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SPANISH PAVILION

SPANISH PAVILION / 52nd INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION VENICE BIENNALE.
Paradiso Spezzato / Paraíso fragmentado

Curator: Alberto Ruiz de Samaniego.
Artists: Manuel Vilariño, José Luis Guerín, Los Torreznos (form by Jaime Vallaure y Rafael Lamata) and Rubén Ramos Balsa.

Organization: General Department of Cultural and Scientific Relations of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
Sponsors: Conselleria de Cultura e Deporte de la Xunta de Galicia and the State Corporation for Spanish Overseas Cultural Action Abroad.
Info Spanish Pavillion: Arsenal, Ponte del Paradiso and Giardini di Castello.
Dates: June 10th - November 21st, 2007.
Opening hours: 10:00 – 18:00 h.
Preview Spanish Pavilion: June the 8th at 13:00 h.
Press Contact: Ilaria Gianoli. Email: ilariagianoli@tin.it
Web: http://www.mae.es/bienalvenecia07

Paradiso Spezzato / Paraíso fragmentado considers the idea of Paradise as a model of vision. Paradiso Spezzato is the expression used by the poet Ezra Pound to refer to a dimension of saved reality but only attainable as a fragment. Paradise, therefore, as a glowing appearance of poetic light in the midst of an existence that is often damaged, precarious or degraded. And as a synaesthetic proposal, there where it is possible to experience sensations going from one sensorial modality to another.

The exhibition is organized around the work of four creators of artistic disciplines, of various ages and careers who, nevertheless, converge, beyond specific genres, in a similar wish of affirmation of life. In accordance with approaches of an interdisciplinary nature, Paraíso fragmentado/Paradiso Spezzato deals with the photographic image (Manuel Vilariño) and in movement (José Luis Guerín) in their relationship with the poetic vision and temporalness. Corporal gesture, action and voice as proposals of an instinct of play that rebels against heaviness, in a joyful nature (Los Torreznos). The energy of intermittence, the search for routes with no guarantee, the crossings among images that pull all the strings of surprise and the equivalences between creation, growth, life and happiness (Rubén Ramos Balsa).

For more information go to: http://www.mae.es/bienalvenecia07

Framework

Framework: Special Nordic Issue
# 7/June´07: Nationality in Context

Photo:
René Block, the curator of the Nordic Pavilion in the Venice Biennale 2007.
Photo by Lars Ramberg, January 2007.
http://www.framework.fi

Framework: The Finnish Art Review Issue 7/ June´07, built upon a theme of ‘Nationality in Context’, is published as a special Nordic issue, focusing on the art scenes in five Nordic countries. It contains a special section - that is published also as a free copy newsletter - on the Nordic Pavilion and its satellite, the Aalto Pavilion, at the Venice Biennale. The artists in the exhibition of the pavilions, Welfare – Fare Well, are featured: Adel Abidin (Finland), Jacob Dahlgren (Sweden), Toril Goksøyr & Camilla Martens (Norway), Sirous Namazi (Sweden), Lars Ramberg (Norway), and Maaria Wirkkala (Finland). They have been invited by René Block, an internationally acclaimed artistic director of exhibitions and biennials.

By including artists from different national backgrounds, the exhibition emphasizes the fact that geographical maps and foundations of cultural identities are under re-formation today, also in the North. Interesting is also the fact that the six projects are produced by artists who didn’t know each other across the national borders. This emphasises that the Nordic countries are not a homogenous entity where we could speak of certain particularities, similarities or sameness. However, interestingly enough, the non-Nordic curator has been able to pay a close attention to the questions of the Nordic society and culture.

In the course of building up the famous Nordic welfare society the Nordic countries have willingly wanted to give an impression of themselves as caring and helping nations in the global context. However, all Nordic countries have an increasing number of nationalists who are demanding that their ‘own borders’ should be closed and striving to ensure that their part of the world retains its national sovereignty and economic privileges. The growing fear of the “other” divides people into “we” and “them”. Black immigrants cleaning the window outside the Nordic Pavilion are not allowed to get in the other side and participate in the popular recreational game of darts. This is a strong metaphor for confusion when confronting the question: How come these most affluent societies in world history practice policies which increase social polarization and nourish scare, cynicism, powerlessness and racism?

For René Block the titles of the exhibitions he has curated have always played a significant role in their attempt to crystallize his given approach. This time, he says, “Welfare - Fare Well does not stand for a theme or concept, but is a motto. May welfare fare well! Unfortunately, however, ’fare well’ can also be understood as ‘farewell’, as in ‘goodbye’. I’d like to leave some space for individual interpretation.”

Framework: Special Nordic Issue will be launched in Open-Air Campo Event: Future of Welfare on Campo di Santa Margherita, Venice on Saturday 9th of June, 2007 at 8 – 11 pm, organized in collaboration with Framework: The Finnish Art Review, Filosofia e Questioni Pubbliche (FQP, Rome), Fondazione Humanity, Il Saggiatore, and Cultural Association PLUG, Venice. The three hour event will take place under the Patronage of the Municipalities of Venice, Murano and Burano and includes two public panels, bringing together a number of contributors:

Panel in English at 8 – 8:30 pm: René Block, Curator of the Nordic Pavilion 2007, Berlin; Yrjö Haila, Professor of Environmental Policy, University of Tampere, Finland; Agnes Kohlmeyer, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Art History, IUAV University, Venice. Coordinator: Camilla Seibezzi, Plug, Venice.

