which refuses confinement within the boundaries of conventional display models? In All the World’s Futures the curator himself, along with artists, activists, the public, and contributors of all kinds will appear as the central protagonists in the open orchestration of the project. With each Filter superimposed on the other, in a series of rescensions, the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia will delve into the contemporary global reality as one of constant realignment, adjustment, recalibration, motility, shape-shifting. Given this fact, the presentation of All the World’s Futures will play host to a Parliament of Forms whose orchestration and episodic unfolding will be broadly global in scope. At the core of the project is the notion of the exhibition as stage where historical and counter-historical projects will be explored. Within this framework, aspects of the 56th Exhibition will solicit and privilege new proposals and works conceived specifically by invited artists, filmmakers, choreographers, performers, composers, and writers to work either individually or in collaboration for the 56th Art Biennale. These projects, works, and voices, like an orchestra will occupy the spaces of the La Biennale and pre-occupy the time and thinking of the public.
Filters: Liveness: On epic duration In the search for a language and method for the exhibition of the 56th Art Exhibition we have settled on the nature of the exhibition as fundamentally a visual, somatic, aural, and narrative event. In so doing, we ask how an exhibition of the scale and scope of the 56th International Art Biennale can address its format and refresh it with the potential of its temporal capacity. In this search the concept of liveness and epic duration serve two complementary purposes: they suggest the idea that All the World’s Futures is both a spatial and temporal manifestation that is relentlessly incomplete, structured by a logic of unfolding, a program of events that can be experienced at the intersection of liveness and display. It will be a dramatization of the space of the exhibition as a continuous, unfolding, and unceasing live event. In doing so All the World’s Futures will activate works that are already existing but also invites contributions that will be realized especially for the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia.
Garden of Disorder This Filter, located in the Giardini and the Central Pavilion, Corderie, Giardino delle Vergini in the Arsenale, and selected areas in Venice, takes the historical ground of la Biennale in the Giardini as a metaphor through which to explore the current “state of things,� namely the pervasive structure of disorder in global geopolitics, environment and economics. The original concept of the garden derives from Persian antiquity. It conceives of the dimension garden as paradise, an enclosed space of tranquility and pleasure, which over several millennia has been transformed into an allegory for the search for the space of order and purity. For the 56th International Art Biennale in 2015, the exhibition returns to the ancient ground of this ideal to explore the changes in the global environment, to read the Giardini with its ramshackle assemblage of pavilions as the ultimate site of a disordered world, of national conflicts, as well as territorial and geopolitical disfigurations. Proposals that take the concept of the garden as a point of departure will be worked through by artists who have been invited to realized new sculptures, films, performances, and installations for All the World’s Futures.
Capital: A Live Reading Beyond the distemper and disorder in the current “state of things,” there is one pervasive preoccupation that has been at the heart of our time and modernity. That preoccupation is the nature of Capital, both its fiction and reality. Capital is the great drama of our age. Today nothing looms larger in every sphere of experience, from the predations of the political economy to the rapacity of the financial industry. The exploitation of nature through its commodification as natural resources, the growing structure of inequality and the weakening of broader social contract have recently compelled a demand for change. Since the publication of Karl Marx’s massive Capital: Critique of Political Economy in 1867, the structure and nature of capital has captivated thinkers and artists, as well as inspired political theorists, economists, and ideological structures across the world. In All the World’s Futures, the aura, effects, affects, and specters of Capital will be felt in one of the most ambitious explorations of this concept and term. A core part of this program of live readings, is “Das Kapital” a massive meticulously researched bibliographic project, conceived by the artistic director in the Central Pavilion. This program, occurring everyday for nearly seven months, without stop, will commence with a live reading of the four volumes of Marx’s Das Kapital and gradually expand into recitals of work songs, librettos, readings of scripts, discussions, plenaries, and film screenings devoted to diverse theories and explorations of Capital. Over the course of the 56th Art Biennale, theater ensembles, actors, intellectuals, students, and members of the public will be invited to contribute to the program of readings that will flood and suffuse surrounding galleries with voices in an epic display of orality. A major inspiration for this unusual operatic performance is in the opening lines of Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar’s book Reading Capital.
