“Es lebe die Kunst” – Unter diesem Motto hat am Montag in Venedig Christine Macel ihr Konzept für die Biennale di Venezia bekanntgegeben. Auch machte sie die Liste der 120 Künstler aus 84 Ländern publik, deren Arbeiten dort vom 13. Mai bis zum 26. November 2017 im Rahmen der 57. Internationalen Kunstausstellung La Biennale di Venezia zu sehen sein werden. Dabei sind 103 der Künstler erstmals in Venedig dabei. Erstmals dabei sind auch die Länder Antigua und Barbuda, Kiribati, Kasastan und Nigeria vertreten. Die Biennale findet in den historischen Pavillions in den Giardini, im Arsenale sowie im Zentrum der Stadt statt.
In a world full of conflicts and jolts, in which humanism is being seriously jeopardized, art is the most precious part of the human being. It is the ideal place for reflection, individual expression, freedom and fundamental questions. Art is the favourite place for dreams and utopias, relationships with other human beings, with nature and cosmos, as well as with a spiritual dimension. Here, art is the ultimate rampart, a garden to be cultivated beyond trends and particular interests. It also represents an alternative to individualism and indifference. It builds us and edifies us. It is a “yes” to life, although sometimes a “but” lies behind. More than ever, the role, the voice and the responsibility of the artist are crucial in the framework of contemporary debates.
Viva Arte Viva is also an exclamation, an expression of the passion for art and for the state of the artist. Viva Arte Viva is a Biennale designed with the artists, by the artists and for the artists. It deals with the forms they propose, the questions they pose, the practices they develop and the forms of life they choose.
Art and artists are themselves at the core of the Exhibition that debuts with a question about their practices, the way they create art, between idleness and action, between otium and negotium. The roman otium, originated from the Greek schole, constitutes a privileged moment, which nowadays is improperly translated as idleness, conferring it a pejorative nuance, or by the term leisure, which in English is not far from entertainment. The word otium, opposite to the world of business and negotium which the artist does not escape, entails instead that free time of inaction and availability, of laborious idleness and mind work, of serenity and action, where indeed the work of art is born.
Starting from the wandering thoughts of the artist, his workshop, his terrestrial and spiritual nourishment, his material and mental workplace, the Exhibition organically evolves in a sequence of pavilions, rooms and stanze, offering the spectator an experience, i.e. a journey, from the interiority to the infinity.
Trans-pavillons
These pavilions or Trans-pavilions, which gather artists of all generations and origins, sinuously follow one another like chapters of a book. From the “Pavilion of artists and books ” to the “Pavilion of time and infinity”, a dozen universes tell a conversational and sometimes paradoxical story, concerning the complexity of the world and the variety of positions and practices. The Exhibition also aims to be an experience, representing an extroversion movement towards the other, towards a common place and towards the most indefinable dimensions, opening the pathways to a neo-humanism.
Viva Arte Viva also wants to instil a positive and prospective energy focused on young artists, while rediscovering those who passed away too early or those who are unknown to the public despite the importance of their works. Discoveries and rediscoveries will display the works belonging to different generations of artists, while exploring specific cultural areas such as Latin America, Asia and The Middle East and paying particular attention to Europe up to its eastern boundaries and to Russia.
Tavola Aperta – Open Table
Side subjects and events will be based on the same idea of putting artists at the core of the Exhibition. The catalogue of the Exhibition will be entirely focused on the artists who are invited to present visual and textual documents concerning their practices and their own universe.
Viva Arte Viva will put artists at the forefront and will give them the opportunity to express themselves. Every week, during the six months of the Exhibition, the artist and his public will participate to an Open Table (Tavola Aperta) where they can have lunch together and where they can dialogue and talk about the artist’s practice. These events will take place in front of the Central Pavilion in the Giardini and in the Sale d’Armi inside the Arsenale.