Panel in Italian at 9 – 9:45 pm: Cesare Damiano, Italian Minister of Welfare, Rome; Sebastiano Maffettone, Director of FQP, LUISS ‘Guido Carli’ University, Rome; Maria Rosa Sossai, Curator and Art Critic, Venice; Ingrid Salvatore, Political Philosopher, University of Salerno; Laura Bazzicalupo, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Salerno. Coordinator: Luca Formenton, Il Saggiatore.

The arrangements will be assisted by the artist group Cheap Finnish Labour.
YKON’s video work More than a Joke: Who Laughes Last, Laughs Longest! Fake It till You Make It! (M8 - Summit of Micronations, Singapore, 2006) will be screened at 10-11 pm.

Publisher:
FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange
Merimiehenkatu 36 D 527, FI-00150 Helsinki
Phone +358 (0)40 5070809, info@frame-fund.fi
http://www.frame-fund.fi

For more information go to: http://www.frame-fund.fi

German Pavilion

German Pavilion
La Biennale di Venezia 2007

Isa Genzken
OIL

Curator: Nicolaus Schafhausen

Preview 7 - 9 June 2007
Exhibition 10 June - 21 Nov. 2007

http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org

Given the long and changeful history of the Venice Biennale since 1895, the German Pavilion is not an easy site for an exhibition. For Isa Genzken, this formed the horizon of an installation developed especially for Venice, an installation that attends to the architecture, stages it, and comments on it. Like all her works, this new one resists all visual language that could be appropriated by national attributes of any kind, and yet Isa Genzken uses motifs that point toward a West German post-war history typical of her own generation.

The ideals of modernism and their re-coding in popular culture, as expressed especially in North American art and everyday culture, undergo a metamorphosis in Genzken’s contribution to the Biennale di Venezia in which splendor and squalor, euphoria and disillusionment are closely intertwined. The title “Oil” consciously plays with different levels that, while naming a concrete substance – a global and increasingly contested resource – also chose the abstractness of metaphor. “Oil” is an expression of the times in which we live, reducing complexity to a tangible image: taking on various slogans and stylizing these into a dystopian outlook for the future and an expression of freedom.

“… that is what the whole world is about. Whether there’s war or not, that’s what it’s all about. Energy and oil. You’ve simply got to understand this.” – Isa Genzken
(Isa Genzken “Oil”, Engl. version, pg. 157.)

Publication

Isa Genzken "Oil", German Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2007, Nicolaus Schafhausen (ed.)

This official publication for the German contribution at the 52nd Venice Biennale focuses on Isa Genzken’s site-specific work for the pavilion. The authors offer a range of different approaches to her work – a diversity necessary for an understanding of the complexity inherent in the artist’s practice. Texts by Liam Gillick, Juliane Rebentisch, Vanessa Joan Müller and Willem de Rooij, and a conversation between Isa Genzken and Nicolaus Schafhausen.

220 pages with 120 full-page and double-page color illustrations Format 32 x 24 cm (vertical), hardbound with dust jacket.

Language versions: German/Dutch, English/Italian, English/Arabic, English/Chinese, English/Spanish On sale at the German Pavilion and Electa bookshop, Venice Biennale, and distributed internationally.

Published by DuMont Kunst und Literatur Verlag.

The core team of the German Pavilion

Nicolaus Schafhausen, Witte de With, Rotterdam - commissioner/curator
Sophie von Olfers, Witte de With, Rotterdam - assistant curator
Roger Bundschuh, Bundschuh Architekten, Berlin - architecture
Markus Weisbeck, Surface Gesellschaft für Gestaltung, Frankfurt - graphic design
Sven Bergmann, Bonn - press and PR
Paul van Gennip, Witte de With, Rotterdam - production
Natasa Radovic, Venice; Julia Moritz, Venice; Laura Preston, Rotterdam - assistance

German Pavilion
Venice Biennale 2007
c/o Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art
Witte de Withstraat 50
3012 BR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Tel. 0031 (0)10 4110 144
Email: info@deutscher-pavillon.org
http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org

For further information please contact Sophie von Olfers:
vonolfers@deutscher-pavillon.org, tel. 0031 (0)10 4110 144

For press information please contact Sven Bergmann:
bergmann@deutscher-pavillon.org, tel. 0049 (0)179 5341 563

The German Pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2007 is commissioned and sponsored by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, and co-organised by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa, Stuttgart).

The main sponsor of the German Pavilion is Deutsche Bank. http://www.artsummer.com

Media partners are DW-TV Deutsche Welle and Vogue Germany. The pavilion is technically realised by the production team of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam.

For more information go to: http://www.deutscher-pavillon.org