Francesco Bonami and Venice Biennale spy reports

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 Interviews
 Bienalle national events

General

La Biennale di Venezia - Francesco Bonami: biographical notes

Francesco Bonami bio
http://www.core.mfah.org/residence/bonami_bio.html

Books By Francesco Bonami
http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/fnews/2002-april/aprilfeatures3.html

The top ten. (Filed: 02/12/2002)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/02/narts302.xml
7 Francesco Bonami, critic/curator in charge of the 2003 Venice Biennale

Francesco Bonami, “Ilya Kabakov: Tales from the Dark Side,” Flash Art, Summer 1994, pp. 91-93.
http://www.legacy-project.org/artists/display.html?ID=197

Giancarlo Politi. FRANCESCO BONAMI IS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF THE VENICE BIENNALE. http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-ro-0203/msg00053.html
We are extremely pleased to learn that Francesco Bonami has been appointed director of the next Venice Biennale. With Francesco Bonami, the Venice Biennale will be directed by a prepared and efficient curator. We are positive that thanks to Francesco Bonami, the Venice Biennale will be finally a real survey of contemporary art, a meeting point for the great news and the great artists of today.
Flash Art, its staff and it readers, wish to Francesco Bonami all the best for his new work.

BONAMI'S PAINTING PLANS FOR VENICE
http://www.artforum.com/news/week=200304
La Repubblica offers some answers as it previews a few of the exhibitions planned by the Biennale's artistic director, Francesco Bonami. The historical survey "Painting. From Rauschenberg to Murakami 1964/2003," to be located at the Correr in association with Venice's municipal museums, will include works by not only Robert Rauschenberg and Takashi Murakami, but also David Hockney, John Currin, Frank Auerbach, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Domenico Gnoli, Francesco Clemente, and Gino De Dominicis. "We are beginning with 1964," explained Bonami to La Repubblica, "because it's the year of a great transformation in the Biennale. When Rauschenberg was a prizewinner at Venice, the balance between Europe and the United States was shifted. The world of art changed. We are presenting about forty works that were excluded during certain periods, which always existed parallel to the Biennale, but were associated with exclusion, and the debate about what is or is not painting. We are trying to show and to understand what happened."

Christopher Emsden. A globe-trotting arts curator scopes out the lagoon. Francesco Bonami, the artistic director of the next Venice Biennial, is a nomad on a mission
http://www.italydaily.it/Italian_life/Style/aprile/bonami.shtml
Bonami is likely to brush off complaints about his nomination made by Culture Undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbi, who explicitly wanted the Australian critic Robert Hughes and a greater emphasis on figurative painting than the video-and-installation-happy Biennials of the recent past.
He received a boost on Wednesday when Franco Bernabè, chairman of the Biennial, dismissed Sgarbi's polemic as a recrudescence of Soviet social realism and emphasized that Bonami was "no ideologue."
Bonami's "clinical" curatorial credo hinges on his insistence that "a work of art synchronizes with the society in which we live."
He is also outspokenly against what he calls the "air bubble" or aseptic aura that he says too many young European artists try to put around their work today.
Still, his hip desire to break down the Modernist love of the "white cube" exalting an isolated work has not always proven successful in practice.
Susan Snodgrass, a critic for Art in America, took Bonami's Slovenian show to task, saying it included so many time-based film and video works that a visit became a disjunctive and even listless experience. His "attempt to subvert the traditional relationship between viewer and object simply replaced the white cube with the black box," she concluded.

Adriano Donaggio. High political tension behind the scenes at the Venice Biennale. A stand-off between the Italian government and the Biennale’s administration over freedom of choice
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9372
The English architecture critic, Deyan Sudjic, was appointed head of the architecture biennale and the selection of the director of the visual arts came as a genuine surprise: Francesco Bonami is a young critic with enormous professional experience; Vittorio Sgarbi was outraged. Mr Bernabè is smiling. In response to the Corriere della Sera’s reminder that Mr Sgarbi had accused him of neo-figurativism, Mr Bonami replied: the only genuine objections to the Avant-garde in favour of figurative and realist artists came from Zdanov’s Soviet Union. “Zdanovism”, the objection to abstract art in favour of realist art, is therefore a Soviet phenomenon.

