Art Biennale 2017

The 57th Venice Art Biennale presents VIVA ARTE VIVA

From 13 May 2017 to 26 November 2017

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A great event is taking place on Saturday 13th May: the opening of the Biennale Venice Art 2017! Until 26th November, the Giardini and the Arsenal will host the 57th Venice Biennale international Art Exhibition: the 2017 edition will include many new features in order to celebrate arts and artists!

Curated by Christine Macel, the Biennale Venice 2017 VIVA ARTE VIVA wants to turn the spotlight on the figure of the artist by opening up opportunities for dialogue, knowledge sharing and engaging: the Art Biennale Venice 2017 is not based on a specific theme but instead presents a journey to discover the works of each artist, a kind of choreography in which the various expressive forms will come into contact with each other and above all with the public to allow the visitor to enter the minds and souls of the artists themselves.

The exceptional numbers of the 57th Venice Art Biennale are a testimony to the great resonance of the project in the world of arts. In fact, there will be 120 artists exhibiting at the Biennale Art exhibition Venice 2017, including 103 attending for the first time with a total of 51 represented countries.

VIVA ARTE VIVA – The Venice Biennale contemporary Art festival 2017 is hinged on nine chapters or families of artists: each chapter represents a pavilion in itself – or rather a Trans-pavilion as characterized by a trans-national nature – in order to remain faithful to the historical arrangement of the exhibition into pavilions. Two chapters will be housed in the Central Pavilion at the Gardens while the remaining seven will be set up across the Arsenal through to the Garden of the Virgins.

The nine chapters will team up with 85 National Participations, including three participating for the first time: Antigua and Barbuda, Kiribati and Nigeria, in the traditional Pavilions at the Arsenal, the Gardens and the historic city centre of Venice.

The Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Art Festival Venice 2017 will be directed by Cecilia Alemani, Italian curator and a long standing New York resident, where she heads the High Line art program.

Let's look at the Venice Art Biennale 2017 dates, what is on offer, including extra initiatives and side events to give you the chance to make the most of the Biennale Art show 2017 in Venice!

Biennale Venice Art 2017 Transnational Pavilions

1) The Pavilion of Artists and Books
2) The Pavilion of Joys and Fears
3) The Pavilion of the Common
4) The Pavilion of the Earth
5) The Pavilion of Traditions
6) The Dionysian Pavilion
7) The Pavilion of the Shamans
8) The Pavilion of Colours
9) The Pavilion of Time and Infinity

The nine pavilions can be defined as episodes of a story, that is both discursive and paradoxical but also full of ideas to analyse the world’s complexity in all its facets. A world seen through the eyes of the artists who take centre stage at the Biennale Art Festival 2017 in Venice, Italy to reveal to the spectator their way of creating art.

Open Table and Artist Practices Project

The artists are the undisputed protagonists of the Art Biennale 2017. In addition to presenting their work, they were the opportunity to open themselves up, explain their work and recount their experiences. This is why, during the entire opening period of the Art Biennale 2017, every Friday and Saturday morning an artist will sit down with visitors and host an Open Table. These meetings will be streamed on the Biennale website so that visitors will be able to watch them live if they wish so. In anticipation of the open tables, the months preceding the opening, the Biennale Art show 2017 Venice will premiere on its website a series of short videos made by the artists in which they will talk about themselves and their way of working.
Both projects - Open Table and Artists’ Practices - are open to all artists, including those representing the National Pavilions. They will also be able to make films to present themselves and join Open Table on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

My Library

Still with the aim of gaining a better understanding of who the artists are and what their work is, My Library - a project inspired by Walter Benjamin's essay published in 1931 – will ask artists to compile a list of their favourite books. This list will be published in the Exhibition at the Central Pavilion, whilst the Stirling Pavilion will house a collection of books assembled by the artists and available for the public to browse through.

Special Projects and Performance

The Gardens and other venues in Venice will also showcase performances especially commissioned for the opening week. The videos will be available on the Biennale website and also during the 57th Venice Art Biennale in a dedicated room at the Arsenal.

Biennial Sessions

After the great success of past editions, the 57th Venice Biennale International Art exhibition will again stage the project dedicated to a variety of establishments active in the fields of research and education where students and professors will be offered help and support for their learning and teaching programmes.

Educational

The 57th Venice Art Biennale will also see the return of Educational, aimed at engaging visitors through Guided Itineraries and Workshop Activities and addressing itself to individuals and groups of students, professionals, businesses, subject-matter experts, aficionados and families.

Art Biennale Venice 2017 – Collateral Events

As always, attention will be dedicated to the popular Biennale Venice collateral events in 2017, promoted by national and international institutions.

