The 2011 Venice Biennale: Italy Taps Sgarbi as Curator
Published: February 17, 2010

VENICE—The 2011 iteration of the Venice Biennale, that art-world exhibition that combines the thrill of the Olympics — awards are given: the Golden Lion for best in show and the Silver Lion for best emerging artists — with the architectural concerns of the World’s Fairs of yesteryear (there are national pavilions), is still more than a year away. Nevertheless, participating nations have already begun to announce their selections. ARTINFO will provide the latest updates as Biennale developments arise.



Italy
Italian culture minister Sandro Bondi has named Vittorio Sgarbi as curator of the nation’s pavilion. Sgarbi was recently named the head of acquisitions at the Maxxi museum in Rome, the contemporary art center designed by Zaha Hadid that opened last year. Sgarbi previously served as Italy’s undersecretary of culture and aroused controversy in 2002 when he attempted to have Australian–born art historian Robert Hughes named curator of the Venice Biennale. He has also made the news for his suggestion that contemporary art is a “dictatorship.” Sgarbi once told a reporter, “I regularly attack what I call the ‘art mafia’... I fight for minorities, I am for pluralism.”



France
Christian Boltanski — best known for haunting installations in dimly lit rooms, frequently featuring photographs of children — will represent France in an exhibition curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, a former director of the Centre Pompidou. He is also famous for his acerbic world view. He once told an interviewer, “We are a subject one day, with our vanities, our loves, our worries, and then one day, abruptly, we become nothing but an object, an absolutely disgusting pile of shit.” France will be celebrating nearly a century in its pavilion, which was design by Faust Finzi in 1912.



Germany
Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, has named Susanne Gaensheimer to curate the nation’s pavilion in 2011. Westerwelle is director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt, a position she has held since 2009. Interestingly, her doctoral dissertation explored the work of Bruce Nauman, who took home the Golden Lion for best exhibition at last year's Biennale. Germany’s pavilion, designed by Ernst Haiger and inaugurated in 1938 by the Nazi government, has often been the subject of work in Venice. Hans Haacke’s 1993 exhibition, for example, included a large photograph of Hitler. Last year, the pavilion showed the work of British artist Liam Gillick, which included wood cabinetry and a talking animatronic cat. Gaensheimer has not revealed her plans for the pavilion.



Iceland
Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson (not to be confused with artist Olafur Eliasson, who represented his native Denmark in 2003) will be handed the keys to the pavilion in 2011. The two have collaborated for some time on projects since 1997. Castro also has the unique distinction of being one of the rare artists picked to represent a country of which he is not a citizen, a feat achieved last year by Briton Liam Gillick, who represented Germany at the exhibition. The humble island nation will be toasting a half-century anniversary: It has been visiting the Biennale since 1960 (back when it was held in even-numbered years).