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15 unusual facts about Venice Biennale


Achille Cattaneo

His works were shown at the Venice Biennale (Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte di Venezia) in 1924, 1926 and 1928 and in Milan (Esposizione Nazionale di Milano) in 1925 and 1927.

Beat Furrer

Recent awards and honors include the Music Prize of the City of Vienna in 2003 and the Golden Lion, for the monodrama "FAMA," at the 2006 Venice Biennale.

Biennial

Biennale, a term used within the art world to describe an international manifestation of contemporary art, stemming from the use of the phrase for the Venice Biennale.

Brown and Storey Architects

The office’s work has been published and presented in Canada and the U.S., and has been exhibited in many venues including New York, Milan, Venice Biennale VI International Exhibition of Architecture, University of Toronto, UIA Congress in Barcelona, and Fuori Uso in Pescara.

Daníel Ágúst Haraldsson

During the years leading up to his first solo release Daníel was heavily involved in Iceland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2005.

Heinz Günter Mebusch

Mebusch exhibited in Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany and USA and represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1999.

Herman Trunk

In 1933, his work appeared in the Venice Biennale as part of the Whitney Exhibit; he was the only artist from Brooklyn to be included.

Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia

In 2008 it was chosen to take part in the official section of the Venice Biennale with the project Hyperhabitat and in 2010 it presented a 1:1 scale house (entirely produced at IAAC) at the Solar Decathlon Europe in Madrid where it won the Peoples Choice Award.

Jean-Louis Cohen

In 2013 he was also appointed Commissioner of the French Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice Biennale, 2014).

Kabakov's Installations

Kabakov’s In the Closet of 2000 was another installation shown at the Venice Biennale in the Utopia Station pavilion, a group show without allegiance to any country, composed of a diverse collection of artworks.

Kate MacGarry

Francis Upritchard represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2009 and has had solo exhibitions at the Vienna Secession in 2010, Nottingham Contemporary in 2012 and MIMOCA in Kagawa, Japan in 2013.

Kerry and Lindsay Clare

Following the inclusion of the McWilliam residence in the Venice Biennale 1991 their Cotton Tree social housing project was selected worldwide for inclusion in the 'Ten Shades of Green' exhibition in New York; an exhibition demonstrating architectural excellence and environmental sensitivity organised by the Architectural League of New York.

Maciej Masłowski

In 1948, he has been Polish Division Commissioner for the Biennale in Venice, and then, in 1949 - the manager of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil in Switzerland.

Paul Ramirez Jonas

His works have been exhibited internationally, most recently in the 53rd Venice Biennale.

Tacita Dean

In 1995, she was included in General Release: Young British Artists held at the XLVI Venice Biennale.


Aidan Salakhova

Aidan is a regular participant of major international art fairs and biennales including the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art (1991, 2011), the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), etc.

Alfredo Jaar

His work has been shown extensively around the world, notably in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), São Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju (1995, 2000), Johannesburg (1997), and Seville (2006).

Alterazioni Video

In 2007, for the 52° Venice Biennale, in the main exhibition curated by Robert Storr, the group showed Painting (16:9 colour HD, 16' 33", 2007), a work that documents the continued stratification of writings and cancellations on the outer walls of the San Vittore prison in Milan. Writings, images, and attempts at censorship become the linguistic elements of only one work, one large "painting" that documents, in its progress, the life of a community.

Amnon Barzel

He was appointed Curator at the Venice Biennale for the Israeli Pavilion 1976 to 1980 where he presented Dani Karavan, Menashe Kadishman, Micha Ullman and Moshe Gershuni.

Anton Kutter

Kutter was awarded two golden medals at the Venice Biennale and he invented the well-known Schiefspiegler telescope which is a modified Cassegrain reflector featuring superb optical definition due to an off-axis secondary mirror.

Candida Höfer

She was included by Okwui Enwezor in Documenta 11 in Kassel in 2002, and she represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2003 together with the late Martin Kippenberger.

Carole Feuerman

She has enjoyed six museum retrospectives to date, and has been included in exhibitions at, among other venues, the Smithsonian Institute's National Portrait Gallery, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Venice Biennale, and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.

Christophe Brunnquell

The popularity of Purple helped boosting his own career, and since then he has been working with art direction and design consultancy for, among others, Louis Vuitton, the Venice Biennale, Le Figaro’s fashion guide, Fabien Baron, Colette, Balenciaga, Céline, Cosmic Wonder, and Zucca.

Dinh Q. Lê

Francesco Bonami (curator of the 50th Venice Biennale) highlighted his distinctive photo-weavings artwork, and an entire room is dedicated for his works in the Italian Pavilion in 2003.

Eve Andree Laramee

She has participated in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, Mass MOCA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; among other institutions.

Greg Curnoe

He represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1981, which subsequently toured across Canada.

