A project that will redefine the exhibition venues at the Arsenale and Giardini was approved by the Biennale Board on 12th December. At the Arsenale, the Italian Pavilion in the Tese delle Vergini area will be enlarged, expanding into another facility and facing the adjoining Giardino delle Vergini. The Pavilion will be linked by a new entrance to the Arsenale via a bridge to be built between the Garden and the Castello neighbourhood. The board is hoping the renewal will be in place for the 53rd International Art Exhibition (7th June - 22nd November 2009).
The Biennale intends to rename this new facility as "Padiglione Italia". The Board also proposed the City Council to change the name of the historical building in the Giardini area, that is to bear the name of "Palazzo delle Esposizioni" of the Venice Biennale. This will emphasize its new nature, considering that this facility will be open all year round both for exhibitions and for the audience.
La Biennale di Venezia
Making Worlds
The 53rd International Art Exhibition
Director: Daniel Birnbaum
7 June 2009 – 22 November 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Whitney Announces Curators for 2010 Biennial
Carol Vogel reports in today's New York Times that Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari have been selected as curators for the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Bonami, fifty-three, is a seasoned Italian-born curator with an international reputation, while Carrion-Murayari, twenty-eight, is a homegrown senior curatorial assistant. Bonami will serve as curator for the biennial, with Carrion-Murayari acting as associate curator.
“It seemed like a good fit on a lot of levels,” said Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s chief curator. “Francesco is well known to the Whitney”—he helped organize the Rudolf Stingel retrospective in 2007—“and he has been thinking about and looking at biennials. Gary is about investing in a younger generation of curators. Not youth for youth’s sake but tapping into the way they see.”
This year, the biennial spilled over into the Park Avenue Armory for part of its run. At other times, it has spread into Central Park. The 2010 edition, it seems, will be a more concentrated affair, occupying only the museum’s landmark Marcel Breuer home. The two men also said they were considering weaving works from the Whitney’s holdings into the biennial, which would be a departure. “We have talked about using the permanent collection,” Carrion-Murayari said. “We definitely want to consider it.”
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Abu Dhabi to Stage Independent Exhibition at Venice Biennale
Abu Dhabi—Although the United Arab Emirates as a whole will have its first-ever pavilion at the next Venice Biennale, from June 7 – November 22, 2009, Abu Dhabi has announced it will mount its own independent exhibition as well, reports Artnet. The show's goal is to represent the "contemporary visual arts and culture from the perspective of Abu Dhabi and beyond."
The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage has tapped Paris–based curator Catherine David to organize a "Platform for Venice" for the biennale, which will see her produce a survey of the city "visually interpreted by photographers, artists, and filmmakers from the region and abroad." David directed Documenta 10 in Kassel in 1994–97, the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam in 2002–04, and will curate the 2009 Lyon Biennial. (ARTINFO)
La Biennale di Venezia
Making Worlds
The 53rd International Art Exhibition
Director: Daniel Birnbaum
7 June 2009 – 22 November 2009
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Frohe Weihnachten!
Johann Dieter Wassmann, untitled, Dessau, 1895. Albumen silver print, 18 x 23 cmAlways the first with new technology, and saddened in the knowledge that once again this year I have faint chance of getting around to posting Christmas cards to MuseumZeitraum’s many friends, I have decided to experiment by sending greetings harnessing the latest in communications awareness. So here’s a warm cheerio this holiday season to you and yours, via Google-alert. Knowing full well that every damn one of you has a Google-alert on yourself (what a vain lot we are in the art world - as Sarah Thornton will attest to), if you clicked through to see whose company you're keeping in the blogosphere after receiving your alert, happy holidays from all of us here at MuseumZeitraum! And as long as you’re here - gathered together on this cold winter’s night (unless you're still in Miami) - how about joining in the festive moment by adding a greeting down below.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all… Gute Nacht.