CONTROVERSY FROM NEW VENICE CURATOR -  Artnet News,  5/14/02
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews5-14-02.asp
Francesco Bonami  has roiled the waters by suggesting the exposition include a Palestinian pavilion. As yet there's no official word on the proposal. Israel has had its own exhibition space at Venice for some time (at the 49th Biennale, it held an installation by Uri Katzenstein); no Arab country -- save Egypt -- has its own pavilion.

Dreams and Conflicts - The Viewer's Dictatorship. - The Biennale di Venezia presents the 50th International Art Exhibition directed by Francesco Bonami.
http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/venezia/bien50/txt/e-concept.htm
"Dreams and Conflicts" will be an exhibition focused at the same time on art as a personal tool of a personal experience and conviviality. A show through which is possible to have access to the complexity of a world made by groups of individuals defined by multiple and diverse necessities. An exhibition constructed with multiple projects to test the strength of that ideal community where the creative process of the contemporary artist is active. Dreams and Conflicts will not be a show about political art but a reflection on the politics of art. The experience of the viewer facing the unique vision of the artist. Two contemporary subjects divided simply by a different gaze.

BONAMI TO CURATE VENICE BIENNALE
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews3-27-02.asp
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art curator Francesco Bonami, with which the Italian-born curator and critic has long collaborated, issued a congratulatory statement, saying "After the wild and obsolete attempts of Italian and International curators (Achille Bonito Oliva, Harald Szeemann) and Italy Minister of Culture Vittorio Sgarbi's concerns about having a director unfamiliar with contemporary art (Jean Clair, Robert Hughes), Venice will finally have a real professionist of contemporary art." And this means what, exactly? At this early date, Bonami remains mum, but in the past he has championed Maurizio Cattelan, Giuseppe Gabellone, Koo Jeong A, Thomas Hirshhorn and Matthew Barney, among others.

Jennifer Allen. Francesco Bonami Named Curator of 2003 Venice Biennale - 03.23.02
http://www.artforum.com/news/week=200212
The appointment puts an end to growing speculation about the future of the festival, which Italians have dubbed the "Soap-Biennale" in recent months. It comes in the wake of a controversial attempt by Vittorio Sgarbi, Italy's outspoken undersecretary for culture, to appoint the Australian critic for Time magazine, Robert Hughes, as curator. Despite Hughes's public refusal of the post earlier this month, Sgarbi and secretary of culture Giuliano Urbani continued to pressure Barnabè to select Hughes as curator as late as this week.
Bernabè, the former director of Telecom Italia appointed by Urbani last December, evidently has not succumbed to political pressure and has sought to protect the Biennale's autonomy. Despite steadily mounting criticism from cultural figures in Italy and abroad, President Silvio Berlusconi's increasingly heavy-handed attempts to control Italy's cultural institutions has threatened to jeopardize the council's independence. Sgarbi, for his part, has called the decision "intolerable," and declared "open war" on Bernabè.

Massimiliano Tonelli. The circuit’s thoughts on Francesco Bonami
http://www.exibart.com/txt/ukNotizia.asp?IDNotizia=4601&IDCategoria=45
Many luminaries from the art world have written in to give their personal responses to our study on Francesco Bonami.
- Katia Spadon – Galleria Morone. There is every reason to hope, given the last Biennales, but what ART will there be for the great body of spectators/art-lovers and potential collectors to encounter for the first time? Thought should be at the command of the emotions, instead of the removal of speculation...
- Ludovico Pratesi. I think the appointment of Bonami is the sign of a very positive turn for the Italian artistic system, both in a qualitative and a generational sense. 
- Studio la Città - Hélène de Franchis, We cannot but fervently congratulate ourselves with Bonami, which of course means that we’re expecting a lot from him, as do many other contemporary art experts and operators.
- Marcello Carriero. Most surely he will bring back Cattelan to the Biennale, maybe even some polyester Politi
- Alfonso Artiaco. I’ve read it in the Corriere della Sera that, owing to some political games, Bonami had merely been appointed as an “explorer” – I hope that’s not the case.
- Federica Martini. I’m probably more intrigued by the reactions he will stir abroad that by the Biennale itself – let’s hope for some debate.

