The President of the Venice Biennale, Paolo Baratta, accompanied by the curator for the 56th International Art Exhibition, Okwui Enwezor, met with representatives of the 53 countries participating in the exhibition, to be held between May 9th and November 22nd, 2015, at the Arsenale and various other venues around Venice. The title chosen by curator Enwezor for the international exhibition is: "All the World's Futures". "The ruptures that surround and abound around every corner of the global landscape today recall the evanescent debris of previous catastrophes piled at the feet of the angel of history in Angelus Novus. How can the current disquiet of our time be properly grasped, made comprehensible, examined, and articulated? The radical changes over the course of the last two centuries have made new and fascinating ideas subject matter for artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, composers, musicians. It is with this recognition that the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale proposes All the World's Futures, a project devoted to a fresh appraisal of the relationship of art and artists to the current state of things", Enwezor explains. The Exhibition: How can artists, thinkers, writers, composers, choreographers, singers, and musicians, through images, objects, words, movement, actions, lyrics, sound, bring together publics in acts of looking, listening, responding, engaging, speaking in order to make sense of the current upheaval? What material, symbolic or aesthetic, political or social acts will be produced in this dialectical field of references to give shape to an exhibition which refuses confinement within the boundaries of conventional display models? In All the World's Futures, the curator himself, along with artists, activists, the public, and contributors of all kinds will appear as the central protagonists in the open orchestration of the project. At the core of the Exhibition is the notion of the exhibition as stage where historical and counter-historical projects will be explored. Within this framework the main aspects of the 56th Exhibition will solicit and privilege new proposals and works conceived specifically by invited artists, filmmakers, choreographers, performers, composers, and writers to work either individually or in collaboration. The Biennale—Baratta specifies—is an Art Exhibition and not an art fair, and as such requires more than an unbiased updating of a roster of artists, young or not so young, famous or otherwise. Art and today's reality present us with far more complex tasks. In the past, we have defined the Biennale in various ways. Today, faced with the dangers of slipping towards a more orthodox popularity, conventionality and security, we have named it "The Machine of Desire" to keep the desire for art high and in turn to want art and accept it is a necessity. In other words, to recognize as both a primary and primordial necessity man's need to give some perceptible form to utopias, obsessions, anxieties, desires and to the ultra-sensitive world. he 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale will also present the customary National Participations with their own exhibitions in the Pavilions at the Giardini and at the Arsenale, and in Venice's historic city center. This edition will also include selected Collateral Events by international entities and institutions, which will present their exhibits and initiatives in Venice concurrently with the 56th Exhibition. Official web page:
www.labiennale.org