The 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia will run from 24 April to 27 November 2022 at the Arsenale and the Giardini, as well as various venues across the city of Venice. Cecilia Alemani, the curator of this edition of the Venice Biennale and currently Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art, New York, is the first Italian woman to hold the position. Previously, she curated the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte in 2017.
Titled “The Milk of Dreams”, the Venice Biennale exhibition in 2022 includes over two hundred artists from 58 countries, of which more than 180 have never been in the International Art Exhibition before. “The Milk of Dreams” takes its title from a book by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) in which the Surrealist artist describes “a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination”. It is a world full of new possibilities and opportunities, in which everyone and everything can change, transform and become someone or something else. Here the world is set free, to do as it will, to become the best version of itself through creativity and imagination. The book is also the allegory of a century of narrow minded definitions of self, which led Carrington into a life of exile, in mental hospitals where she was considered as an object of fascination and desire, as well as a figure of mystery and power, who eluded the strict rules of one coherent identity. Carrington described herslef as having been made, not born, by her mother’s encounter with a machine that extracted hundreds of gallons of semen from animals. The artist considered herself therefore as the product of the communion between human, animal and machine.
According to Alemani’s curatorial statement, “The exhibition The Milk of Dreams takes Leonora Carrington’s otherworldly creatures, along with other figures of transformation, as companions on an imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human.” The 59th Venice Biennale focuses on three thematic areas in particular: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth.
Within the main exhibition itself, the Asian artists are not represented by a great number, but there will be a lot to see in the national pavilions and the collateral events.
ASIA brings together all the national pavilions and the collateral events from Asia.
National Pavilions
Armenia
Curated by Anne Davidian and Elena Sorokina, the Armenian Pavilion exhibition titled “Gharib” includes a new series of sound works by Andrius Arutiunian. These new objects and installations use sound and music as its main elements, with a large-scale piece called You Do Not Remember Yourself at its centre – an instrument playing with natural resonances and diaphony. The show will explore forms of estrangement and belonging, the gharīb read as a dissonance to the prevailing understandings of time, rhythm, and attunement. As the press release explains, Gharīb has long been associated with the clandestine activities of music-making, illegal social clubs, early psychotropic substance trade and the underground. Gharīb is “a mode of disillusionment and liminality, as a way of retracing the political margins. To embed and disappear, to exist and evaporate at the same time, an attempt to belong, a way of sensing of the world.”
The Pavilion’s website displays a cryptic message that anticipates what to expect from the exhibition: “One starts by merely imagining real things. Eventually, the real things themselves manifest.”
Commissioner: Arayik Khzmalyan, Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Curators: Anne Davidian, Elena Sorokina; Exhibitor: Andrius Arutiunian
Venue: Campo della Tana, Castello 2125
Marco Fusinato, a page from the Score for DESASTRES, 2022 facsimile on Edition Peters manuscript paper 45.5 x 30.3 cm. Image courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.
Australia
Australia is represented by Marco Fusinato and his exhibition “DESASTRES”, an experimental noise project that synchronises sound with image and takes the form of a durational solo performance as installation. The artist will be performing with an electric guitar during the opening hours of the Venice Biennal for 200 days. The project is a culmination of Fusinato’s interests in noise/experimental music, underground culture, mass media images and art history, developed in Naarm/Melbourne during its extended COVID-19 lockdown. The resulting work embraces all the associated frustrations, pessimism and turmoil of the pandemic period, and offers a visceral experience of sound and image that places the audience at the centre of the work.
Commissioner: Australia Council for the Arts; Curator: Alexie Glass-Kantor; Exhibitor: Marco Fusinato
Venue: Giardini
Azerbaijan
There still hasn’t been an official announcement for the 2022 Azerbaijani Pavilion, which takes the title of “Born to Love”, although these artists are listed as its participants on the Venice Biennale website: Narmin Israfilova, Infinity, Ramina Saadatkhan, Fidan Novruzova, Fidan Akhundova, Sabiha Khankishiyeva, and Agdes Baghirzade. Emin Mammadov is named as the pavilion’s curator.