Suzy Menkes. The fourth sex: probing the spirit of adolescence
http://www.iht.com/articles/83169.html
The cusp of adulthood is comprehensively captured in a brilliantly executed multi-media exhibition at Florence's Stazione Leopolda. "The Fourth Sex: the Extreme Territory of Adolescence" (until Feb. 8) is under the auspices of Pitti Imagine Uomo.
"The idea is not a literal depiction of adolescence but to recreate the mental and psychological state," says Francesco Bonami
The curators say that they did not want to focus on clothes - although Bonami realizes that the rite of passage that his generation passed at 14, by switching from short to long pants, symbolized adulthood in a way that no longer exists.

Elisabetta Povoledo. A stark new gallery joins Turin's art community
http://www.italydaily.it/Art_e_culture/Features/settembre/Rebaudengo.shtml
The installations, photograph collages, mixed-media pieces and videos that curator Francesco Bonami brought together for "Exit. New geography of Italian art" were emphatically on the established contemporary art track.
Bonami will curate next year's Venice Biennale for the visual arts, which he has titled "Dreams and Conflicts, viewer dictatorship" and many critics looked to "Exit" as a sample of things to come.
"Exit is dedicated to young artists not because they will be famous in ten years but to see what they are thinking right now," said Bonami, explaining that he chose to cramp the space with so many artists in order to broadly represent what was being produced.
He and his assistants looked at hundreds of artists and tried to choose those they felt best captured today's "temporary moment of Italian thinking." Accordingly, the exhibit featured entries ranging from photographs and video art to pulsating beds lit up by plastic lights; clusters of found weeds, painted tanks, a small tunnel boring through the walls of the building, and a scattering of paintings.
For Bonami the fact that contemporary art oversteps national borders is an offshoot of globalization which transcends schools or movements and generates creativity through the clash of different ways of seeing.
"I sense the desire and at the same time the uncertainty of leaving something behind," said Bonami paraphrasing novelist Elio Vittorini who said that sometimes the fear of the worst was stronger than the desire for something better. 

Diane Ludin. Echoes: Contemporary Art in the Age of Endless Conclusions
Edited by Francesco Bonami
http://old.thing.net/ttreview/aprrev97.02.html
Thinking always of the many individuals who attempt to define art in the nineties as post-conceptual, post-performance, post-identidy politics, post-multicultural, post-colonial/imperial, post-economic apocalypse of the 80's artmarket, and all of the social/economic factors that compose our cultural context as self conscious cultural workers. All the essays in "Echoes" share a need to find a way out of the dead zone which art currently inhabits--they seek to point to works that are moving through the cultural gridlock of modernism's attention to an exclusive formalism in the visual arts and the post-modern End-ism of the recent past.

Erik Wenzel. Art or Idiocy? Chicago: City on the Verge of What?
http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/fnews/2002-may/mayregulars7.html
Perhaps the most important piece of local news to mention is that the MCA's Manilow senior curator, Francesco Bonami, has been selected to curate the 2003 Venice Biennale. That's a big deal, kids. We're not talking head curator of the U.S. Pavilion, we're talking curator of the whole fucking thing. That's a tremendous shot in the arm, as they say in the business world, for Bonami of course, but also for the MCA and Chicago in general.

