Page 13 - La Biennale di Venezia 2022 issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

propose new alliances between species, and worlds inhabited by porous,
hybrid, manifold beings that are not unlike Carrington’s extraordinary
creatures. Under the increasingly invasive pressure of technology, the
boundaries between bodies and objects have been utterly transformed,
bringing about profound mutations that remap subjectivities, hierarchies,
and anatomies.

In 2018, she was the Artistic Director
Today, the world seems dramatically split between technological optimism
of the first edition of Art Basel Cities,
− which promises that the human body can be endlessly perfected
a new initiative in partnership with
through science − and the dread of a complete takeover by machines
Buenos Aires to celebrate the city’s
via automation and artificial intelligence. This rift has widened during the
thriving cultural ecosystem.
Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced us even further apart and caged
Alemani curated a city-wide
much of human interaction behind the screens of electronic devices.
exhibition titled Hopscotch (Rayuela)
that featured 18 works in close
The pressure of technology, the heightening of social tensions, the
dialogue with their venues, shaping
outbreak of the pandemic, and the looming threat of environmental
a multilayered experience that
disaster remind us every day that as mortal bodies, we are neither
connected visual art, urban spaces,
invincible nor self-sufficient, but rather part of a symbiotic web of
and the city’s histories in unexpected
interdependencies that bind us to each other, to other species, and to the
ways. Among the participating artists
planet as a whole.
were Eduardo Basualdo, Pia Camil,
Maurizio Cattelan, Gabriel Chaile,
In this climate, many artists envision the end of anthropocentrism,
Leandro Katz, Luciana Lamothe, Ad
celebrating a new communion with the non-human, with the animal world,
Minoliti and Stan VanDerBeek.
and with the Earth; they cultivate a sense of kinship between species and
between the organic and inorganic, the animate and inanimate. Others
Before taking on these roles,
react to the dissolution of supposedly universal systems, rediscovering
Alemani worked as an independent
localised forms of knowledge and new politics of identity. Still others
curator collaborating with museums
practice what feminist theorist and activist Silvia Federici calls the
such as Tate Modern (London) and
“re-enchantment of the world”, mingling indigenous traditions with
MoMA PS1 (New York), non-profit
personal mythologies in much the same way as Leonora Carrington.
institutions such as Artists Space
and Art in General (New York), and
private foundations such as the Deste
Foundation. From 2009 to 2010 she
EXHIBITION STRUCTURE AND TIME CAPSULES
directed the experimental exhibition
The exhibition unfolds in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini, and in
space X Initiative in New York, where
the Corderie, Artiglierie, and the outdoor spaces of the Gaggiandre and
she curated exhibitions by Keren
Giardino delle Vergini at the Arsenale complex.
Cytter, Derek Jarman, Hans Haacke,
Tris Vonna-Mitchell and many others.
The Milk of Dreams includes over two hundred artists from 58 countries.
More than 180 of these artists have never been in the International Art
Alemani received her BA in Philosophy
Exhibition until now. For the first time in its 127-year history, the Biennale
from the Università degli Studi in
will include a majority of women and gender non-conforming artists, a
Milan and her MA in Curatorial Studies
choice that reflects an international art scene full of creative ferment
from Bard College, Annandale-on-
and a deliberate rethinking of man’s centrality in the history of art and
Hudson, New York.
contemporary culture.
She has served as a contributor to
The exhibition features contemporary works and new projects conceived
numerous publications, including
specifically for the Biennale Arte, presented in dialogue with historic works
Artforum.com and Mousse Magazine,
from the 19th century on. As visitors move through the exhibition in the
and has had a regular column in D,
Central Pavilion and the Corderie, they encounter five smaller, historical
Repubblica since October 2019.
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