Rethinking exhibition models of the Venice Biennale: from globalization to the most recent form of decolonization

Course online

18.02- 06.03.25

Deadline for applying: 06.02.2025

This workshop online provides an immersive and active understanding of curatorial practice and its developments in the last decades. Through the work of some of the most remarkable curators, the students will develop an understanding of how curating works by looking back at its history and by examining certain case studies. The analysis of specific editions of the Venice Art Biennale will give us the possibility to look to the predecessors and the influences of specific curators on their work. But it is also an opportunity to explore the ways in which the curatorial practices are changing and examine increasingly diverse approaches to exhibition-making. 

The objectives of the workshop: To gain familiarity with different types of models of curatorial practices and evaluate the essential qualities of a strong curator through understanding the historical and contemporary role of the curator in relation to past and recent exhibition models. 

During the course we will start from the globalization trends of the early 1990s and 2000, and move on to the last decade when the theme of decolonization has become increasingly urgent at the Venice Biennale. The relationship between the rest of the world and the West, and thus of social and cultural redemption, is present in a sometimes obsessive but inevitable manner in numerous editions of the Venice Biennale and especially in certain pavilions. 

18.02.25 The Biennale turns global: Cardinal Points of the Arts, Artistic director: Achille Bonito Oliva, for the first time invites movement and artists from the far East. 

19.02.25 The two editions curated by Harald Szeemann and the world is turning global. Apert over All in 1999 and Plateau of Humankind are finally opening to the globalization 

20.02.25 - Dreams and Conflicts. The Dictatorship of the Viewer. Director: Francesco Bonami. Globalization is manifested by including curators from all over the world. 

25.02.25 Daniel Birnbaum in 2009 presents Making world. A moment of transition. 

26.02.25 Massimiliano Gioni in 2013 with the Encyclopedic Palace transforms the Biennale in utopic and ambitions project.

27.02.25 All the World’s future, in 2015 with Okwui Enwezor in finally focusing on a political and decolonized vision. 

04.03.25 Ralph Rugoff, May You Live In Interesting Times in 2019, a high quality curatorial project that goes beyond ideologies. 

05.03.25 2022 and The Milk od dream, the women artists with Cecilia Alemani took over the Biennale. 

06.03.25 Adriano Pedrosa, 2024. Foreigners everywhere. Was it really true that the foreigners were everywhere. The best pavilions which were able to face the postcolonial issue in a constructive way. 

After each session a discussion will be hold in order to exchange different opinions and views on the approach of the singular curatorial practice. Rethinking specific curatorial models, by analyzing their origins and their subsequent developments is one of the key elements of the workshop.The mission is to create a critical ability in order to discover the proper curatorial model.
 
 At the end of the course, you will be asked to develop a written research paper in which you will articulate some of the key points identified in the curatorial models examined during the various editions of the Venice Biennale. 
The fee per course is 590 euro. In case you choose to take part to more then one course, a discount of 100 euro will be applied to the fee of the next courses.

APPLICATION FORM
 
 Our Online Delivery Method
 Online Study Luctures effectively run over the week – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm CET – maintaining our usual tours’ focused, intensive and immersive experience.

In case one or more lessons cannot be attended, recordings are provided.
 
 Live Seminars - Each lecture is two hours long at the end of each lecture we will have a half an hour for questions and discussions. Your tutor will hold live seminars with you and Google.meet discussions are accessed via a web-link which we will email to you. These sessions enable you to ‘meet’ your tutor and fellow students. To participate you will only need an internet enabled device; you do not need a Google.meet account. If you have questions that you were not able to raise in the discussions, you will also be able to communicate with your tutor by email.