Commissioner: Mammad Ahmadzada, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan; Curator: Emin Mammadov; Exhibitors: Narmin Israfilova, Infinity, Ramina Saadatkhan, Fidan Novruzova, Fidan Akhundova, Sabiha Khankishiyeva, Agdes Baghirzade
Venue: Procuratie Vecchie San Marco 153/a/139
Bangladesh
“Time: Mask and Unmask” is the title for the Bangladesh Pavilion as it appears on the Venice Biennale website, curated by Viviana Vannucci, with alist of artists that also include three Italian ones.
Commissioner: Liaquat Ali Lucky; Curator: Viviana Vannucci; Exhibitors: Jamal Uddin Ahmed, Mohammad Iqbal, Harun-Ar-Rashid, Sumon Wahed, Promity Hossain, Mohammad Eunus, Marco Cassarà, Franco Marrocco, Giuseppe Diego Spinelli
Venue: Palazzo Pisani Revedin, San Marco 4013
China
China’s pavilion takes the title “Meta-Scape”, inspired by the “jing” in the Chinese literary tradition represented by “poetry”, and from the perspective of media theory, exploring the current human condition of “human-technology-nature” relationships. Curated by Zhang Zikang, Director of Beijing’s CAFA Museum, with assistant curator Sun Dongdong, the exhibition takes place in the garden and the exhibition hall. The purpose of “Yuanjing” or “Metaverse” is to transcend the boundaries of reality and re-establish a universal way to reflect on the self, and the common future of mankind constructed from it. In the garden area is the sculpture Snowman (2021) by Wang Yuyang. The exhibition hall features the joint collective project The Jungle (2021) by the CAFA Institute of Science and Technology and the Brain and Intelligence Laboratory of Tsinghua University, Xu Lei’s Xinghui (2021), Quiet and Quiet by Liu Jiayu (2021), and Wang Yuyang’s One Quarter (Solar Terms) (2021).
Commissioner: China Arts and Entertainment Group Ltd.; Curator: Zhang Zikang; Exhibitor: Liu Jiayu, Wang Yuyang, Xu Lei, Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Institute of Sci-Tech Arts+Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence (TLBI) Group Project
Venue: Arsenale
Georgia
The duo Mariam Natroshvili and Detu Jincharadze will present “I Pity the Garden,” a surreal installation with, at its center, a VR experience called Ghost Garden, envisioning plants that have become extinct. “This ecological crisis, in real life and represented here in VR, is one of the signs of the end,” the pavilion’s announcement reads. The curatorial platform In-between Conditions is organizing the project.
Commissioner: Magda Guruli; Curators: Vato Urushadze, Khatia Tchokhonelidze, Giorgi Spanderashvili; Exhibitors: Mariam Natroshvili, Detu Jincharadze
Venue: Spazio Punch, Fondamenta S. Biagio, 800/O, Giudecca
Israel
Ilit Azoulay, representing Israel this year, is best known for her conceptual artworks that consider photography as everyday detritus. She makes images that are often impartial, like pieces of scenes or ruins, cropped photos for which she provides context with text and audio. Curated by Shelley Harteen, her project for the Venice Biennale is titled “Queendom”, and features a new body of work comprising photography and a sound installation.
Commissioners: Michael Gov, Arad Turgeman; Curator: Shelley Harten; Exhibitor: Ilit Azoulay
Venue: Giardini
Japan
Japan presents Dumb Type, a collective founded in 1984, including members from a variety of discuplines, like visual arts, video, computer programming, music and dance. The group’s creative practice is based on flat, fluid, non-hierarchic collaborations, with different participants for each project. At the Venice Biennale, one the special participants will be musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Commissioned by the Japan Foundation, this year’s pavilion deals with the concept of what the group refers to as “post-truth” or the questioning of truth itself, writing in their statement: “In a world of fragmented chaos in which the systems we believed in are on verge of collapse, what had once appeared to be fact now seems uncertain, and people assume what they want to believe in as being the “truth.””