“Of course, we have all read, and do read Capital. For almost a century we have been able to read it every day, transparently, in the dramas and dreams of our history, in its disputes and conflicts, in the defeats and victories of the workers’ movement which is our only hope and our destiny. Since we ‘came into the world’, we have read Capital constantly in the writings and speeches of those who have read it for us, well or ill, both the dead and the living, Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, Stalin, Gramsci, the leaders of the workers’ organizations, their supporters, and opponents, philosophers, economists, politicians. We have read bits of it, the ‘fragments’ which the conjuncture had ‘selected’ for us. We have even all, more or less read Volume One, from ‘commodities’ to the ‘expropriation of the expropriators.’ But some day it is essential to read Capital to the letter. To read the text itself, complete, all four volumes, line by line, to return ten times to the first chapters, or to the schemes of simple reproduction and reproduction on an enlarged scale, before coming down from the arid table-lands and plateaus of Volume Two into the promised land of profit, interest, and rent… That is how we decided to read Capital…And we present them in their immediate form without making alterations so that all the risks and advantages of this adventure are reproduced; so that the reader [and listener] will be able to find in them new-born the experience of a reading; and so he in turn will be dragged in the wake of his first reading into a second one which will take us still further.” With this outlook, All the World’s Futures, through its constellation of Filters will delve into the “state of things” and question “the appearance of things”, shifting from the guttural enunciation of the voice to the visual and physical manifestations between artworks and the public. Okwui Enwezor
Artisti Jumana Emil Abboud - Adel Abdessemed – Abounaddara - Boris Achour - Terry Adkins - Saâdane Afif - Chantal Akerman - John Akomfrah - Karo Akpokiere - Meric Algun Ringborg - Kutlug Ataman – Maja Bajevic - Sammy Baloji - Rosa Barba - Eduardo Basualdo - Walead Beshty - Huma Bhabha - Christian Boltanski - Monica Bonvicini - Daniel Boyd - Ricardo Brey - Marcel Broodthaers - Tania Bruguera - Teresa Burga - Keith Calhoun & Chandra McCormick - Cao Fei - Marcel Broodthaers - Olga Chernysheva - Tiffany Chung - Cooperativa Crater Invertido - Creative Time Summit - Elena Damiani - Jeremy Deller - Thea Djordjadze - Marlene Dumas - Melvin Edwards - Inji Effaltoun - Antje Ehmann - Maria Eichhorn - Walker Evans - Harun Farocki - Emily Floyd - Peter Friedl - Coco Fusco - Marco Fusinato - Charles Gaines - Ellen Gallagher - Ana Gallardo - Theaster Gates - Isa Genzken - GLUKLYA/ Natalia Pershina-Yakimanskaya - Sonia Gomes - Katharina Grosse - Gulf Labor Coalition (GLC) - Rupali Gupte & Prasad Shetty - Andreas Gursky Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige - Newell Harry - Kay Hassan - Thomas Hirschhorn - Carsten Holler - Im Heung-soon - Invisible Borders - Tetsuya Ishida - Tetsuya Ishida - Isaac Julien - Isaac Julien - Samson Kambalu - Ayoung Kim - Emily Kame Kngwarreye - Runo Lagomarsino - Leber Sonia & Cheswoth David - Glenn Ligon - Goncalo Mabunda - Madhusudhanan - Ibrahim Mahama - David Maljkovic - Victor Man - Abu Bakarr Mansaray - Chris Marker - Kerry James Marshall - Helen Marten - Fabio Mauri - Naeem Mohaiemen - Jason Moran - Lavar Munroe - Oscar Murillo - Wangechi Mutu - Bruce Nauman - Chris Ofili - Philippe Parreno - Pino Pascali - Adrian Piper - Qiu Zhijie - Raqs Media Collective - Lili Reynaud Dewar - Mykola Ridnyi - Lisa Roberts - Mika Rottenberg - Joachim Schonfeldt - Massinissa Selmani - Fatou Kande Senghor - Gedi Sibony - Taryn Simon - Lorna Simpson - Robert Smithson - Mikhael Subotzky - Sara Sze - The Propeller Group - Rirkrit Tiravanija - Barthélémy Toguo - Xu Bing - Ala Younis-