52nd Biennale opens Sunday

MILAN, Italy — The world’s oldest and most prestigious contemporary art fair opens Sunday in Venice, kicking off what promises to be the European art season of the decade as four premier events align in an unusual convergence that is generating extraordinary buzz.

Following this weekend’s opening of the 52nd Venice Biennale, Art Basel in Switzerland; Documenta in Kassel, Germany; and the Muenster Sculpture Project all kick off in quick succession.

It’s all creating lots of excitement and hurried travel because only rarely do the major art fair cycles coincide: Art Basel is held every year, Venice every two years, Documenta every five years and Muenster every decade.

But though Documenta, opening June 16, draws hipper crowds and Art Basel, June 13, attracts the buyers, the Venice Biennale is “the most noble,” one former curator says. .

In its 120-year history, the Biennale has advanced art discourse by presenting to the public such notables as Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso and the pop-art movement. Recent editions have drawn several hundred thousand people to the lagoon exhibit spaces over five months — still just a fraction of Documenta’s expected attendance, a consequence of Venice’s expense and difficult geography.

Each edition of the nearly six-month Biennale is unique, reflecting the choices of the curator of the main international exhibition.

This year, the job has fallen to American curator and critic Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art and former painting and sculpture curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is among just a handful of non-Italians to have been given the honor.

Mr. Storr’s exhibition unites about 100 artists in what many observers who have seen the show in previews have described as a more unified museum approach to the Biennale, known for its sometimes chaotic attempt to showcase fresh art, often by young, emerging artists.

The Biennale has helped propel some careers while paying tribute to already established names. Henry Moore’s international reputation was helped when he was awarded the prize for sculpture in 1948, while Jasper Johns already was widely acclaimed when he won the grand prize in 1988. The awards are called Golden Lions, like the Venice Film Festival tributes.

“What I hope with the exhibit itself … is that what people will remember [will be] the convergence of all these different things they will have experienced in one place and at one time,” Mr. Storr says in an interview from Venice. “And that they begin to question why we don’t have a more varied and diverse cultural offering than we see in our museums.

“I worked for a long time in museums, and I know that museums are capable of doing more than what they do. But it is the nature of these exhibitions, which are about six months in length — one can bring lots of things together.”

Mr. Storr has for the first time put an African pavilion in the main Arsenale venue in a move to draw attention to significant African art events, including the traveling Remix exhibition of African art. He also tapped 71-year-old Malian photographer Malick Sidibe as this year’s winner of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, making it the first time a photographer has won the honor.

Besides the international exhibit, this year’s Biennale also will include a record 77 national pavilions featuring art chosen and presented by the participating nations, mostly in Venice’s Giardini. The pavilions are among the attractions that make the Venice Biennale unique.

Mr. Storr says he wanted African art to be at the center of the fair and named Remix’s Simon Njami as one of the curators.

“I thought it would be important to put the work of African artists being curated by African curators in the midst of the Biennale and not on the periphery,” Mr. Storr says.