Ai Weiwei
Romuald Karmakar
Santu Mofokeng
Dayanita Singh
First information about the German contribution to the 55th Venice Biennale 2013
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
In May we announced that Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, Director of the MMK Museum für
Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, has been appointed curator of the German Pavilion at the
55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2013 for a second time
consecutively.
Today we would like to present Susanne Gaensheimer's curatorial point of departure and the
invited artists for 2013.
With her plans for the German contribution to the upcoming Venice Biennale, Gaensheimer
continues the transnational approach, which characterized her cooperation with Christoph
Schlingensief in 2010–2011. “My decision to invite Christoph Schlingensief to Venice was
ultimately also influenced by his Africa project, namely the opera village in Ouagadougou”,
Susanne Gaensheimer commented in a press release in June 2010. “What becomes clear
here is that Schlingensief is not only representative of art in Germany, but that he puts his
concerns in a global context. Planning the opera house in Africa and cooperating with the
local partners there and, importantly, by using the project for self-reflection in his play Via
Intolleranza II, Schlingensief succeeds in giving his analysis of ?being German' and the
issues associated there with a transnational dimension: ‚Why are we always so interested in
helping the African continent if we can't even help ourselves?' he asked.”
Using diverse forms of expression to explore the issues of his generation with
uncompromising directness for over 30 years, Christoph Schlingensief pushed the boundaries of art. For the 2011 German Pavilion he planned to fundamentally address the problems of the German, European, and western relationship to Africa and to question the
supposed unambiguity of so-called national identities.
In 2013 Gaensheimer carries forward this critical investigation of the significance of
traditional forms of national representation in the national pavilions at the Venice Biennale.
Contemporary artistic production in Germany, as elsewhere, is characterized by multilayered
forms of cooperation between artists from all over the world and by international intellectual
and cultural exchange. Therefore, at the Venice Biennale, Germany will not be represented
as a hermetic national unit but as an active participant in a complex, worldwide constellation.
For this reason Gaensheimer has invited four international artists from different countries:
Ai Weiwei
Romuald Karmakar
Santu Mofokeng
Dayanita Singh
The artists are represented in major museums and collections throughout the world and have
taken part in important international, large-scale exhibitions and film festivals. Their works,
exhibitions, publications, and films are part of the international artistic discourse and have in
part determined this discourse. In addition, all four artists are also associated with the
German art scene in a particular way. Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng and
Dayanita Singh have been working in Germany for many years, in close cooperation with
German institutions, publishing houses, and collections. Their works share a critical
reconsideration of the artists' individual respective realities and offer important trajectories for
reflecting on cultural and social self-conception in a globalized world. In the process the artists use a large range of media, including photography and film in addition to sculpture and installation.
On her choice of artists Gaensheimer says: “Both everyday life and the cultural landscape of
Germany are determined by different religions, economies, and political approaches. This
defines our everyday and leads to mutual enrichment as well as to confrontation. At the same
time it is extremely evident that our society can no longer function without dialog,
collaboration and the addressing of different philosophies and actual realities. For me,
working together with a group of artists from different countries for the Venice Biennale is
also a logical continuation of my work with Christoph Schlingensief. The artists whom I
invited and their works are representative of a number of issues resulting from the
convergence of diverse ideologies and conceptions of life, which impact us most immediately
today. In the context of the Venice-project it is important to me that these artists manage to
expand our perspectives and give us access to the view of the other, sometimes in an
uncomfortable way. Although they develop their works out of specific, local contexts, they
establish a kind of universal visual language by integrating their individual experiences of
internationality.”
A publication is planned to accompany the exhibition in the pavilion and will include a number
of exclusive, new contributions by international authors on the themes mentioned above as
well as texts on the participating artists and an extensive photographic documentation of their
works.
Elke aus dem Moore, Director of the Art Department of the Institute for Foreign Cultural
Relations (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen – ifa) comments: “In the context of the national
pavilions in the Giardini the invitation of these four artists emphasizes the necessity of
transnational collaboration. Susanne Gaensheimer, who received the Golden Lion in 2011 especially for her curatorial approach, once again shows a certain courage and vision with her curatorial concept. Both her concept and her choice of artists focus on art and it's
potential to cross borders. Gaensheimer addresses central questions of contemporary
society and dares to critically reinterpret the rules of one of the biggest international cultural
events. We are very much looking forward to this collaboration.”
For a couple of months we and the invited artists are in direct dialogue with Christine Macel,
the curator of the French Pavilion and Chief Curator at the Musée National d'Art Moderne –
Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Anri Sala, the artist invited by France, about the possibilities of
a cooperation between France and Germany. We will keep you posted on this in the next
couple of weeks.
The German contribution is commissioned by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal
Republic of Germany and will be realized in cooperation with the Institute for Foreign Cultural
Relations (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen – ifa).
Press contact German Pavilion:
Markus Müller
Bureau Mueller
Alte Schönhauser Straße 35
10119 BerlinPhone: +49 (0) 30 20188432
Fax: +49 (0) 30 20188575 presse@deutscher-pavillon.org
Press contact MMK:
Christina Henneke
Phone: +49 (0) 69 21237761
Fax: +49 (0) 69 21237882 presse.mmk@stadt-frankfurt.de
Press photos:
A selection of press photos is available for downloading at our website: www.mmkfrankfurt.de