György Kurtág

Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale for lifetime achievement (53rd International Festival of Contemporary Music; 2009)

Helidon Gjergji

Among many other exhibitions he has participated at the Venice Biennale 52 (curated by Bonnie Clearwater, Manifesta 8; Present Future, Artissima 10 (Turin), curated by Emma Dexter, the Tirana Biennale 1 (curated by Francesco Bonami); Venice Biennale of Architecture 12 (curated by Gjergj Bakallbashi), Madre, (MCA, Naples); Apexart (NYC); National Gallery (Tirana); Villa Arson; Centre d'Art Contemporain (Nice); Lothringer Dreizehn Kunsthalle (Munich); The Kosova Art Gallery.

Hermann Nitsch

Later in 2011, the documentation of this 130th performance was exhibited in the 54th Venice Biennale's official collateral event, Personal Structure: Time Space Existence in Palazzo Bembo, together with the works from Marina Abramović's video installation, where she was locked in a staring battle with a donkey, and Xing Xin's live performance, 2011, I Exhibit Myself In A Western Exhibition.

Hugh Mulholland

Mulholland was appointed the curator for the Northern Irish Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale by the British Council Northern Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Jakob Weidemann

During his lifetime, Weidemann's works were shown at Bergen International Festival twice, and was featured at the Venice Biennale in 1967.

João Botelho

Quem És Tu? (2001) "?title=Venice Film Festival">Venice Film Festival, official selection, competition; Mimo Rotella Award for Best Artistic Contribution in Venice Biennale

Julije Knifer

He exhibited at many national and international shows including, The New Tendencies exhibitions (1961, 1963, 1969 and 1973), Art Abstrait Constructif International at the Denise René Gallery (Paris, 1961–1962), Konstruktivisten at the Städtisches Museum Leverkusen (Leverkusen, 1962), Oltre l’informale (San Marino, 1963), the Venice Biennale (1976 and 2001), the São Paulo Art Biennale (1973 with Juraj Dobrović and Vjenceslav Richter, 1979 and 1981).

Kai Althoff

He has also shown work in group exhibitions including the 2004 Venice Biennale, Drawing Now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Chère Paintre, Liebe Maler, Dear Painter at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, A Perilous Space at Magnani in London and Kaiki at Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea.

María Simón

She also participated in the Venice Biennale (1972), Biennale of Tapestry in Lausanne, Biennials of Engraving at Ljubljana and in Puerto Rico, the First International Sculpture Street Exhibition in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and the Basel Fair.

Marino Auriti

Auriti settled in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania and there created his famed work which in 2013 served as the inspiration for director Massimiliano Gioni's main curated pavilion on at the fifty fifth edition of the Venice Biennale.

Mario Pilati

Pilati's output is considerable given his few years of compositional maturity, but it includes a Concerto for Orchestra (1932), premiered by Dmitri Mitropoulos at the Venice Biennale in 1938, which shows modal influences of Respighi as well as a Mahlerian ländler in the finale.

Martha Rosler

Her work has been seen in the Venice Biennale of 2003; the Liverpool Biennial, the Taipei Biennial (both 2004), and the Singapore Biennale (2011); as well as many major international survey shows, including the "documenta" exhibitions in Kassel, Germany, of 1982 and 2007, the SkulpturProjekte Münster 2007, and several Whitney Biennials.

Martin Honert

A Model Scenario of the Flying Classroom (Catalogue Raisonné no. 30) made for the German Pavilion at the 1995 Venice Biennale borrows its subject and title from a children’s book by Erich Kästner entitled The Flying Classroom.

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

She painted, collaborated with Andy Warhol on illustrations for the now defunct Bonwit Teller department store, and, under the tutelage of Milton Avery, developed her talent for making monotype prints — some of which were presented at the Iran Pavilion during the 1958 Venice Biennale.

Palazzo Bembo

With the thriving of Venice Biennale in the city, Palazzo Bembo is currently known for its Venice Biennale art exhibitions organized by Personal Structures, an international contemporary art platform.

Raqs Media Collective

Raqs is best known for its contribution to contemporary art, and has presented work at most of the major international shows, from Documenta to the Venice Biennale; but the collective is active in an unusually wide range of domains, and it is perhaps this breadth that gives their work its originality and scope.

S1 Artspace

Over its sixteen-year history, S1 Artspace has presented work by over 300 artists and accommodated over 100 artists through its studios from Martin Clark, Artistic Director at Tate St Ives to Haroon Mirza, Northern Art Prize and Silver Lion Award Winner at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.

Stephen Antonakos

Antanakos' work has been included in several important international exhibitions including Documenta 6 in 1977 in Kassel, Germany and he represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1997.

Stephen Finer

Finer participated in "British Art from the Arts Council Collection 1940-80" at the Hayward Gallery, 'Collazione Inglese ll' at the Venice Biennale and was in the touring exhibition, 'Men on Women', 'The Portrait Now' at the National Portrait Gallery and 'Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000' held to celebrate the millennium also at the National Portrait Gallery, where his portrait of David Bowie is in the permanent collection.

Ulrich Rückriem

In the 1960s and 1070s, Rückriem worked in the quarry of Dolomite at Anröchte, culminating in a show of his work at the Venice Biennale in 1978.

Ysanne Spevack

In 2003, Spevack was invited to perform electric violin for Peter Sellars at the Venice Biennale.