Leone Contini, Foreign Farmers, 2018. Manifesta 12.
This summer around two dozen of our resident and public programme alumni are particpating in some of the season’s biggest exhibitions, from Manifesta to the Gwangju Biennale.
ROBOCA – 1st Riga international Biennial of Contemporary Art, Latvia
The first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More, is curated by Katerina Gregos, who has been instrumental in setting up the biennial alongside founder and Commissioner Agniya Mirgorodskaya. The Biennial features 104 artists. Amongst them are our former residents Alexis Blake, Luiz Roque, Mark Dion, Maryam Jafri, and Taus Makhacheva.
Made in LA 2018, Hammer Museum, USA
Made in L.A. 2018 is the latest iteration of the Hammer Museum’s acclaimed biennial exhibition, showcasing artists from the greater Los Angeles area. Organized by Anne Ellegood, senior curator, and Erin Christovale, assistant curator, with MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial associate, the exhibition brings together over 30 artists including former resident Candice Lin.
Manifesta 12, Palermo, Italy
Manifesta 12, the European nomadic biennial, this year presents the work of 50 artists to the public at 20 different venues in Palermo from 16 June to 4 November 2018. Manifesta 12 takes on the botanical metaphor of the garden designer and philosopher Gilles Clément who sees the world we inhabit as a garden to be tended. Manifesta 12 also draws inspiration from the 1875 painting, View of Palermoby the Sicilian landscape artist Francesco Lojacono, where harmonious coexistence reigns among a number of plants, none of which are native to the island. The artistic projects are conceived as a critical response to the contemporary world’s most urgent problems with particular attention given to issues connected with international mobility and migratory flows. Amongst the participants are former residents Cooking Sections, Leone Contini, Lorenzo Pezzani, Taus Makhacheva, Lydia Ouhramane, and Khalil Rabah.
FRONT Triennial, USA
FRONT International, the inaugural Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, An American City: Eleven Cultural Exercises, launches this summer. The exhibition curated by Lisa Kurzner comprises of collaborations with museums, civic institutions, and alternative spaces across Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin. Participants include current artists Nasser Al-Salem, and former artists Dana Awartani, Maryam Jafri, and Micheal Rakowitz.
Liverpool Biennial, UK
Taking place at art venues and public spaces across Liverpool, the tenth edition of the biennial will run from 14 July to 28 October 2018, co-organised this year by Sally Tallant and Kitty Scott. Titled Beautiful World, Where Are You? after a poem by Schiller set to music by Schubert, the organisers hope it might be “an invitation to reconsider our past, advancing a new sense of beauty that might be shared in a more equitable way.” Artists include Abbas Akhavan, Kevin Beasley, Lamia Joreige, Taus Makhacheva, and Naeem Mohaiemen.
Gwangju Biennale, South Korea
The 12th Gwangju Biennale Exhibition: Imagined Borders takes place from 7 September to 11 November 2018. Imagined Borders is a guiding concept that responds to the current times of change and uncertainty by recognising the limits of grand narratives, singular authorship and the necessity to return to the complexities of multiple voices and perspectives. Seven exhibitions, spread across the city at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, the Asia Culture Center, and other historical sites, will present responses to the imagination of borders—as historical and real, experiential and abstract, imaginary and transgressive. The biennale brings together over 150 international artists including Delfina alumni Shezad Dawood, Alia Farid, Ala Younis, and Zach Blas, as well as our current artist-in-residence Jungju An.
Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil
The 33rd Bienal de São Paulo: Affective Affinities runs from 7 September to 9 December 2018. Affective Affinities, aims to encourage each spectator’s individual appreciation of art by avoiding an overarching theme that could prompt pre-established understandings. The title selected by curator Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, who was appointed by Fundação Bienal de São Paulo to conceive the show, resonates with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel Elective Affinities (1809), as well as Mário Pedrosa’s thesis On the Affective Nature of Form in the Work of Art (1949). Former resident Mark Dion is amongst the participating artists.