1. A Bonsai of my dream – works by Wong Cheng Pou
   13 May – 12 November 2017
   Arsenale, Castello 2126/A - Campo della Tana
   Promoters: The Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao S.A.R. Government; The Macao Museum of Art

2. Alberto Biasi, Sara Campesan, Bruno Munari and altri amici di Verifica 8+1
   28 July – 8 October 2017
   Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, galleria di Piazza San Marco 71/c
   Promoter: Associazione Culturale Ars Now Seragiotto

3. Body and Soul. Performance Art – Past and Present
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Palazzo Pisani, San Marco 2810 - Campiello Pisani
   Promoter: Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation

4. Catalonia in Venice_La Venezia che non si vede
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Cantieri Navali, Castello, 40 - Calle Quintavalle
   Promoter: Institut Ramon Llull

5. Doing Time
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello, 4209  - San Marco, Ponte della Paglia
   Promoter: Taipei Fine Arts Museum of Taiwan

6. Fernando Zobel Contrapuntos
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Fondaco Marcello, San Marco 3415 - Calle del Traghetto or Ca' Garzoni
   Promoter: Ayala Foundation/Ayala Museum

7. Future Generation Art Prize @ Venice 2017
   12 May – 13 August 2017
   Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo Polignac, Dorsoduro, 874
   Promoter: Victor Pinchuk Foundation

8. James Lee Byars, The Golden Tower
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Dorsoduro, Campo San Vio
   Promoter: Fondazione Giuliani

9. Jan Fabre – Glass and Bones Sculptures 1977 – 2017
   13 May – 26 November 2017
   Abbazia di San Gregorio, Dorsoduro 172
   Promoter: GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo

10. Man as Bird. Images of Journeys
    13 May – 5 September 2017
    Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, Cannaregio 6099 - Fondamenta Sanudo
    Promoter: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

11. Michelangelo Pistoletto
    10 May – 26 November 2017
    Isola di San Giorgio Mayre, Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore
    Promoter: Associazione Arte Continua

12. Modus
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Ca’ Faccanon, San Marco 5016 - Poste Centrali
    Promoter: WAVE’s (women arts Venice)

13. Philip Guston and the Poets
    13 May – 3 September 2017
    Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, Dorsoduro 1050 - Campo della Carità
    Promoter: Museo Nazionale Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia

14. Pierre Huyghe
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia, San Marco 1353 - Calle del Ridotto
    Promoter: Fondation Louis Vuitton

15. Ryszard Winiarski. Event-Information-Image
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Palazzo Bollani, Castello 3647
    Promoter: Starak Family Foundation

16. Salon Suisse: Ataraxia
    11 May; 31 August – 2 September; 19 – 21 October; 23 – 25 November 2017
    Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Dorsoduro 810 - Campo Sant’ Agnese
    Promoter: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia

17. Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, Hong Kong in Venice
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Arsenale, Castello 2126 - Campo della Tana
    Promoters: M+, West Kowloon Cultural District; Hong Kong Arts Development Council

18. Scotland + Venice presents Rachel Maclean’s Spite Your Face
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Cannaregio 4090/4091 - Fondamenta di Santa Caterina
    Promoter: Scotland + Venice

19. Shirin Neshat The Home of My Eyes
    10 May – 26 November 2017
    Museo Correr, San Marco 52
    Promoter: Written Art Foundation

20. The Court of Redonda
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Ca’ Dandolo, San Polo 2879
    Promoter: The Heong Gallery at Downing College, University of Cambridge

21. Wales in Venice: James Richards
    13 May – 26 November 2017
    Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Castello 450 - Fondamenta di San Gioacchin
    Promoter: Cymru yn Fenis Wales in Venice

22. Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow: Traceability is Credibility
    13 May – 13 agosto 2017
    Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore - Sala Borges
    Promoter: Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Golden Lion of the Biennale Venice 2017

On Saturday May 13, at Ca 'Giustinian, the Golden Lion will be awarded to Carolee Schneemann. Born in the US in 1939, she was one of the pioneers of feminist performance in the early 1960s, later becoming one of the most prominent figures in Performance and Body Art. With a direct, liberating and autobiographical style, Schneemann has always been opposed to the representation of women merely as an insignificant nude object conceiving instead the female body as the creator and active part of the art work itself. To spread her message she has made use of a large number of expressive media, from painting to film making through video art and performance.

Biennale Venice Dates 2017

• Venice Biennale vernissage 2017: 10-11-12 May
• Opening: 13 May
• Opening to the public: 13 May to 26 November

Venues and opening hours of the Art Biennale in Venice 2017

• Gardens and Arsenal: 10am to 6pm
• Arsenal only, Friday and Saturday until 30 September: from 10am to 8pm
• Closed Mondays (except Monday 15 May, 14 August, 4 September, 30 October and 20 November)