Interviews

NANCY MOFFETT. FRANCESCO BONAMI, senior curator, Museum of Contemporary Art. It's big. It's global. It's the vanguard.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-watch05.html
"He's an extremely innovative, forward-looking curator,'' said Elizabeth Smith, the MCA's chief curator. "He has a vision that challenges and provokes and pushes the boundaries.''

Peter Doroshenko interview with Francesco Bonami 
www.newartexaminer.org/archive/1199_interview.html
Well I think the blockbuster idea is a very tricky concept. First, of all, which block do we have to bust? You know? If you have to bust the block of Paris, it is one thing; if you are to bust the block of Florence, it's another thing, or Madrid; it's still another. It's tricky. The pressure comes in the trust of gaining confidence in our program. I believe that the MCA, in bringing me on board, and in selecting Elizabeth Smith [as the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator] made a strong statement that the museum can produce a consistent program of exhibitions that will be challenging, and yet also attract consistent audiences. 

Franco Fanelli. First interview with Venice Biennale chief. The director of next year's Venice Biennale talks about his experiences as a curator
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9274
Most of all, journalism accustoms you to keeping deadlines in a very professional manner, and it also keeps you up to date with the latest developments. I worked for a monthly publication, and that is rather like curating an exhibition a month. Art journalism is journalism in the broadest sense; whatever anyone says, objectivity is as important for a journalist as it is for a curator. The curator must not follow his own personal taste, he must not support only certain artists or certain trends. I may appreciate the work of a particular artist, but I have to leave him out of any exhibition I curate if his work is not relevant to the contemporary scene.
One problem with Italian artists (but not only them) is the “air bubble” which artists, even the youngest ones, try to create around their work.
I find there is a lack of the kind of experimental outlook which could be found, for example, in Arte povera; the Arte povera artists did everything they could not to isolate the piece of work. In the exhibition in September I shall try to get rid of the aseptic aura which surrounds the work of young artists today.
- I don’t agree with the people criticising Bucharest for wanting to have its own biennale. Bucharest is a city with a culture of its own, an identity of its own, and it has a perfect right to hold an exhibition of contemporary art.

Anny Ballardini. An Interview With Francesco Bonami, Curator Of The 50th Venice Biennale
http://www.poetrybay.com/fall2002/ballardini_interview.html
- With an exhibit like the Biennale we enter Kairos, the opportunity, opposed to Kronos, the museum institutions, that is the practice of lasting in time. For the first time in history in the choice of a curator, they applied a technical method and they reached me. A surprise for everybody, first for the fact that by following a method a result was given, and then, at a personal level, that they have chosen me who has no method. The Biennale has as a thesis: internationality, its antithesis is given by the national choice, from which there is a synthesis represented by an international artist who encloses a national entity still conserving an open and global vision. It is therefore the same nature of the Biennale to represent a clash, reflected in “Dreams and Conflicts”. The subtitle: “the viewer's dictatorship” is born from the change that works of art have gone through in the last ten years with videos and video-installations, the times of which oscillate from 140’ to 270’.