Commissioner: The Japan Foundation; Exhibitors: Dumb Type (Shiro Takatani, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ken Furudate, Satoshi).
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is presenting its first pavilion at the Venice Biennale, featuring the ORTA Collective, which plans to pay homage to Sergey Kalmykov, a Russian avant-garde artist who made decorations for a number of theatrical productions. Dealer Meruyert Kaliyeva is the curator of the exhibition, but withouth the government’s funding and the recet unrest in the country, wewill have to wait until opening to be sure about their participation.
Commissioner: Meruyert Kaliyeva; Curators/Exhibitors: ORTA collective (Alexandra Morozova, Rusten Begenov, Darya Jumelya, Alexander Bakanov, Sabina Kuangaliyeva)
Venue: Spazio Arco, Dorsoduro 1485
Korea
Yunchul Kim’s Korean Pavilion is titled “Gyre”, with seven installations, of which three are new. One of those new works is set to be able to detect subatomic particles known as muons; each time the glass sculpture senses one, it will flash with light. Other works will appear to breathe, further imploding the boundary between the manmade and the natural. Before details were revealed in 2022, the pavilion attracted attention, much of it unwanted, for its curatorial team. Over the summer in 2021, members of that team began to resign after allegations of conflict of interest. Youngchul Lee was ultimately named as the pavilion’s new artistic director.
Commissioner: Arts Council Korea; Curator: Youngchul Lee; Exhibitor: Yunchul Kim
Venue: Giardini
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan will make its Venice Biennale debut with “Gates of Turan”, a pavilion curated by Janet Rady andd featuring the work of artist Firouz FarmanFarmaian. Working with craftswomen based in the country, FarmanFarmaian will create ten hand-stitched works referencing the ancient region of Tur, believed to have spanned Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, as well as parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The artist has called the exhibition an “immemorial nomadic mythical cosmogony.”
Commissioner: Saltanat Abdyldaevna Amanova; Curator: Janet Rady; Exhibitor: Firouz Farman Farmaian
Venue: Hydro Space, Giudecca Art District ,Giudecca 211/C
Lebanon
“The World in the Image of Man” is curated by Nada Ghandour, and features paintings by Ayman Baalbaki and a film by Danielle Arbid, within an unusual architectural environment created by architect Aline Asmar d’Amman. The scenography evokes “the shapes of the mythical contemporary ruins of the Lebanese urban landscape: Joseph Philippe Karam’s downtown cinema ‘The Egg’ and Oscar Niemeyer’s Rachid Karami International Exhibition Center in Tripoli, which was built in the midst of the civil war and never used.”
Commissioner/Curator: Nada Ghandour; Exhibitors: Ayman Baalbaki, Danielle Arbid
Venue: Arsenale
Mongolia
Curated by Gantuya Badamgarav, “A Journey Through Vulnerability” presents the work of Munkhtsetseg Jalkhaajav, which often feature a human-crow hybrid that alludes to the notion in traditional Mongolian medicine that birds can represent a life force. In addition painting, Jalkhaajav also makes collages, by sewing pieces of stretch fabric together, as “an act of trying to create wholesomeness by putting together separate pieces, like repairing”.
Commissioner: Nomin Chinbat, Minister of Culture of Mongolia; Curator: Gantuya Badamgarav Exhibitors: Munkhtsetseg Jalkhaajav
Venue: Castello 2131
Nepal
“Tales of Muted Spirits – Dispersed Threads – Twisted Shangri-La” is curated by artists Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hit Man Gurung and features the work of Tsherin Sherpa. The inaugural Nepal Pavilion sees the results of Sherpa’s collaboration with artists across the country, drawing from a shared history and incorporating accounts encoded in oral cultures, woven languages, and quotidian rituals to implicate an intersectional and intertwined past that problematizes contradictory conceptualisations of Nepal as well as the broader Himalayan region.
