La Biennale di Venezia

52. Venice Biennial
10 June - 21 November 2007

Theme:
Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind.
Art in the Present Tense

Director:
Robert Storr

2007 Awards:
Golden Lion to an artist exhibited at the international exhibition to León Ferrari
Golden Lion to a young artist (under 40) to Emily Jacir
Golden Lion for best national participation to Hungary represented by Andreas Fogarasi
Honourable Mention to an artist to Nedko Solakov
Honourable Mention to a pavilion to the Lithuanian Pavilion represented by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas
Golden Lion to a critic or an art historian for his contribution to contemporary art to Benjamin Buchloh
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Malick Sidibé

Artists:
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Ignasi Aballí
Adel Abdessemed
Adel Abidin
Marina Abramovic
Vito Acconci
Nasser Naassan Agha
Tora Aghabeyova
Vincenzo Agnetti
Faig Ahmed
Vyacheslav Akhunov
Mounira Al-Solh
Rashad Alakbarov
Nikos Alexiou
Luciano de Almeida
Hüseyin Alptekin
David Altmejd
Narda Alvarado
Francis Alÿs
Ghada Amer
El Anatsui
Giovanni Anselmo
Dario Arcidiacono
Tatiana Arzamasova
Orkhan Aslanov
Said / Abilsaid Atabekov
Chingiz Babayev
Mrdjan Bajic'
Sonia Balassanian
Rubén Ramos Balsa
Oladélé Bamgboyé
Miquel Barceló
Yto Barrada
Andrei Bartenev
Georg Baselitz
Gabriele Basilico
Jean Michel Basquiat
Mónica Bengoa
Mario Benjamin
Joseph Beuys
Bili Bidjocka
Manon de Boer
Stefano Bombardieri
Boris Mikhailov
Zoulikha Bouabdellah
Louise Bourgeois
Herbert Brandl
Sergei Bratkov
Jan Christiaan Braun
Antonio Briceño
Patricia Bueno
Daniel Buren
Luca Buvoli
Christoph Büchel
Gerard Byrne
Sophie Calle
Paolo Canevari
Christian Capurro
Pablo Cardoso
Giovanni Carmine
Maríadolores Castellanos
Samba Chéri
Loulou Cherinet
Ali Cherri
Eteri Chkadua
Amrit Chusuwan
Vladimir Cybil
Bassem Dahdouh
Jacob Dahlgren
José Damasceno
Sahar Dergham
Angela Detanico
Felipe de Souza Dias
Paulo Vitor da Silva Dias
Ranieri Dias
Renato Figueiredo Dias
Gino De Dominicis
James Drake
Marlene Dumas
Eric Duyckaerts
Nataliya Dyu
Dzine
Rena Effendi
Jorge Eielson
Haiam Abd El-Baky
Tarek El-Komy
Aiman El-Semary
Fouad Elkoury
Tracey Emin
Haris Epaminonda
Lev Evzovich
Valie EXPORT
Steingrimur Eyfjörd
Nganguè Eyoum
Mounir Fatmi
Cao Fei
Eloy Feria
León Ferrari
Ângela Ferreira
Marcus Viniciu Clemente Ferriera
George Fikry
Angelo Filomeno
Urs Fischer
Andreas Fogarasi
Francisco Bernd da Franca
Rene Francisco
Georgy Frangulyan
Ivana Franke
Vladimir Fridkes
Yukio Fujimoto
Gints Gabra-ns
Charles Gaines
Rainer Ganahl
Tomer Ganihar
Fabio Ferreira Gaviao
Isa Genzken
Alla Girik
Helidon Gjergji
Gent Gjokola
Shaun Gladwell
Felix Gmelin
Toril Goksøyr
José Luis Guerín
Dmitry Gutov
Alban Hajdinaj
Neil Hamon
Jonathan Harker
Lyle Ashton Harris
Ali Hasanov
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Christine Hill
Alexandre Hnilitsky
Jenny Holzer
Rebecca Horn
Marine Hugonnier
Mustafa Hulusi
