Hivos supports Venice Biennale
The 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, entitled Illuminations, will run from 4 June to 27 November 2011. Three splendid pavilions from Iraq, Bangladesh and Central Asia have been made possible by Hivos.
Pavilion of Iraq
It was in 1975 that contemporary Iraqi artists last had a chance to present their work at the Venice Biennale. After a 35-year absence, six artists from Iraq will now participate in an Iraq Pavilion. Because all six have not lived in Iraq for at least a decade, Hivos partner Echo has commissioned a short documentary film, to explore the work of artists practicing in Baghdad. The Iraqi Film and Publication Project for Venice addresses the question of what is happening in Iraq today regarding contemporary art and the process of art-making. An accompanying publication includes profiles of the artists and their work.
Bangladesh Pavilion
The exhibition ‘Parables’ is an unprecedented project made possible by
Britto Arts Trust, partner of the network Arts Collaboratory in which Hivos participates. Five renowned representatives of the lively Bangladesh art scene, who live and work in Dhaka, have produced site-specific installations to explore universal contemporary political, environmental and social concerns. ‘Parables’ is an experimental exhibition project that focuses on the unspoken and implicit power underlying the notion of universal truths through art practice.
Central Asia Pavilion
Hivos also sponsored the Central Asia pavilion Lingua Franca. The exhibition presents the works of eleven artists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is a comprehensive study of contemporary artistic practices as a kind of lingua franca – the language of global communication.
Special event of the Central Asia Pavilion is a presentation of the new documentary ‘The Desert of Forbidden Art’ (2010). The film takes us on a dramatic journey of sacrifice for the sake of creative freedom. Igor Savitsky pretended to buy state-approved art but instead daringly rescued 40,000 works of art from forbidden fellow artists and created a museum in the desert of Uzbekistan, far from the watchful eyes of the KGB. The result is a unique collection of Russian and Central Asian avant-garde art.
Photo credit: Flickr/ Dr. Savage
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