La Biennale di Venezia

51. Venice Biennial
12 June - 6 November 2005

Theme:
The Experience of Art
Always a little further

Directors:
María de Corral
Rosa Martínez

2005 Awards:
Golden Lion to an artist exhibited at the international exhibitions to Thomas Schütte
Golden Lion to a young artist (under 35) to Regina José Galindo
Golden Lion for best national participation to France
Prize for Young Italian Art to Lara Favaretto
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Barbara Kruger

Artists:
Pilar Albarracín
Jennifer Allora
Ghada Amer
Micol Assaël
The Centre of Attention
Samuel Beckett
Laura Belém
Semiha Berksoy
John Bock
Louise Bourgeois
Leigh Bowery
Christoph Büchel
Guillermo Calzadilla
Pierre Coinde
Donna Conlon
Stephen Dean
Jimmie Durham
Olafur Eliasson
Bruna Esposito
Regina José Galindo
Carlos Garaicoa
Guerrilla Girls
Subodh Gupta
Mona Hatoum
Diango Hernández
Runa Islam
Emily Jacir
Kimsooja
Rem Koolhaas
Oleg Kulik
Mariko Mori
Viacheslav Mizin
MoAA
Gianni Motti
Nikos Navridis
Rivane Neuenschwander
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba
Olaf Nicolai
Blue Noses
Gary O'Dwyer
Adrian Paci
Cristina García Rodero
Bülent Sangar
Gregor Schneider
Berni Searle
Alexander Shaburov
Santiago Sierra
Shazia Sikander
Valeska Soares
Kidlat Tahimik
Pascale Marthine Tayou
Joana Vasconcelos
Sergio Vega
Paloma Varga Weisz
María Teresa Hincapié de Zuluaga
Eija-liisa Ahtila
Vasco Araújo
Francis Bacon
Miroslaw Balka
Andrea Blum
Monica Bonvicini
Candice Breitz
Tania Bruguera
Chen Chieh-jen
José Damasceno
Tacita Dean
Willie Doherty
Stan Douglas
Marlene Dumas
Leandro Erlich
Bernard Frize
Dan Graham
Philip Guston
Jenny Holzer
William Kentridge
Barbara Kruger
Maider López
João Louro
Jorge Macchi
Agnes Martin
Cildo Meireles
Zwelethu Mthethwa
Juan Muñoz
Bruce Nauman
Gabriel Orozco
Perejaume
Joan Hernández Pijuan
Robin Rhode
Thomas Ruff
Thomas Schütte
Antoni Tapies
Juan Usle
Francesco Vezzoli
Mark Wallinger
Matthias Weischer
Rachel Whiteread
Jun Yang
Lida Abdul
Rahim Walizada
Sislej Xhafa
Jorge Macchi
Sona Abgarian
Vahram Aghassian
Diana Hagopian
Tigran Khachatrian
Ricky Swallow
Hans Schabus
Israil Basov
Leonid Khobotov
Valery Shkarubo
Tamara Sokolov
Igor Tishin
Vladimir Tsesler
Ruslan Vashkevich
Sergey Voichenko
Andrei Zadorine
Natalya Zaloznaya
Honoré d'O
Quest
Guiomar Mesa
Joaquín Sánchez
Chelpa Ferro
Caio Reisewitz
Rebecca Belmore
Gonzalo Díaz
Yung Ho Chang
Wang Qiheng
Liu Wei
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Xu Zhen
Juan Manuel Echavarría
Oswaldo Macià
Oscar Muñoz
Cecilia Paredes
Jaime David Tischler
Pasko Burdelez
Zlatan Dumanic
Alen Floricic
Tomo Savic Gecan
Boris Sincek
Goran Trbuljak
Los Carpinteros
Michael Panayiotis
Konstantia Sofokleous
Stano Filko
Jan Mancuska
Boris Ondreicka
Marek Pokorny
Eva Koch
Joachim Koester
Peter Land
Ann Lislegaard
Gitte Villesen
Polibio Díaz
Salah Hammad
Nagui Farid Tadros
Luis Paredes
Mark Raidpere
Paul Granjon
Annette Messager
Thomas Scheibitz
Tino Sehgal
George Hadjimichalis
Luis González Palma
Maxence Denis
Balázs Kicsiny
Gabríela Fridriksdóttir
Noor Ibrahim
Krisna Murti
Yani Mariani Sastranegara
Entang Wiharso
Bita Fayyazi Azad
Mandana Moghaddam
Stephen Brandes
Mark Garry
Ronan McCrea
Isabel Nolan
Sarah Pierce
Walker and Walker
Guy Ben Ner
Carolina Raquel Antich
Manfredi Beninati
Loris Cecchini
Lara Favaretto
Miyako Ishiuchi
Said Atabekov
Rustam Khalfin
Sergey Maslov
Yerbossyn Meldibekov
Almagul Menlibayeva
Yulia Tikhonova
Viktor Vorobyev
Yelena Vorobyeva
Seth Musindi
Elkana Omweri Ong'esa
Maxim Boronilov
Muratbek Djoumaliev
Gulnara Kasmalieva
Roman Maskalev
Ervins Broks
Liga Marcinkevica
Martin Ratniks
Ieva Rubeze
Jonas Mekas
Antoine Prum
Fouad Bellamine
Mohamed Bennati Moa
Fathiya Tahiri
Jeroen de Rijke
Willem de Rooy
Matias Faldbakken
Donna Conlon
Mónica González
Luz María Bedoya
Repetition
Artur Zmijewski
Helena Almeida
INTUS
Daniel Knor
Valery Ayzenberg
Anton Litvin
Bogdan Mamonov
Liza Morozova
Galina Myznikova
Sergey Provorov
Igor Rakcevic
Jelena Tomasevic
Natalija Vujosevic
Lim Tzay Chuen
Vadim Fishkin
Young-Whan Bae
Yiso Bahc
Gimhongsok
Choi Jeong-Hwa
Ham Jin
Yeondoo Jung
Beom Kim
Sora Kim
Sungshic Moon
NAKION
Hein-Kuhn Oh
Kiwon Park
Jewyo Rhii
Park Sejin
Nakhee Sun
Antoni Muntadas
Miriam Bäckström
Carsten Höller
Gianni Motti
Shahryar Nashat
Marco Poloni
Pipilotti Rist
Ingrid Wildi
Montien Boonma
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Hussein Chalayan
Benedict Carpenter
Gilbert & George
House of O'Dwyer
Damien Roach
Wolfgang Tillmans
Mykola Babak
Lacy Duarte
Ed Ruscha
Vyacheslav Ahunov
Alexander Nikolaev
Sergey Tichina
Santiago Pol
Peter Finnemore


