The world's oldest and most prestigious contemporary art fair opened Sunday
in Venice, kicking off what promises to be the European art season of the decade
as four premier events align in an unusual convergence that is generating
extraordinary buzz. Following the weekend's opening of the 52nd Venice Biennale,
Art Basel in Switzerland, Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and the Muenster
Sculpture Project all kick off in quick succession.
An external view of Italy's pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition
of the Venice Biennale in Venice. The prestigious event, which kicked off on
Sunday, will run through Nov. 21.
It's all creating lots of excitement and hurried travel since only rarely do
the major art fair cycles coincide: Art Basel is held every year, Venice every
two years, Documenta every five years and Muenster every decade. While
Documenta, opening June 16, draws hipper crowds and Art Basel, June 13, attracts
the buyers, it is the Venice Biennale that is "the most noble," said one former
curator. In its 120-year history, the Biennale has advanced art discourse by
presenting to the public such notables as Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso and the
Pop Art movement. Recent editions have drawn several hundred thousand people to
the lagoon venues over five months -- still just a fraction of Documenta's
expected attendance, a consequence of Venice's expense and difficult
geography.
Each edition of the nearly six-month Biennale is unique, reflecting the
choices of the curator of the main international exhibition. This year, the job
has fallen to American curator and critic Robert Storr, currently the dean of
the Yale School of Art and former painting and sculpture curator at The Museum
of Modern Art in New York. He is among only a handful of non-Italians to be
given the honor.
Storr's exhibition brings together about 100 artists in what many observers
who have seen the show in previews described as a more unified museum approach
to the Biennale, known for its sometimes chaotic attempt to showcase fresh art,
often by young, emerging artists. The Biennale has helped launch some careers
while paying tribute to already established names. Henry Moore's international
reputation was helped when he was awarded the prize for sculpture in 1948 while
Jasper Johns was already well-acclaimed when he won the grand prize in 1988. The
awards are now called Golden Lions like the Venice Film Festival tributes.
"What I hope with the exhibit itself ... is that what people will remember
[is] the convergence of all these different things they will have experienced in
one place and at one time," Storr said in a telephone interview from Venice.
Storr has for the first time put an African Pavilion in the main Arsenale
venue in a move to draw attention to significant African art events, including
the traveling Remix exhibition of African art. He also tapped 71-year-old Malian
photographer Malick Sidibe as this year's winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime
Achievement, making it the first time a photographer has won the honor.