Commissioner: Chancellor Kancha Kumar Karmacharya (Nepal Academy of Fine Arts), Sangeeta Thapa (Founder Director Siddhartha Arts Foundation); Curators: Hit Man Gurung, Sheelasha Raj Bhandari; Exhibitor: Ang Tsherin Sherpa (also known as) Tsherin Sherpa
Venue: Castello 994
New Zealand
Paradise Camp
Curated by University of Melbourne professor Natalie King, “Paradise Camp” is a project by Yuki Kihara, the first artist of Pacific descent to represent the country at the Venice Biennale. Kihara’s work, spanning photography, video and performance, often examines the weight of histories of colonialism in the Pacific. Kihara’s new project for Venice comprises photographs, video and archival materials, with a focus on people who identify as Fa’afafine, the Samoan word for the third gender, meaning “in the manner of a woman”. Fitting into a global discourse around gender and identity, the project will contend with stereotypes and misunderstandings about Fa’afafine people.
Commissioner: Caren Rangi, Creative New Zealand; Curator: Natalie King; Exhibitor: Yuki Kihara
Venue: Arsenale
Oman
Participating for the first time, Oman presents a multimedia exhibition curated by art historian Aisha Stoby, introducing five prominent artists whose works have shaped and influenced the country’s contemporary art scene for the last fifty years. Anwar Sonya is considered the “Godfather” of Omani modern art and is the founder of Youth Studio. Sonya is renowned for his paintings of the country’s lush landscapes, spiritual subjects and Bedouin women. Budoor Al Riyami is a multimedia artist, working with photography, video, installation and scultpure, while Hassan Meer is known for his video installations and photographic series inspired by Oman’s rich history, culture and spirituality. The pavilion will also include Radhika Khimji’s textiles, and late Raiya Al Rawahi sound installation work.
Commissioner : Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, His Excellency Sayyid Saeed bin Sultan bin Yarub Al Busaidi Curator: Aisha Stoby Exhibitors: Anwar Sonja, Hassan Meer, Budoor Al Riyami, Radhika Al Khimji, Raiya Al Rawahi
Venue: Arsenale
Philippines
Curated by Yael Buencamino Borromeo and Arvin Flores, “Andi taku e sana, Amung taku di sana / All of us present, This is our gathering” features artist Gerardo Tan, musicologist Felicidad A. Prudente and weaver Sammy Buhle, drawing out connections between sound and textiles. The exhibition aims to “represent the translation of cultural data into visual communication, collectively promoting Philippine traditions and ensuring its endurance through universal exchange”. The project is an exploration of sound material and field recordings of indigenous weaving practices across the Philippines, in a jourey through the traditional and the contemporary.
Commissioner: National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), Arsenio “Nick” J. Lizaso, in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Office of Deputy Speaker and Congresswoman Legarda; Curators: Yael Buencamino Borromeo and Arvin Flores; Exhibitors: Gerardo Tan, Felicidad A.Prudente and Sammy N. Buhle
Venue: Arsenale
Saudi Arabia
“The Teaching Tree” features artist Muhannad Shono and is curated by Reem Fadda, with assistant curator Rotana Shaker. Shono’s work ranges from intimate drawings, large- scale sculptural works, and robotic and technological pieces. Based in Riyadh, Shono is inspired by his childhood memories and his family’s long history of migration. Trained in architecture, Shono has garnered attention in recent years for his large-scale installations that tackle philosophical subjects with references to Saudi Arabia’s political history and culture.
Commissioner: Visual Arts Commission, Ministry of Culture; Curator: Reem Fadda; Exhibitor: Muhannad Shono
Venue: Arsenale
Singapore
“Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book” is Shubigi Rao’s current decade-long project about the history of book destruction and the future of knowledge. The exhibition is curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA),and a professor at the Nanyang Technological University School of Art, Design and Media (NTU ADM).