The Experience of Art
María de Corral

The Exhibition that will be held in the Italian Pavilion should not be understood as a self-serving discussion on the art of our times, but as a field open to distinct practices within which one can fulfill the desire to exchange experiences, ideas, thoughts, or even to provoke them. I would be pleased if the labyrinthian itinerary of art could be experienced not as a finished story but as a process defined in terms of the relationships between different subjects, forms, ideas and spaces, that would be more "similar to a center for experimentation than a stack of certainties".
In that sense I would like the exhibition to deal with intensity, not categories. I would also be pleased if it were not historical or linear, but demonstrated the relationship that exists between artists of different generations who debate and work on specific ideas about art and the life of our times, creating a nexus between approaches that are similar in intensity and obsessive quality. My idea is for an exhibition that does not simply strive for a concept or a gratifying visualization, but is rich in thought and pleasure. I seek to address the themes that trouble and concern today's society, and that artists know how to express in such a real, poetic and in many cases visionary, manner.
I am interested in ideas that appear as a mass of remains, fragments, rough drafts and attempts; in works that allow the viewer to recreate his own aesthetic experience; in artists that can regenerate our ability to imagine different ways to inhabit the world and to create emotions.
On the contrary, I do not seek an exhibition that, in terms of the numbers of participants from all countries and continents, offers a false model of universality. I have decided to work with certain authors, who have accompanied me along my lengthy artistic itinerary, and to add many other names to this list: young people who will accompany me through a similar experience.
Today's artists do not share a style, but an attempt to build personal aesthetic worlds, to establish their own formal needs, to shape a new reality for themselves, by accepting the challenge to produce an art that makes sense in the new context that has been delineated by the events of the past four years.
In the art of the past ten years it is extremely difficult to detect a dominating artistic doctrine or formal style, in blatant contrast with the constant anxiety about the effects of globalization or multiculturalism. Artists establish the meaning and usefulness of their own raison d'être and the survival of the artistic gesture in a world dominated by the media, in which reality does not appear to manifest itself beyond representation.
By entitling this exhibition The Experience of Art, I wanted to share with the visitors some of the issues that artists address in their works every day:
- nostalgia as the feeling that the past is lost forever, expressed in a metaphorical language;
- the body and its redefinition, the introduction of fragmentation, dissolution and even death;
- power, domination and violence in the everyday life of each individual;
- the socio-political critique of current events by means of irony;
- the use of images, films and narration of the past as an immense archives thanks to which one can produce multiple operations of redefinition and appropriation.
In approaching these issues implicit in the creative act, that do not belong strictly to the field of art, my intention is to show what is common in diversity, so that the viewer may admit the quality of what is unexpected and exceptional, and abandon his own reluctance at the idea of Pleasure in contemporary art.


Always a little further
Rosa Martinez

In the 9,000 square meters of the arsenal’s Corderie and Artiglierie, Rosa Martínez shows works of 49 artists. As she stated at the press conference in Berlin, she was left with no other alternative but to maintain the linear sequence of the space, but incorporating the impressive atmosphere of the old masonry. Many of the works were specially made for the exhibition, and some created on the open-air exhibition grounds next to the long halls.
The title of Rosa Martínez’ exhibition is taken from a fictional character found in one of the small books on the adventures of Corto Maltese, created by the Venetian writer and comic-strip artist Hugo Pratt. In her statement, one correspondingly reads: "Pratt’s writings have turned Corto Maltese into a legend: he personifies the myth of the romantic traveler always open to chance and risk, and always crossing every imaginable frontier in pursuit of his own destiny." Using this figure as her inspiration, Martínez affirms that "art is an imaginary construct," and that "fantasy helps us toward a better understanding of reality".
In Berlin, during the interview with the press, she added that the title of the exhibition also addresses, for example, the concept and the will of the philosophers, scientists, and artists who dare to venture into new territories and go beyond the known horizons. But simultaneously, Martínez deeply regretted not having had more time for research, and was not entirely satisfied, especially where it concerned including artists from other regions (meaning outside of Europe and North America).