Smadar Sheffi.  Ideas, not geography and not politics. Francesco Bonami visits Israel in search of art for the Venice Biennale 
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=239818&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
  I feel the role of the curator has changed. The dialogue between curators and artists has changed and it is already impossible to organize a huge exhibition based on the vision of only one man. The world has opened up. Contemporary art is being created in many more places and an exhibition does not have to be a catalog of what is going on in the world. I think it will be interesting to curate a biennale that is a kind of anthology, not novella - the curator will serve as the editor of various texts. I did not want to work with what are called "associate curators" because they usually have the status of consultants and have no autonomy.
I have a bit of a problem with the dominance of the globalization idea. I want to work with people with whom I have worked in the past or with interesting people, regardless of geographic considerations. In the past 20 years there has been a tendency to act according to stereotypes - there always has to be a black, Asiatic, or female - I try to avoid that. Ideas are more important to me than geography.
I don't want to work that way. The art world is a small entity via which it is possible to view the world. Politics is interesting when it functions as a Trojan horse, when the work is not immediately identified as political, but bears a political message. Art will not change the world, but one can speak to the world via art, and that is what is most important.
The role of art is to confront the viewer with ideas that are sometimes different than his. There is no need to simplify that.
He met with artists and saw the works of some 150 artists. Bonami received hundreds of artists' portfolios that the Foreign Ministry had requested for the first time in an organized and open manner from gallery owners and independent curators.
I feel there are fewer and fewer people in the West who have artistic vision, and that is very dangerous. I would like my biennale to have vision, even though I know that this is not rational - a vision is fraught with failure, and it is clear that I want the biennale to please everyone."ANNY BALLARDINI. ITALIAN LANGUAGE FILTERED THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE OF JOURNALISM AND TRANSLATION
http://www.transference.org.uk/italiano_giornalismo_traduzione.htm
Francesco Bonami, future curator of the next 50th Venice Biennale, whom I interviewed a few days ago, on my question on the difference between the Italian and the American society, answered: “In Italy, from a mono-cultural society we are starting toward a multi-cultural one, and artists are taking on this monstrous change by embracing it with fear but also with a certain courage. An extremely interesting and very traumatic transformation.” I would broaden the term of artists to include poets, philosophers, writers, the so-called “intelligentsia” that has to bring forth changes, as it has always done, and reveal themselves and have always shown themselves to be extremely fragile.

National events

Francesco Bonami, “Ilya Kabakov: Tales from the Dark Side,” Flash Art, Summer 1994, pp. 91-93.
http://www.legacy-project.org/artists/display.html?ID=197

The Nordic Pavilion in Venice
http://www.oca.no/biennials/biennials.html
In 2003, The Office for Contemporary Art Norway has the main responsibility for the contribution to the Nordic Pavilion, which is curated by Anne Karin Jortveit and Andrea Kroksnes, both curators at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo. The title of the pavilion is «Devil-may-care» and the selected artists are Liisa Lounila (FIN), Kristina Bræin (N) and Mamma Karin Andersson (S). This is the first time in 15 years that female curators will be in charge of the Nordic Pavilion

CONTROVERSY FROM NEW VENICE CURATOR -  Artnet News,  5/14/02
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews5-14-02.asp
Francesco Bonami  has roiled the waters by suggesting the exposition include a Palestinian pavilion. As yet there's no official word on the proposal. Israel has had its own exhibition space at Venice for some time (at the 49th Biennale, it held an installation by Uri Katzenstein); no Arab country -- save Egypt -- has its own pavilion.

CHRIS OFILI TO REPRESENT BRITAIN AT VENICE BIENNALE 2003 - 19 July 2002
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/vad/news/news.htm
The British Council is delighted to announce that Chris Ofili has been selected to represent Britain at the next Venice Biennale of Art, scheduled to take place from June - October 2003.
Chris Ofili is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery, London and ‘Freedom One day’, his latest exhibition, was recently shown there.

Who’s going to Venice? Dismembered Biennial
http://www.raster.art.pl/english/english_teksty.htm
During a short talk with Raster magazine Bonami revealed his plan of rearranging the respectful institution of the Venice Biennial. The 50th edition of the Venice Biennial is going to be entitled „Dreams and Conflicts”. Next year, instead of one, eight (!) simultaneous exhibitions, prepared independently by eight curators will take place. Bonami himself is preparing an exhibition concentrating on the young generation of artists.
Bonami’s reformative ideas don’t concern the traditional exhibition in national pavilions. Surprisingly early this year, Polish Ministry of Culture, started looking for participants to the 2003 biennial. 
Nobody can be sure about anything this year, as Waldemar Dabrowski - the new minister of culture is said to have highly controversial contacts in the art world. Let’s hope he’ll turn out insensitive to old relationships.