Commissioner: Rosa Daniel, Chief Executive Officer National Arts Council Singapore; Curator: Ute Meta Bauer; Exhibitor: Shubigi Rao
Venue: Arsenale
Syria
“The Syrians People: a common Destiny”
Commissioner/Curator: Emad Kashout; Exhibitors: Saousan Alzubi, Ismaiel Nasra, Adnan Hamideh, Omran Younis, Aksam Tallaa, Giuseppe Amadio, Marcello Lo Giudice, Lorenzo Puglisi, Hannu Palosuo
Venue: Isola di San Servolo
Turkey
“Once upon a time…” is a new installation by the pioneer of Turkish contemporary and conceptual art Füsun Onur, curated Bige Örer, the director of the Istanbul Biennial and head of contemporary art projects at Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts,the commissioner of Turkey’s pavilion this year. Known for her large-scale installations, the Istanbul-based artist has bbeen acrtive for over 50 years, pushing the boundaries of painting and sculpture to produce delicate and discreet works made from simple, everyday materials charged with autobiographical references. The pavilion project is “an evocative story with a minimalist approach and silent intimations of music, turning a critical eye on the contemporary condition and inevitably the pandemic, both of which pose threats to the future of the world”.
Commissioner: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV); Curator: Bige Örer; Exhibitor: Füsun Onur; Venue: Arsenale
United Arab Emirates
“Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim: Between Sunrise and Sunset” presents a major new installation by Emirati artist Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, curated by Maya Allison, Executive Director of The New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery. He is an influential member of the UAE’s historic group of experimental, conceptual artists that led the vanguard of visual art in the UAE sincethe 1980s. The project at the pavilion at the Venice Biennale will show human-sized, abstract and organic sculptural forms. The work draws from Ibrahim’s deep connection to the local environment of his hometown, Khor Fakkan — a city harbouring the rocky Al Hajar mountains on the east coast of the Emirate of Sharjah.
Commissioner: Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation; Curator: Maya Allison; Exhibitor: Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim
Venue: Arsenale
Uzbekistan
The country’s first participation in the art section of the Venice Biennale, “Dixit Algorizmi: Garden of Knowledge” is curated by Joseph Grima and Space Caviar (Camilo Oliveira, Sofia Pia Belenky, Francesco Lupia) and Sheida Ghomashchi, and features new collaborative work by Abror Zufarov and Charli Tapp, along with a programme of workshops organised with the Center for Contemporary Arts in Tashkent. The pavilion places a particular focus on the concept of the algorithm and its originator, the 9th century polymath, “father of algebra” and “grandfather of computer science” Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, born and raised in the present-day Uzbek city of Khiva. The physical centerpiece of the exhibition is an indoor installation reinterpreting the millenia-old formal tradition of Persian and Babylonian gardens, referencing the place where al-Khwarizmi developed most of hismajor studies: the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. The pavilion will evolve during the length of the biennale.
Commissioner: Gayane Umerova, Art and Culture Development Foundation; Curators: Studio Space Caviar (Joseph Grima, Camilo Oliveira), Sheida Gomashchi; Exhibitors: Charlie Tapp/Abror Zufarov, CCA Lab
Venue: Arsenale
Collateral Events
Angela Su: Arise, Hong Kong in Venice
M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) are collaborating for the fifth time to present Hong Kong at the Venice Biennale with a collateral exhibition featuring Angela Su, curated by Freya Chou, with consulting curtator Ying Kwok. In line with Su’s investigations into the perception and imagery of the body, through metamorphosis, hybridity and transformation, “Arise” conveys “a speculative narrative through interlocking fictional perspectives”. The act of levitation referenced by the title, serves as a metaphor linking her drawings, moving image works, embroideries and installations. As a fictional alter-ego, the artist explores the diverse cultural and political connotations of rising into the air. At the centre of the exhibtion is the new video work The Magnificent Levitation Act of Lauren O, a pseudo-documentary weaving together fact and fiction.
