57th VENICE ART BIENNALE IILA-LATIN AMERICAN PAVILION MAY-NOVEMBER 2017 IILA-THE ITALO-LATIN AMERICAN INSTITUTE IILA is an international intergovernmental body established in Rome in 1966. Its members are Italy and the 20 Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela). In accordance to its institutional purposes IILA operates to foster collaboration between Italy and Latin America by means of a wide range of activities and initiatives. Among these are the development and coordination of research, and documentation, as well as programming with Member States in the cultural, scientific, technical, social and development aid sectors , and dissemination of related outcomes and outputs. Furthermore, it promotes international thematic and multidisciplinary events, such as the National Biannual Italy-Latin America Conferences. IILA IN THE CULTURAL SECTOR The mission of IILA Cultural Secretariat is to support cultural initiatives and generation of information and knoWledge for the establishment and strengthening of free and harmonious societies. IILA promotes and supports Latin American and Caribbean culture, and fosters the exposure of Latin America toWard Italy and Europe through its main points of strength, notably its diversity, its dynamic present, its magnificent history, its artists, its glance toWards the future. We aim at being a bridge that favors the encounter and exchange of knoWledge and experiences as well as a privileged shoWcase of cultural excellence in Latin America. IILA-ITALO-LATIN AMERICAN INSTITUTE AT THE VENICE BIENNALE IILA has been participating with its own exhibition space in the official section of the International Exhibition of Art of the Venice Biennale since 1972. The IILA-Latin American Pavilion is the convergence center by excellence for the best artistic production in Latin America, and offers an opportunity for those countries, that cannot afford a own pavilion o exhibition venue, to give visibility to their artistic production. After 45 years of presence in the Biennale, the IILA-Latin American Pavilion is noW acknoWledged as an international and permanent landmark for the diffusion of contemporary artistic production in Latin America. IILA COUNTRIES ARGENTINA GUATEMALA URUGUAY BOLIVIA HAITI VENEZUELA BRAZIL HONDURAS ITALY CHILE MEXICO COLOMBIA NICARAGUA COSTA RICA PANAMA CUBA PARAGUAY ECUADOR PERU EL SALVADOR DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 57th Venice Biennale THE VENICE BIENNALE The Venice Biennale is the world’s most prestigious and cutting edge Foundation for the promotion of contemporary arts . The International Art Exhibition was launched in 1895. The most outstanding artists from all over the world have taken part in its 54 editions, that generated neW artistic movements as well as key debates on contemporary arts . With its 501.502 visitors, the 2015 edition was very successful. Media interest was also outstanding, with 8.000 accredited journalists, 5.450 of whom from foreign press and 2,650 from Italian media. The 2017 Edition will be directed by Christine Macel, former chief curator of Musée national d’art Moderne – Centre Pompidou in Paris. The International Art Exhibition, that will take place from May 13 to November 26, 2017 will be opened to the public on Saturday May 13th. http://wWW.labiennale.org/ THE 57th VENICE BIENNALE The opening is preceded by a 3-day vernissage (May 10, 11, 12, 2017) during which period a series of press conferences, openings of pavilions and talks and debates will be organized to engage artists, intellectuals, arts critics and opinion leaders. The vernissage provides a meeting opportunity for people from politics, economy and culture at national, European and global levels. The Art Biennale is composed of: The Main Exhibition, which will be Directed by appointed curator, where a selected group of artists present works related to the exhibition’s theme. About a hundred artists take part in the exhibition, which is distributed in two main venues: The Biennale Pavilion at Giardini and the historical 16th century buildings of the Arsenal. National participations of many countries from all parts of the world take place in their own pavilions, which are distributed in Giardini and Arsenale, as well as in other parts of the city of Venice. This is where the IILA Pavilion comes in, giving the opportunity for more than 15 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean to have a representation at the Biennale. Collateral Events are organized by institutions and international partners which are related to the Biennale and approved by the artistic director. This events take place in many venues around the city, namely foundations, museums, galleries. CURATORIAL STATEMENT THE GREAT UNRAVELLING The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century Paul Krugman Paul Krugman published his book “The Great Unraveling, Losing Our Way in the NeW Century”, in 2003 to mark the beginning of the neW century, that - as it happens With every turn - brings about challenges and hopes. At that time the XXI Century had just began under the George W. Bush presidency, amid a traumatic set of events that Would have changed the course of history forever. From the TWin ToWers, to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the beginning of the neW century Was not necessarily a promising one. In Latin America, on the contrary, neW political experiences and regional integration processes Were unfurling, With the promise of a change in the development paradigm, poverty reduction, and universal access to all those fundamental rights until then denied to the majority of the World’s population, the so-called Majority World, SomehoW, Latin America Was making its Way out of the “lost decade”, an age of financial crises, underdevelopment, indebtedness, massive resource extraction, but also a time of consolidation of civil society and social and political actors. These very same challenges that cross borders and sketch a global map of crisis that opens the door to opportunities and alternatives that noW more than ever should transcend national borders to become global. The lightness of a paper structure reconstructing the skeleton of a Whale, the biggest of all mammals, proposes the fragility of ecosystems threatened with extinction in a future When climate change will become a constant factor of economic, political and social life of humanity. Indigenous women reclaim their right to ancestral identity facing the progressive cultural homologation of media and globalization A woman dressed in White evokes a cycle of violence in a country that is noW entering a possible future of peace. The transcription on a pentagram of stories of soldiers in a period of dictatorship in a Central American country, or a football match relay a past with a different code to be memorized as a song, or a game in the minds of neW generations, so that it will not repeat itself. CURATORIAL STATEMENT THE GREAT UNRAVELLING 2 A school cartography to portray past cycles of resource exploitation in Latin America offers a possible hint of the contradictions and opportunities underlying current models of development and integration. This exhibition aims at portraying the evanescence and intangibility of the passing from an age to another, with its baggage of crises and opportunities. Beyond reflecting on the passage into the neW century and rather than elaborating on hoW history brought us from one century into another, the exhibition intends to propose a light touch journey, in contrast with the violence of the act that marked the turn into the neW millennium, September 11, 2001. Hence the proposal of a revieW of the key issues that have characterized the XX century and that we bring forWard into the neW one, in What Zygmunt Bauman and before him Antonio Gramsci defined as an interregnum, that time When you knoW What you leave behind but not What comes ahead of you. For this reason, the pavilion will offer a light touch journey that cannot elaborate certitudes, but rather offer an inquiry into space and time, through the works of various generations of Latin American artists that provide the opportunity to unpack - from one end and the other, the common thread of the last decades’ events. Latin American artists that have produced their work before and during the turn of the millennium have dealt with issues that are permanent and pressing in Latin America. They belong to a generation that was characterized by a weak academic and public institutional frameWork of cultural management, scarce support to arts, apart from some exceptions. National identity, the construction of an historical narrative, the environment, internal displacement and massive migrations, the conflicting relationship with nature, violence and the recognition of individual and collective histories are put forWard as a call to reconstruct a space of reflection on the artist’s role in the building of today’s society. ROSA JIJON CURATOR VENUE – MUSEO NAVALE IILA responds to it’s mission of promoting contemporary art by locating the Latin-American Pavilion in one of the most interesting spaces in Venice, the Naval Museum at the entrance of the Biennale Venues. The location therefore offers a unique and privileged context for high- level and maximum visibility exhibitions. Partnership The folloWing is a partnership proposal with the Italo-Latin American Institute (IILA-Istituto Italo-Latino Americano)