Venice Biennial 2003 - The ministry keeps quiet, but the news leak out. Is Drozdz the chosen one?
http://www.raster.art.pl/english/english_teksty.htm
According to unofficial sources, the curator selected by Polish Ministry of Culture to prepare an exhibition in the Polish pavilion during next year’s Venice Biennial is Pawel Sosnowski, who suggested presenting works of Stanislaw Drozdz - a classic of Polish visual poesy and conceptualism. Such decision of the jury is a surprise - however not an unpleasant one. Nevertheless it is yet another time that Pawel Althamer’s candidacy is turned down, as well as this of Krzysztof Wodiczko, which had strong support this year. The name of this year’s curator - Pawel Sosnowski - is even more surprising than the fact of choosing Stanislaw Drozdz, as Drozdz had not known Sosnowski until the curator proposed his candidacy.

Korean Artist Kim Hong-hee Selected for Venice Biennale. November 25, 2002
http://www.korea.net/kwnews/content/xnews.asp?Number=20021125021

Artist Kim Hong-hee has been chosen to represent Korea in its national pavilion at the next Venice Biennale, the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation announced.
Kim, born in Seoul in 1948, studied Art History at Ewha Womans University and Hunter College, and received a Master¡¯s in Art History from Concordia University in Montreal, then a doctorate from Hong-ik University.

Axis’ Kay Pallister co-curates SAC Biennale Show
http://www.axisartists.org.uk/axishome/news.htm
For the first time the Venice Biennale 2003 will include independent participation from both Scotland and Wales. For many years each country has considered presenting their own artists in parallel to the prestigious UK pavilion (which will show Chris Ofili in 2003), finally, next year, both countries will make exhibitions celebrating their emerging artists. The Scottish participation is supported by the Scottish Arts Council and British Council Scotland and will be curated by Kay Pallister, who was appointed recently as content curator at Axis. She will curate the exhibition with Francis McKee, a curator and writer from Glasgow. They are currently researching artists in Scotland and have begun a series of studio visits throughout the length and breadth of the country..

Bonami in Venice, a New French Culture Minister, and More. - 05.15.02  
http://www.artforum.com/news/week=200220
BONAMI REVEALS PLANS FOR VENICE: According to an article in Il Manifesto, the theme of the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 will be "Dreams and Conflicts." Curator Francesco Bonami, who announced his project last week, will attempt to explore the gap between "the dreams and the conflicts in which contemporary art is constructed" and "give life to the increase in multiple realities." In addition to restyling the Italian pavilion—a project that will be undertaken by Italian architect, critic, and curator Massimiliano Gioni—Bonami also intends to establish a national pavilion for Palestine—a proposal that has met with criticism. Biennale committee member Valerio Riva fears that the proposed pavilion will lead to "anti-Semitic demonstrations." 

Who’s going to Venice? Dismembered Biennial
http://www.raster.art.pl/english/english_teksty.htm
During a short talk with Raster magazine Bonami revealed his plan of rearranging the respectful institution of the Venice Biennial. The 50th edition of the Venice Biennial is going to be entitled „Dreams and Conflicts”. Next year, instead of one, eight (!) simultaneous exhibitions, prepared independently by eight curators will take place. Bonami himself is preparing an exhibition concentrating on the young generation of artists.
Bonami’s reformative ideas don’t concern the traditional exhibition in national pavilions. Surprisingly early this year, Polish Ministry of Culture, started looking for participants to the 2003 biennial. 
Nobody can be sure about anything this year, as Waldemar Dabrowski - the new minister of culture is said to have highly controversial contacts in the art world. Let’s hope he’ll turn out insensitive to old relationships

Venice Biennial 2003 - The ministry keeps quiet, but the news leak out. Is Drozdz the chosen one?
http://www.raster.art.pl/english/english_teksty.htm
According to unofficial sources, the curator selected by Polish Ministry of Culture to prepare an exhibition in the Polish pavilion during next year’s Venice Biennial is Pawel Sosnowski, who suggested presenting works of Stanislaw Drozdz - a classic of Polish visual poesy and conceptualism. Such decision of the jury is a surprise - however not an unpleasant one. Nevertheless it is yet another time that Pawel Althamer’s candidacy is turned down, as well as this of Krzysztof Wodiczko, which had strong support this year. The name of this year’s curator - Pawel Sosnowski - is even more surprising than the fact of choosing Stanislaw Drozdz, as Drozdz had not known Sosnowski until the curator proposed his candidacy.