Arsenale, Campo della Tana, Castello 2126
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Organizing Institutions: M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and Hong Kong Arts Development Council
https://www.mplus.org.hk
www.hkadc.org.hk
From Palestine With Art
There have been attempts to bring a Palestine pavilion at the Venice Biennale before, but it has proven controversial, to the extent that curator Francesco Bonami in 2002 was accused of anti-Semitism for proposing it. This year, there will be a collateral exhibition courtesy of the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, Connecticut. “From Palestine with Art” is curated by Nancy Nesvet, a curator at the museum, and features 19 artists with ties to Palestine, including Ibrahim Alazza, Mohamed Khalil and Rana Matar. A live tree with keys from refugees hanging from its branches will provide an explicit political commetary.
Palazzo Mora, Room 8, Cannaregio 3659
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Organizing institution: Palestine Museum US
Ha Chong-Hyun
Kukje Art and Culture Foundation presents a solo exhibition of Dansaekhwa artist Ha Chong-Hyun (b. 1935). The retrospective features a thorough exploration of the breadth of his materials, methods and creative experimentation. Curated by Sunjung Kim, Artistic Director of Art Sonje Center, the exhibition comprises five sections, including 1967–1968 Naissance series and White Paper on Urban Planning; the early 1960s Art Informel style; 1990s to 2010s Conjunction series; 2008-2012 Post-Conjuctions series; and some of his latest works, including new pieces for the show.
Palazzetto Tito, Dorsoduro 2826
April 23 – August 24, 2022
Organizing institution: Kukje Art and Culture Foundation
Impossible Dreams
Curated by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, “Impossible Dreams” is an “archival display” revisiti g the historical contexts and viewpoints of the previous 13 editions of the Taiwan Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Impossible means “not-yet possible”, a description of a condition and a hope for better things to come. The concept spurs memory and imagination, as well as a will to move forward. The exhibition also has another element, the “public events”, convened by Philippine curator Patrick Flores, comprise four thematic forums, responding to current issues addressed by the international communities in a pluralistic manner with multinational participation. The exhibition comes to substitute the presentation by Taiwanese artist Sakuliu, pulled out in January after allegations of sexual assault.
Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello 4209
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Organizing institution: Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan
www.tfam.museum
Pera + Flora + Fauna
The Story of Indigenousness and the Ownership of History
As lead curators Amir Zainorin and Khaled Ramadan explain, “Pera + Flora + Fauna” is meant to “re-imagine nature and Indigenousness in relation to ethics and aesthetics, questioning who owns nature and who owns Indigenous history”. Building upon research, knowledge and participation, the exhibition features the work of seven artists, art collectives and contributors, working across performance, film, sound, sculpture and new media. The artists include Azizan Paiman (MY), Kamal Sabran (MY), Kapallorek Artspace (MY), Kim Ng (MY), Projek Rabak (MY), Saiful Razman (MY) and Stefano Cagol (ITA), with the contribution and participation of the people of the Semai tribe from Kampung Ras, Sungkai, Perak. The exhibition also will expand through a forum where the concept of Ownership of Nature and History will be discussed.
Archivi della Misericordia, Cannaregio 3548-3549
April 23 – November 27, 2022
Organizing institution: PORTPeople of Remarkable Talents
“YiiMa” Art Group: Allegory of Dreams
“‘YiiMa’ Art Group: Allegory of Dreams” is a comprehensive contemporary art exhibition showing documentation of performance art, photography, videos, as well as indoor and outdoor sculptures. The show features works by ‘YiiMa’, an art group formed in Macao by Ung Vai Meng and Chan Hin Io.
Arsenale, Campo della Tana, Castello 2126/A
April 23 – October 20, 2022
Organizing institution: The Macao Museum of Art