Cecilia Alemani Celebrates Underrepresented Artists at Venice Biennale
Curator Cecilia Alemani has taken the helm at the largest art exhibition in the world—the Venice Biennale—and brings women and non-binary artists to the center of the conversation.
Photography by Federico Ciamei
After serving as director of High Line Art in New York for 11 years, the Milan-born curator Cecilia Alemani is now the first Italian woman—and the fifth woman ever—to be appointed Curator of the prestigious Venice Biennale in the exhibition’s 127 years of history.
Alemani previously curated Italy’s national pavilion at the 2017 edition of the Biennale, and in her position as this year’s artistic director, plans to put previously underrepresented artists at the forefront, with women and non-binary artists making up over 80 percent of the exhibition.
L’OFFICIEL: How would you describe this year’s Venice Biennale?
CECILIA ALEMANI: A Biennale consistent with my way of curating—attentive to different voices. It always surprises me to see how in Italy we are still amazed by a phenomenon that is part of everyday life in America. After all, in 2007 no one was upset when Robert Storr presented a Biennale made up of 80 percent male artists. I chose these artists not because they are women, but because I was interested in their works. However, the presence of women in the five historical capsules that I wanted to include in the exhibition as a reconstruction of missing pieces in the history of the Biennale was more intentional. The idea comes from The Disquieted Muses, the exhibition on the Biennale’s archives set up in the Central Pavilion in 2020, which was curated by all the directors of the six artistic sectors of the event—I was head of the art section. Five exhibitions to be understood as a constellation capable of thoroughly exploring certain themes from a historical point of view, to offer connections even where the influence is not necessarily evident. A historiography built on symbiotic relationships, sympathies, and sisterhoods.
L’O: The title of the exhibition, The Milk of Dreams, is particularly evocative. Is it a choice based on the concept, or on your affinity for Leonora Carrington [the Surrealist painter who wrote a children’s book with the same title]?
CA: Surrealism has always interested me, even though I mostly learned about male artists. In the last five years, the protagonists of Surrealism have been the subject of an ever-growing interest, culminating in Fantastic Women, the exhibition held at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek, Denmark in 2020. This increased interest has led to a widening of the boundaries of Surrealism to North Africa and Central America. I was not familiar with Carrington’s books, although in general I like to discover the literary side of artists. I discovered this book in particular almost at the end of the organization of the exhibition, and it seemed to me ideal as the title conveyed a lot of what I wanted to say.
L’O: In your introduction to the theme of this Biennale you draw a scenario of a widespread sentiment among artists and more generally typical of our time in which “the very survival of humanity is threatened.” If the sense of fragility and instability engendered by the COVID pandemic has certainly influenced the works presented, does the aggression of Russia on Ukraine charge these contents with further resonance?
CA: Obviously the exhibitions and works were conceived before this brutal and meaningless war broke out. But the very fact that there could be someone like Putin who takes hold of and invades a neighboring sovereign state is a striking example of the hubris of the man who thinks he is dominating the universe and, unfortunately, updates the themes of the exhibition.
“I chose these artists not because they are women, but because I was interested in their works.”
L’O: Also in your introduction, you underline that one of the guiding concepts of this Biennale is “to question the presumed universal idea of a white and male subject as the measure of all think is the most impactful work of the exhibition?
CA: The installation by Delcy Morelos, a Colombian artist who is covering the span of the Corderie di terra, building a large labyrinth that reminds us that we all come from the earth. There is a very strong smell of spices, tobacco, and cocoa mixed with humus. The inspiration is “The Earth Room,” Walter De Maria’s 1977 installation, an apartment on Wooster Street in Soho filled with earth. But Morelos is also inspired by the cosmologies of the people of the Andes and the Amazon, giving life to an extremely powerful work.
L’O: What do you think is the function of the Biennale today?
CA: The Biennale is both an institution—Venice is the oldest in history—and a snapshot of what is happening in the cultural world. We go there to see the latest trends and new movements, but its mission is also to absorb the shocks of history. Think about the editions immediately after the great wars; they are a reflection of the climate that generated them. I am a supporter of national pavilions—a highly-criticized exclusively Venetian characteristic—but which for me represent a fantastic strength, an entry point to artistic scenes such as that of the Philippines or Namibia, or other geographical areas often excluded from international circuits.
PHOTO ASSISTANT Martina Giammaria
STYLING ASSISTANT Cecilia Corsetti