CONTROVERSY FROM NEW VENICE CURATOR -  Artnet News,  5/14/02
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews5-14-02.asp
Francesco Bonami  has roiled the waters by suggesting the exposition include a Palestinian pavilion. As yet there's no official word on the proposal. Israel has had its own exhibition space at Venice for some time (at the 49th Biennale, it held an installation by Uri Katzenstein); no Arab country -- save Egypt -- has its own pavilion.

CHRIS OFILI TO REPRESENT BRITAIN AT VENICE BIENNALE 2003 - 19 July 2002
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/vad/news/news.htm
The British Council is delighted to announce that Chris Ofili has been selected to represent Britain at the next Venice Biennale of Art, scheduled to take place from June - October 2003.
Chris Ofili is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery, London and ‘Freedom One day’, his latest exhibition, was recently shown there.

Korean Artist Kim Hong-hee Selected for Venice Biennale. November 25, 2002
http://www.korea.net/kwnews/content/xnews.asp?Number=20021125021

Artist Kim Hong-hee has been chosen to represent Korea in its national pavilion at the next Venice Biennale, the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation announced.
Kim, born in Seoul in 1948, studied Art History at Ewha Womans University and Hunter College, and received a Master¡¯s in Art History from Concordia University in Montreal, then a doctorate from Hong-ik University.

Axis’ Kay Pallister co-curates SAC Biennale Show
http://www.axisartists.org.uk/axishome/news.htm
For the first time the Venice Biennale 2003 will include independent participation from both Scotland and Wales. For many years each country has considered presenting their own artists in parallel to the prestigious UK pavilion (which will show Chris Ofili in 2003), finally, next year, both countries will make exhibitions celebrating their emerging artists. The Scottish participation is supported by the Scottish Arts Council and British Council Scotland and will be curated by Kay Pallister, who was appointed recently as content curator at Axis. She will curate the exhibition with Francis McKee, a curator and writer from Glasgow. They are currently researching artists in Scotland and have begun a series of studio visits throughout the length and breadth of the country..

Massimiliano Tonelli. The circuit’s thoughts on Francesco Bonami
http://www.exibart.com/txt/ukNotizia.asp?IDNotizia=4601&IDCategoria=45
Many luminaries from the art world have written in to give their personal responses to our study on Francesco Bonami.
- Katia Spadon – Galleria Morone. There is every reason to hope, given the last Biennales, but what ART will there be for the great body of spectators/art-lovers and potential collectors to encounter for the first time? Thought should be at the command of the emotions, instead of the removal of speculation...
- Ludovico Pratesi. I think the appointment of Bonami is the sign of a very positive turn for the Italian artistic system, both in a qualitative and a generational sense. 
- Studio la Città - Hélène de Franchis, We cannot but fervently congratulate ourselves with Bonami, which of course means that we’re expecting a lot from him, as do many other contemporary art experts and operators.
- Marcello Carriero. Most surely he will bring back Cattelan to the Biennale, maybe even some polyester Politi
- Alfonso Artiaco. I’ve read it in the Corriere della Sera that, owing to some political games, Bonami had merely been appointed as an “explorer” – I hope that’s not the case.
- Federica Martini. I’m probably more intrigued by the reactions he will stir abroad that by the Biennale itself – let’s hope for some debate.

