Meet Venice Biennales’s Latest New Artists: Women
The world’s major contemporary art exhibition takes place at the Biennale di Venezia, this year marking its 59th anniversary. Making the Biennale the longest running international exhibition in the world.
This year however, not only does the Biennale opens its doors after not being able to do so due to COVID regulations. It is the first exhibition where the female-male ratio is radically reversed.
For the last 120 plus years gender representation was lackluster, what a surprise. The International Art Exhibition had been curated mainly by men featuring mostly male artists. This year Italian born artistic director, Cecilia Alemani, takes over as curatorial director for the Biennale. The New York’s High Line Art director chose 213 artists for her central exhibition where 9 out of 10 artists are women. Ms. Alemani is the first Italian female curator, paving the way for the centuries lack of female participation.
She did a great job at highlighting and bringing forward female artists that history neglected and continues to do so. For the central exhibition which is titled The Milk of Dreams was Alemani’s take on one of Mexican surrealist painter, Leonora Carrington, work of literature. Leonora, like many others, suffered the misfortune of being female in a world where only men are praised.
Alemani said it best; “Italy [like the rest of the world] is still very, very sexist. The Biennale is not a representation of our society anymore”.
Art connects humans to their innermost hidden thoughts, imagination, wishes, desires and dreams. Art is our collected heritage and the Biennale is the ultimate cultural outpost for every country participating.
Not only did we see one of the first female curators but also the first time countries chose representatives that previously where brushed off. The United Kingdom and the United States chose for the first time Black women artists, Simone Leigh and Sonia Boyce.
Sonia Boyce, the first Black women representing the United Kingdom
“But, in terms of being first, it really does speak of the large-scale inequities that there are in the visual arts.”-Boyce
This is huge! Art history has always been so limiting that it fooled the world into thinking that art , great art, belonged to men. The sexism that drives us has limited our knowledge and understanding of our world, we only know a fraction of what politics, art, sciences, culture really was like. Art history, like everything else, is recorded by the people who chose to forget half of its population.
Alemani’s job sets us in the right direction towards not repeating our past, celebrating everyone in a space where gender, race, ethnicity does not weigh in as a negative but rather as a special piece that makes art even more special.
Simone Leigh
“As the first Italian woman to hold this position, I intend to give voice to artists to create unique projects that reflect their visions and our society”-Alemani
Back to Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary writings, she explored the ideas and exploration of a magical world where life is continuously re-envisioning itself. We stand in a world that can change, be transformed and if one chooses to become something or someone else. An exhibition that had artists dialogue about what it means to be human. Who are we?
Divided in three sections: a) the representation of bodies, b) the relationship between individuals and technologies and c) the connection between bodies and Earth.
To make it even more perfect, two Golden Lions were given to two extraordinary female artists.
Cecilia Vicuña, a Chilean artist and poet who was awarded with the Golden Lion of Life Achievement for her tiresome work in preserving Chilean indigenous works of literature and devoted indigenous inspired art. Cecilia has seen and experienced the devastation made by military coups, she fled one in the 1970’s which roots a major appreciation and fascination with conserving her people's work.
“At a time when humanity is trying to keep peace and justice against all odds. I believe our art and consciousness can play a role in the urgent need to move away from violence and destruction, to save our environment from impending collapse.”-Vicuña
Simone Leigh’s first Biennale participation came with a boom! She was recognized with the Golden Lion for best contribution to the Biennale’s International Exhibition. She was awarded for her sculpture Brick House, a piece of work that like all of her other works represents the traditions and life of Black women. Through her work she tells the stories that have been shut down and ignored, working with the female body as the foundation of her inspiration.
Let’s continue supporting women and minorities work as they have powerful, devastating, insightful and truly extraordinary stories to tell.