58 countries will be part of the Venice Art Biennale that will take place in April and November

Two hundred artists will travel between the human and the dreamlike in the fifty-ninth edition of the Venice International Art Exhibition, that will open its doors to the public between April 23 and November 27, and that was presented today.

The commissioner is Italian Cecilia German (Milan, 1977), based in New York, where since 2011 she has been director and chief curator of the public art program presented by the High Line.

Alemani explained at a press conference, organized in a hybrid format (face-to-face and online), that this Venice Art Biennale It will feature the participation of 213 artists from 58 countries and 1,433 works and objects on display.

There will be 80 national participations that will show their creations in the exhibition venues of the Gardens and the Arsenal, and there will also be other collateral events located in the central streets of the city of canals.

Alemani has chosen the title of The Milk of Dreams (the milk of dreams) for the book of the British artist Eleanor Carrington (1917-2011), who emigrated to Mexico in the 1950s and there “he dreamed and illustrated mysterious tales, first directly on the walls of his house and later in a small notebook”.

Carrington described “a magical world where life is constantly reimagined through the prism of the imagination, and where everyone can change, transform, become something and someone else”German said.

And that is precisely what he has proposed to the participants, to take an “imaginary journey through the metamorphoses of the body and the definitions of humanity.”

To spark their inspiration, he posed the following questions to them: “How is the definition of what is human changing? What constitutes life and what differentiates animals, plants, humans and non-humans? What are our responsibilities towards the planet, other people and other organisms? with whom we live? And what would life and the Earth be like without us?

Among the topics that invite reflection are the relationship between individuals and technologies, and whether machines can supplant men, a debate that “It has intensified with the pandemic, when societies have been caged behind screens of electronic devices”, argued the Italian commissioner.

The president of the Venice Biennale, Roberto Cicutto, indicated that the Republic of Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal, the Sultanate of Oman and Uganda will participate for the first time; while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan will have their own pavilion, something that has never happened before.

The Venice Art Biennale will hold the pre-opening and present its proposals to the press between April 20 and 22. (I)