Bonami in Venice, a New French Culture Minister, and More. - 05.15.02  
http://www.artforum.com/news/week=200220
BONAMI REVEALS PLANS FOR VENICE: According to an article in Il Manifesto, the theme of the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 will be "Dreams and Conflicts." Curator Francesco Bonami, who announced his project last week, will attempt to explore the gap between "the dreams and the conflicts in which contemporary art is constructed" and "give life to the increase in multiple realities." In addition to restyling the Italian pavilion—a project that will be undertaken by Italian architect, critic, and curator Massimiliano Gioni—Bonami also intends to establish a national pavilion for Palestine—a proposal that has met with criticism. Biennale committee member Valerio Riva fears that the proposed pavilion will lead to "anti-Semitic demonstrations." 

Dismembered Biennial. Who’s going to Venice?
http://www.raster.art.pl/english/english_teksty.htm
Bonami’s reformative ideas don’t concern the traditional exhibition in national pavilions. 
Both, the curators, and the artists await in quiet excitation - among the submitted candidates are: Pawel Althamer, Anna Baumgart, Zuzanna Janin and Krzysztof Wodiczko. It is the third time when Althamer’s candidacy being considered, will he finally succeed? Nobody can be sure about anything this year, as Waldemar Dabrowski - the new minister of culture is said to have highly controversial contacts in the art world. Let’s hope he’ll turn out insensitive to old relationships

According to unofficial sources, the curator selected by Polish Ministry of Culture to prepare an exhibition in the Polish pavilion during next year’s Venice Biennial is Pawel Sosnowski, who suggested presenting works of Stanislaw Drozdz - a classic of Polish visual poesy and conceptualism. Such decision of the jury is a surprise - however not an unpleasant one.

Artnet News - 5/14/02. CONTROVERSY FROM NEW VENICE CURATOR
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/artnetnews/artnetnews5-14-02.asp
Is the intractable Middle East conflict coming to the 2003 Venice Biennale? Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art curator Francesco Bonami, who was named general curator of the biennale two months ago, has roiled the waters by suggesting the exposition include a Palestinian pavilion. 
Visitors to the 48th Biennale three years ago may remember artist Rirkrit Tiravanija planting a sapling to dedicate a new Thai pavilion, but the site was covered over by an outdoor restaurant at the following show two years later.

CHRIS OFILI TO REPRESENT BRITAIN AT VENICE BIENNALE 2003
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/vad/news/news.htm
The British Council is delighted to announce that Chris Ofili has been selected to represent Britain at the next Venice Biennale of Art, scheduled to take place from June - October 2003.
Chris Ofili is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery, London and ‘Freedom One day’, his latest exhibition, was recently shown there.

Korean Artist Kim Hong-hee Selected for Venice Biennale. - November 25, 2002 17:53:50
http://www.korea.net/kwnews/content/xnews.asp?Number=20021125021
Kim, born in Seoul in 1948, studied Art History at Ewha Womans University and Hunter College, and received a Master¡¯s in Art History from Concordia University in Montreal, then a doctorate from Hong-ik University.
Kim has organized many exhibitions, including ¡°The Soul of Seoul Fluxus Festival¡± and ¡°Women, Its Difference and Power.¡± She also curated ¡°InforArt¡± a special exhibition in the Gwangju Biennale in 1995, for which she received a Presidential Award. Kim was a commissioner of the Gwangju Biennale in 2000.
Kim has written several books, including ¡°Nam June Paik and His Art,¡± ¡°Feminism. Video. Art,¡± ¡°The SeOUL of Fluxus,¡±  ¡°Women, Its Difference and Power¡± and ¡°InfoART.¡± She has also worked as director of Ssamzie Space, an alternative art venue in Seoul.

Yuko Hasegawa Utopia/Heterotopia
http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/others/whats/0212/12_01.html
Utopia/Heterotopia is one interpretation of "Dream and Conflict," the general theme of this Biennale. Utopia is the imagined perfect place.
Yutaka Sone continues the physical and metaphorical journey toward the unreachable goal of utopia, rendering the process in film, sculpture, and drawings. Moving away from Japan, he resides in Los Angeles, consciously pursuing a nomadic existence in places where he does not belong as he continues his journey toward utopia in his day-to-day life.

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