Orkhan Huseynov
Pierre Huyghe
Lee Hyungkoo
Elshan Ibrahimov
Tamilla Ibrahimova
Ihosvanny
Pravdoliub Ivanov
Alfredo Jaar
Emily Jacir
Kim Jones
Lamia Joreige
Irena Ju*zová
Waltercio Caldas Junior
Andre Juste
Emilia Kabakov
Ilya Kabakov
Y.Z. Kami
Paulo Kapela
Izumi Kato
Ellsworth Kelly
Amal Kenawy
Kendell Geers
Raoul de Keyser
Rauf Khalilov
Jamshed Kholikov
Martin Kippenberger
Gaukhar Kiyekbayeva
Riyas Komu
Guillermo Kuitca
Tamara Kvesitadze
Rafael Lain
Rosemary Laing
Rafael Lamata
Maria Verónica León
Leonilson
Vincent Leow
Sol LeWitt
Jason Lim
Rosario López
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Armando Lulaj
Zulkifle Mahmod
Nalini Malani
Renato Mambor
Victor Man
Blagoja Manevski
Camilla Martens
Roman Maskalev
Steve McQueen
Xenía Mejia
Jill Mercedes
Arseny Mescheryakov
Aernout Mik
Paul D. Miller
Julia Milner
Santu Mofokeng
Andrei Monastyrski
Ronald Morán
Hiroharu Mori
Callum Morton
Joshua Mosley
Nástio Mosquito
Ivan Moudov
Rabih Mroué
Gulner Mukazhanova
Oscar Muñoz
Elizabeth Murray
Ndilo Mutima
Ingrid Mwangi
Marko Mäetamm
Sirous Namazi
Zoran Naskovski
Bruce Nauman
Hadil Nazmy
Yves Netzhammer
Alexander Nikolaev
Stefan Nikolaev
Susan Norrie
Thomas Nozkowski
Odili Donald Odita
Chris Ofili
Olu Oguibe
Melik Ohanian
Masao Okabe
Marco Antonio Oliveira
Maycon Souza de Oliveira
Nelcirlan Souza de Oliveira
Mario Opazo
Nipan Oranniwesna
Svetlana Ostapovici
William Paats
Paola Parcerisa
Philippe Parreno
Philippe Pastor
Heldi Pema
Giuseppe Penone
Jose Carlos da Silva Pereira
Dan Perjovschi
Rodrigo de Maceda Perpetuo
Raymond Pettibon
Donato Piccolo
Jorge Pineda
Cristi Pogacean
Sigmar Polke
Alexander Ponomarev
Concetto Pozzati
Wilfredo Prieto
Emily Prince
Morrinho Project
Tobias Putrih
Arnulf Rainer
Lars Ramberg
Alfredo Rapetti
José Alejandro Restrepo
Jason Rhoades
Manuela Ribadeneira
Gerhard Richter
David Riff
Ketty La Rocca
Ugo Rondinone
Tracey Rose
Susan Rothenberg
Aleksei Rumyantsev
Robert Ryman
Ruth Sacks
Walid Sadek
Ghassan Salhab
Ernesto Salmerón
Margaret Salmon
Fred Sandback
Iran do Espirito Santo
Yehudit Sasportas
Oksana Shatalova
Yinka Shonibare MBE
Malick Sidibe
Nedko Solakov
Monika Sosnowska
Cinthya Soto
Nancy Spero
Rania Stephan
Christine Streuli
Daniel von Sturmer
Evgeny Svyatsky
Tabaimo
Sophia Tabatadze
Da Wu Tang
Sam Taylor-Wood
Elaine Tedesco
Philippe Thomas
Mark Titchner
Faustin Titi
Felix Gonzalez Torres
Mario Garcia Torres
Jalal Toufic
Paula Trope
Tatiana Trouvé
Florin Tudor
Alexander Ugay
Gediminas Urbonas
Nomeda Urboniene
Vyacheslav (Yura) Useinov
Jamshed Usmanov
Aitegin Muratbek uulu
Jaime Vallare
Minnette Vàri
Mona Vatamanu
Emilio Vedova
Francesco Vezzoli
Alterazioni Video
Ernesto Vila
Manuel Vilariño
Françoise Vincent
Viteix
Kara Walker
Andy Warhol
Lawrence Weiner
Franz West
Sophie Whettnall
Maaria Wirkkala
Pavel Wolberg
Troels Wörsel
Yin Xiuzhen
Kan Xuan
Moico Yaker
Fudong Yang
Zhenzhong Yang
Yonamine
Tomoko Yoneda
Shen Yuan
Akram Zaatari
Maksim Zadarnovsky
Valeriy Zadarnovsky
Lesia Zaiats
Chen Zhen


