The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture. The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.
Harald Szeemann was a Swiss curator, artist, and art historian. Having curated more than 200 exhibitions, many of which have been characterized as groundbreaking, Szeemann is said to have helped redefine the role of an art curator. It is believed that Szeemann elevated curating to a legitimate art form itself.
The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and Documenta, it is one of the longest running exhibitions of its kind and was the first biennale to be established in the Asia-Pacific region.
Albanian art refers to all artistic expressions and artworks in Albania or produced by Albanians. The country's art is either work of arts produced by its people and influenced by its culture and traditions. It has preserved its original elements and traditions despite its long and eventful history around the time when Albania was populated to Illyrians and Ancient Greeks and subsequently conquered by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and art historian. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review. He lives and works in London.
Jens Hoffmann Mesén is a writer, editor, educator, and exhibition maker. His work has attempted to expand the definition and context of exhibition making. From 2003 to 2007 Hoffmann was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London. He is the former director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art from 2007 to 2016 and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at The Jewish Museum from 2012 to 2017, a role from which he was terminated following an investigation into sexual harassment allegations brought forth by staff members. Hoffmann has held several teaching positions including California College of the Arts, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti and Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as others.
The Brooklyn Rail is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The Rail is based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and curators, and reviews of art, music, dance, film, books, and theater.
Sal Randolph is an American artist and theorist who works with issues of gift-giving, money, alternate economies, and social architecture. She founded the non-curated sound-exchange web project Opsound, which functions through the use of music released exclusively under a copyleft license, and has been cited by Lawrence Lessig as an example of how Creative Commons works to enable artists to collaborate more freely and build on each other's work. Other large-scale, collaborative projects created and implemented by Randolph include Free Manifesta and The Free Biennial, in which several hundred artists presented their work in free and open shows in New York's and Frankfurt am Main's public spaces. Artists participating in those projects included Christophe Bruno, Aram Saroyan, Swoon (artist), and Michael Cunningham, among many others.
The Red Mansion Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in London, England. Founded by Nicolette Kwok in 1999, its aim is to promote cultural understanding between East and West through the medium of contemporary Chinese art.
Helidon Gjergji is a contemporary artist who works in various media.
Erik Gerardus Franciscus van Lieshout is a Dutch contemporary artist most widely known for his installations. In 2018, he won the Heineken Prize for Art.
Eltjon Valle, is an artist. He lives and works in Milan, Italy.
Stephen Antonakos was a Greek-American sculptor most well known for his abstract sculptures often incorporating neon.
The National Gallery of Kosovo, formerly known as the Kosova National Art Gallery, is an art gallery situated at The University of Pristina Campus that focuses on 20th-century art.
Beatrice "Bice" Curiger is a Swiss art historian, curator, critic and publisher who has been the Artistic Director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles since 2013. In 2011 she became only the third woman to curate the Venice Biennale.
Taus Makhacheva is a contemporary artist from Russia. She creates works that explore the restless connections between historical narratives and fictions of cultural authenticity. Often humorous, her art considers the resilience of images, objects and bodies emerging out of stories and personal experiences. Her methodology involves reworking of materials, landscapes and monuments, pushing against walls, opening up ceilings and proliferating institutional spaces with a cacophony of voices.
Marco Scotini is an Italian curator, writer and art critic based in Milan, where he is artistic director of the FM Center for Contemporary Art and Head of the Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies Department at NABA.
Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung is a contemporary art curator and writer. He lives in Berlin.
The national pavilions host each participant nation's official representation during the Venice Biennale, an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Some countries own pavilion buildings in the Giardini della Biennale while others rent buildings throughout the city, but each country controls its own selection process and production costs.
Gabi Ngcobo is a South African curator, artist and educator. Currently she is the Curatorial Director at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP).
