Saturday, November 01, 2008

Next year's Venice Biennale to break with tradition

ROME (AFP) — Next year's prestigious Venice Biennale art show will focus on the creative process, breaking with longstanding museum-style exhibitions, organisers said Friday.

Titled "Making Worlds", the international show, to be held June 7 to November 22, 2009, will be "closer to the process of production and the venues of creation and training -- the studio, the laboratory -- than traditional museum-style exhibitions", said next year's curator Daniel Birnbaum.

Swedish-born Birnbaum, currently head of Frankfurt's Stadelschule Art Academy, is an art critic and philosopher.

"A work of art is more than an object, or a product. It represents a vision of the world and, if taken seriously, can be considered as a way of constructing worlds," he said in a statement.

Among countries to take part for the first time in the 53rd edition of the "Mostra" are the United Arab Emirates, Gabon, Montenegro, Pakistan and South Africa.

Iran, Morocco and New Zealand will be staging a return.

The 2007 edition awarded a Golden Lion lifetime achievement to Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, who will become the first African to clinch the top honour.

The theme for the 52nd Biennale was "Think with your senses -- Feel with your spirit" and hosted 77 national pavilions, as well as artists from around the world.


Editors note: Daniel Birnbaum is presently curating 50 Moons of Saturn for the Turin Triennale, which opens this Thursday, November 6 and continues until February 1, 2009.

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