56th Venice Biennale
May 2015
May 9–November 22, 2015 In May 2015, one hundred and twenty years after its first art exhibition, the International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will unfold once again in the Giardini, the historical grounds where the first event took place in 1895. In 2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor, the 56th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia will employ the historical trajectory of the Biennale itself, over the course of its one hundred and twenty years of existence. Rather than one overarching theme that gathers and encapsulates diverse forms and practices into one unified field of vision, All the World's Futures is informed by a layer of intersecting Filters. These Filters are a constellation of parameters that circumscribe multiple ideas, which will be touched upon to both imagine and realize a diversity of practices. The exhibition aims to investigate how the tensions of the outside world act on the sensitivities and the vital and expressive energies of artists, on their desires and their inner song. Evoking a sense of interiority, a grouping of new large-scale paintings by Chris Ofili hang in a serene, hexagonally shaped temple-like room within the Arsenal. As somber as they are beatific, Ofili’s work captures the enigmatic complexities of our current condition. For the last two centuries, radical changes have made—from industrial to post-industrial modernity; technological to digital modernity; mass migration to mass mobility, environmental disasters and genocidal conflicts to chaos and promise—have made fascinating subject matter for artists, writers, filmmakers, performers, composers, and musicians. With this recognition, the 56th International Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia 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. Everywhere one turns, new crises, uncertainty, and deepening insecurity across all regions of the world seem to leap into view. How can the current disquiet of our time be properly grasped, made comprehensible, examined, and articulated? Learn more at the 56th Venice Biennale.