Meet the women artist-curator duos taking centre stage at the Venice Biennale 2019
- by Hettie Judah
As well as achieving a balance of male and female artists for the first time, this year’s Venice Biennale reveals plenty of entries that are both created and curated by women—a small but positive move away from the age-old art world boys’ club. Vogue speaks to the key players at the pavilions
The Venice Biennale has been running for well over a century, but it is only in this, it’s 58th edition, that its central exhibition has achieved an equal balance of male and female artists. As with so many things, the upper end of the art world has long been a boys’ club.
As well as the central exhibition, there are exciting female artists representing their countries in the national pavilions, among them Larissa Sansour for Denmark, Kris Lemsalu for Estonia, and Inci Eviner for Turkey. There’s no shortage of eminent female curators taking the reins either: Katerina Gregos, director of a number of biennials in her own right, is here in charge of the Croatian presentation; and writer and filmmaker Nana Oforiatta Ayim is heading up Ghana’s first-ever pavilion.
Of the 87 national pavilions at this year’s Biennale, there are 17 female curator-and-artist pairings, among them teams from Saudi Arabia, Germany and Argentina. Why do we need to celebrate them? Because it’s taken a long struggle against entrenched prejudice for them to get there. Less than a decade ago, Georg Baselitz (who will be honoured in Venice this year with a retrospective at the Gallerie dell’Accademia) explained away the absence of women artists at the top end of the market: “Women don’t paint very well. It’s a fact.” Thankfully, the art world is now changing, even if Baselitz isn’t.
Image: James Gifford-Mead
Dr Zoe Whitley, curator, British pavilion
Image: Cristiano Corte © British Council
Untitled (2019) by Cathy Wilkes
Image: Reinhard Haider
Installation by Cathy Wilkes
Image: Emile Holba
Scotland's Charlotte Prodger
Image: Koppe Astner
Video by Charlotte Prodger
Artist Zahrah Al Ghamdi from Saudi Arabia
Curator Eiman Elgibreen
Image: Robert Glowacki
Amphi, 2019 at the Irish pavilion
Image: Robert Glowacki
Eva Rothschild's installation, The Shrinking Universe, at the Irish pavilion
Image: Courtesy of artist
Preparatory drawings by Laure Prouvost at the French pavilion
Image: Alexander Guirkinger
Laure Prouvost
Image: Alexander Guirkinger
Martha Kirszenbaum
Image: Renate Bertlmann
Let’s Dance Together (1978), Austria pavilion
Image: Sophie Thun
Austria pavillion
Image: Sophie Thun
Austria pavillion
Image: Irina Gavrich
Curator Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein and artist Renate Bertlmann
Image: Bonnie Elliot
A production still from Assembly by Angelica Mesiti at the Australian pavilion
Image: Zan Wimberley
Australian pavilion artist Angelica Mesiti
Also read:
The role of the curator in the art world today
How to explore art and architecture in Australia’s capital city, Canberra
All the exhibitions and pop-ups in Mumbai and Delhi you need to visit now