Jerry Saltz & Roberta Smith, Daniel Birnbaum, Paolo Baratta, Gabriel Orozco, Jeff Wassmann, François Pinault, Knight Landesman, Charles Guarino, Tony Korner, John Baldessari, Yve-Alain Bois, Paul Grabowsky, Ai WeiWei, Abigail von Bibera, Francesco Bonami, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Onkwui Enwezor, Walid Raad, Harold Rosenberg, Charles Saatchi, Roman Abramovich & Daria Zhukova, Ed Ruscha, Beatrice Buscaroli, Luca Beatrice, Jochen Volz, Savita Apte, Tom Eccles, Hu Fang, Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Francesco Vezzoli, Sally Smart, Magdalena Sawon & Tamas Banovich, Jan Verwoert, Jennifer Higgie, Jörg Heiser, Mary Boone, Jeff Poe & Tim Blum, Paul Chan, Doug Aitken, Zhao Bandi, Benjamin Buchloh, Jim Hart, Lee Rosenbaum aka CultureGrrl, Amy Cappellazzo, Dara Mitchell, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Roger Buergel & Ruth Noack, Paula Cooper, R. Crumb, Larry Gagosian, Jay Jopling, Tacita Dean, Hal Foster, Sarah Thornton, Damien Hirst, Laura Hoptman, Rosalind Krauss, Holland Cotter, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Jan Avgikos, Ute Meta Bauer, James Elkins, Sussane Ghez, Thomas Crow, Richard Flood, Pamela Lee, Molly Nesbit, Michael Kimmelman, Lynn Cooke, Isabelle Graw, Jori Finfel, Tim Griffin, Don McMahon, Jeff Gibson, Michael Kuo, Scott Rothkopf, Elizabeth Schambelan, Kyle Bentley, Alexander, Scrimgeour, Laura Hoffmann, Barry Schwabsky, Carolie Busta, Nicole Lanctot, Lloyd Wise, Germano Celant, Dennis Cooper, Arthur C. Danto, David Frankel, Bruce Hainley, John Kelsey, Kazue Kobata, Donald Kuspit, Rhonda Lieberman, Greil Marcus, Declan McGonagle, Ida Panicelli, Robert Pincus-Witten, Peter Plagens, John Rajchman, David Rimanelli, Katy Siegel, Philip Tinari, Jack Bankowsky, Jean-Hubert Martin, Rosa Martinez, Maria de Corral, Cordula Grewe, Andreas Gursky, Lenore Manderson, Giancarlo Politi, James Meyer, Renee Price, Michael Lewis, Abigail Solomon-Goreau, Ulrich Keller, Hal Foster, Chrissie Iles, Hou Hanru, Peter Galassi, Maria Morris Hambourg, Sylvia Wolf, Madeleine Grynsztejn, Chris Ofili, Gerhard Richter, Peter Schjeldahl, David Zwirner, Carol Vogel, Kathy Halbreich, Sir Nicholas Serota, Iwan Wirth, Eli Broad, Steven A. Cohen, Brett Gorvy, Tobias Meyer & Cheyenne Westphal, Richard Prince, Dominique Lévy & Robert Mnuchin, Michael Govan, Marc Glimcher, Annette Schönholzer, Marc Spiegler, Alfred Pacquement, Matthew Slotover & Amanda Sharp, Barbara Gladstone, Matthew Marks, Agnes Gund, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Dakis Joannou, Bernard Arnault, Sadie Coles, Julia Peyton-Jones, Donna De Salvo, Don Rubell & Mera Rubell, Ann Philbin, Paul Schimmel, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Michael Ringier, Jose Mugrabi, Alberto Mugrabi, David Mugrabi, Chris Kennedy, Olafur Eliasson, Harry Blain & Graham Southern, Peter Doig, Bruno Brunnet, Nicole Hackert, Philipp Haverkampf, Marlene Dumas, Gavin Brown, Victoria Miro, Mitchell Rales, Yvon Lambert, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Banksy, Emmanuel Perrotin, William Acquavella, Victor Pinchuk, Cai Guo Qiang, Maureen Paley, Thelma Golden, Ralph Rugoff, Robert Gober, Iwona Blazwick, Richard Armstrong, Massimiliano Gioni, Reena Spaulings, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Shaun Caley Regen, Liam Gillick, Miuccia Prada, Francesca von Habsburg, Christian Boros, Nicholas Logsdail, Subodh Gupta, Peter Nagy, Casey Reas, Anita Zabludowicz & Poju Zabludowicz, Guy Ullens & Myriam Ullens, Laurent Le Bon, Thomas Kinkade and Anna Wintour.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Making worlds of our own
Johann Dieter Wassmann, Hôtel de l’Étoile, 1897, 140 x 51 x 26 cm.While Daniel Birnbaum is busy weltenmachen for the 53rd Venice Biennale next summer, here at MuseumZeitraum we’re no less frantic making rooms to house the constructed worlds of Johann Dieter Wassmann for our September 2009 opening. Despite our all-too-well chronicled financial difficulties earlier this year, MuseumZeitraum is back on track, a little wiser and a little leaner maybe, but still surviving. In the current climate, can you ask for much more?
