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The Venice Biennale Power List: Here Is Every Gallery Representing an Artist at the 59th Edition of the Venice Biennale
Being included in the Venice Biennale is a very big deal. For emerging artists, it can be a career-defining moment. Even established ones can add another notch to their belt. And for the galleries that represent them, it may very well mean improved business prospects. While dealers generally deny that the Venice Biennale is a selling event (you may get snubbed is you make such a gauche suggestion), there’s no question that collectors, museums, and advisors are known to treat the show a little differently. Even if they aren’t shopping the exhibition catalogue, the publicity associated with an artist’s inclusion provides an excellent opportunity for the back room. So we got to…
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How to Shop the Venice Biennale: A Buyer’s Guide to the Hottest Artists Included This Year, and Where to Find Their Work
After a one year’s pandemic hiatus, the Venice Biennale is finally returning next month. For the prestigious event, sometimes dubbed the “art world Olympics,” countries whip up the best of their nations’ artistic talent to showcase in national pavilions around the picturesque Italian city. As much as galleries might like to pretend that the important institutional event is not a market moment, let’s not forget that the Venice Biennale was originally designed as a commercial event, and to this day committed collectors often use biennials as a hunting ground for their next acquisitions. For the biggest biennial of them all, anyone who’s anyone in the collecting world will be there, and…
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The Venice Biennale Is Getting Its First NFT Art Exhibition Courtesy of Cameroon’s First-Ever Pavilion
NFTs will officially have a presence at the Venice Biennale this yr. A crypto-art exhibition showcasing a selection of worldwide names will take up a portion of Cameroon’s debut nationwide pavilion. The pavilion encompasses two exhibits across two destinations: the Liceo Artistico Statale Michelangelo Guggenheim and Palazzo Ca’ Bernardo. The previous will screen IRL art by four Cameroonian artists (Francis Nathan Abiamba, Angéle Etoundi Essamba, Justine Gaga, and Salifou Lindou) and four global artists (Shay Frisch, Umberto Mariani, Matteo Mezzadri, Jorge R. Pombo). The latter, meanwhile, will host an NFT exhibit arranged by Global Crypto Artwork DAO, a new collective that seeks to raise cash to guidance artists getting into the…
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Artist Simone Leigh Reveals Her Plans for the Venice Biennale, Including a Major Symposium of Black Thinkers and Makers
The title of the U.S. pavilion at next year’s 59th Venice Biennale will be “Simone Leigh: Grittin“—and come fall, the artist will host a major convening, “Loophole of Retreat: Venice,” for the occasion. The new details about the eagerly-anticipated exhibition—Simone Leigh is the first Black woman artist to represent the U.S. at the prestigious event—were revealed today by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the pavilion’s commissioner, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. “This will be the first time the U.S. Pavilion is entirely dedicated to the experiences and contributions of Black women,” Jill Medvedow, the ICA’s director, said in a statement. “Global in…