From Plato onwards philosophers have divided and compartmentalized human consciousness more or less explicitly pitting one faculty against another; mind versus body, reason versus unreason, thought versus feeling, criticality versus intuition, the intellect versus the senses, the conceptual versus the perceptual. At best such dichotomies have served to sharpen our understanding of the different capac ities at our disposal for comprehending the world and making our place in it. At worst they have deprived us of some of those abilities by setting up false hierarchies that cause us to mistrust or disparage one for the sake of another, many for the sake a few.
Yet no matter how successfully philosophers and ideologues have persuaded people that such categories are not just analytically useful but inherently or historically true, the manifold challenges to understanding that reality poses and the actual f lux of existence exceed the power of systems, theories and definitions to contain them. The imagination is the catch basin into which this overflow spills and art cuts the channels that reconnect formerly isolated or segregated parts of consciousness to each other while flooding and replenishing the whole of it like a fertile river delta.
Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind is predicated on the conviction that art is now, as it has always been, the means by which humans are made aware of the whole of their being. However, it does not assume that an enduring wholeness is the result, or that art is a magical solution for the conflicts in our nature or in and among differing cultures and societies . That is the domain of philosophy, the social sciences and politics. Nevertheless, to “make sense” of things in a given moment or circumstance is to grasp their full complexity intellectually, emotionally and perceptually. That effort does not promise that our grasp will hold for long, or even much more than the instant in which we awaken to the fact that such fleeting powers of concentration and transformation are ours. Incidentally, “making nonsense” of the world, as grotesque, Dada or absurdist art does, deploys those same powers through exaggerated disparity. By inverting order and logic the artifact created paradoxically holds fragmented consciousness in suspension so that its contradictions can be clearly apprehended.
Epiphanies happen but do not last. As James Joyce showed, one of the functions of art is to preserve the experience so that we may savor and study its many aspects. The history of art is a fabric of epiphanies woven by many hands at different speeds; the present tense of art is the outer edge of that work in progress. At any point the edge may be ragged and uneven and the pattern in formation disturbing or hard to discern, reflecting the difficulty of making art in troubled times. We are living in just such times. Rather that trim the edge or reweave the pattern to neaten it, this exhibition focuses on selected aspects of current production that hint at what the emerging patterns might be without presuming to map them entirely. No attempt has been made therefore to be programmatically “representative,” either in terms of styles, mediums, generations, nations or cultures. Instead certain qualities and concerns widely found in contemporary art have been used as magnetic poles for gathering work from all seven continents, in all media, in various styles and of all generations now active.
Between the poles to which some works have readily gravitated is a force field where many other works hover. The poles themselves have been used like tuning forks, such that the criterion for selection has been resonance or mood as much as subject matter or aesthetic methodology. Among these vibrating points of reference are the immediacy of sensation in relation to questioning the nature and meaning of that sensation, intimate affect in relation to engagement in public life, belonging and dislocation, th e fragility of society and culture in the face of conflict, the sustaining qualities of art in the face of death.
Since the early 20century the development of modern art has been world wide. However its general dissemination and reception have lagged f ar behind this far flung, simultaneous, and cross -pollinating growth. In recognition of that discrepancy this Biennale has, as in the past, counted to the national pavilions to close the gaps, but it has also incorporated one national pavilion, Turkey, plus a regional pavilion, Africa, within its core, pointing the way, it is hoped, to greater, more permanent inclusiveness in areas of the world and of art -making too long overlooked in the international exhibition circuit.
While this show looks forward it does not look back. No attempt is made to trace genealogies or construct a new canon - and none at all to compete with art fairs or handicap the market. With a handful of exceptions all the artists included are alive and active. Diverse in origin and in temporal vantage points, it is they who conjugate the present tense of art for each other – and for us. The only artists in the show who are not living, would be but for their premature or unexpected deaths; their work is included here because its abiding freshness and impact keeps them on the minds of their peers and the public.