Here’s a photograph of Johann Dieter Wassmann’s charming Hôtel de l’Étoile, 1897, installed in the museum’s newly completed entry for a recent function. Several galleries are also near completion, as are staff offices, which, while meagre, are functional.
Until the winds of change bring some warm breathe of hope to our beleaguered planet, plans will remain on hold for completion of the museum’s conference room, library, café and conservation facilities.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Christov-Bakargiev appointed director of Documenta 13
Writing in Rupert Murdoch's The Australian, Corrie Perkin reports that Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has been appointed new artistic director of Documenta 13. Christov-Bakargiev has until 2012 to research and plan her exhibition. Like her predecessors, the curator will travel internationally to observe current art practices. In recent months, the ten-person selection panel, which included Kathy Halbreich, associate director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Joseph Backstein, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, whittled down the list of candidates to six. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, who was on the Documenta 13 selection panel, describes the German event as the “art Olympics.” She says the artistic director’s role “is probably the plum job in the art world because of its high profile, but that high profile also makes it problematic. Carolyn’s appointment will cause a lot of discussion, as these things usually do.”
No Expense Spared As Arab Nations Party Their Way to the Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is to play host to the first pavilion from the United Arab Emirates next year.
If anyone is in any doubt that the Gulf states are a coming power in art and culture, then lay it to rest. The Venice Biennale - that barometer of the ebb and flow of artistic trends - is to play host to the first pavilion from the United Arab Emirates next year. If there's a political message here, it's that the UAE is not just building cultural palaces - witness Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island, where a performing arts center by Zaha Hadid and a Guggenheim museum by Frank Gehry are also being constructed - but also producing artists, though none have yet been named for Venice. One thing's for certain: no expense will be spared.
Meanwhile, in Qatar, the vast new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha opened to the public on Monday. Designed by IM Pei, it houses a stupendous collection of Islamic artworks; the chair of the board is Sheikha Mayassa, daughter of the emir. The opening celebrations were apparently lavish: wonderful food, a performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and all the movers and shakers in attendance - Tate director Nicholas Serota, British Museum director Neil MacGregor, both the outgoing director and the director designate of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. No demon drink, of course - which certainly makes a change from boozy British art parties, not least Monday's Turner prize.
Meanwhile, in Qatar, the vast new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha opened to the public on Monday. Designed by IM Pei, it houses a stupendous collection of Islamic artworks; the chair of the board is Sheikha Mayassa, daughter of the emir. The opening celebrations were apparently lavish: wonderful food, a performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and all the movers and shakers in attendance - Tate director Nicholas Serota, British Museum director Neil MacGregor, both the outgoing director and the director designate of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. No demon drink, of course - which certainly makes a change from boozy British art parties, not least Monday's Turner prize.
The Guardian Newspaper 12/2/2008
La Biennale di Venezia
Making Worlds
The 53rd International Art Exhibition
Director: Daniel Birnbaum
7 June 2009 – 22 November 2009