The Chinese Pavilion opens in Venice — and this time, it is a studio that has been moved
For the 61st Biennale, China is not showing a work: it is opening a workshop. In the Giardini, in a pavilion redesigned by the China Academy of Art's team, four artists work in plain view for six months. A French delegation, led by Lyon, accompanies the sequence.
One enters by the light. The Chinese Pavilion at the Giardini, redesigned by the scenography team of the China Academy of Art (中国美术学院), begins where the habit used to end: not with an exhibited work, but with a device of attention. A large bay opening onto the gardens, two side glass walls, and at the centre, a forty-square-metre working platform.
It is there, under the public gaze, that the four artists invited by the curatorship — three Chinese, one Sino-Italian — will work for six months. The exhibition title, given in Latin, Chinese and Italian, is itself a programme: Officina / 工作室 / Bottega.
This must be said: the choice is a rupture. For two decades, the Chinese Pavilion in Venice has put on a demonstration. This 61st edition takes on something else. Read the full report →
A Lyon delegation has slipped, discreetly, into the programme — three French students will work alongside the Chinese artists during the final sequence. France, this year, is showing nothing in Venice — except, perhaps, that she is learning.