With the award of two internationally acclaimed artists from the Black Community, the jury of the Venice Art Biennale set an example. The Briton Sonia Boyce and the American Simone Leigh received the most important prizes of the Biennale in the lagoon city with two Golden Lions on Saturday.
There were also awards for the Uganda country pavilion and the Lebanese artist Ali Cherri. The Düsseldorf artist Katharina Fritsch also received a Golden Lion for her life’s work.
Boyce received the award for her work in the British Pavilion. She also sees the prize as a sign of the international black art scene. “We’re here. We’re not going away anymore,” Boyce told the German Press Agency in Venice about the importance of the award. “More fabulous things are about to happen.” There is a tremendous amount of talent among black artists. “I can’t wait for others to assert themselves.”
Boyce, who is also a professor of black art and design, has been an important figure in the fight for recognition for female artists and against racism for decades. In the British Pavilion she shows the power of female singing with her work “Feeling Her Way”. The voices of five black singers fill the rooms of the pavilion individually and combined on large screens. The tones, which appear as powerful as they are vulnerable, are surrounded by geometrically structured golden elements on the walls.
In the assessments for the country pavilions, Uganda, represented for the first time at the Biennial, received a special mention with the works of Acaye Kerunen and Collin Sekajugo. Both regarded the award as an important reference to the art scene in African countries, which is still often underestimated.
The French pavilion, in front of which long queues of interested people have been forming on the Biennale grounds for days, also received special mention. In the rooms, curated by the two directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, the French-Algerian artist Zineb Sedira uses reconstructed scenes in a mixture of documents and fiction to analyze questions of political upheaval and feminism.
The American Leigh is represented twice, she also designed the national pavilion for the USA, in which she confidently addresses the role and awakening of the black community with her large-format sculptures. Leigh was honored for her contribution to New York-based curator Cecilia Alemani’s Biennale exhibition “The Milk of Dreams,” which has been celebrated for days. Her large sculpture of a black woman who appears blinded stands at the beginning of the second Biennale area, Arsenale. The Lebanese Cherri was honored as a hopeful newcomer for his multimedia installation “Of Men and Gods and Mud”.
Golden lion for life’s work for Fritsch
Fritsch, internationally known for her sculptures, opens the central space in the Giardini of Venice with a work. In the entrance area, Fritsch’s life-size “Elephant” from 1987 welcomes visitors, whose combination of greenish color and realistic forms seems to prepare the way for the surrealistic journey of the exhibition. In addition to Fritsch, the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña also received a Golden Lion for her life’s work.
The German Pavilion went unnoticed. There, Berlin-based artist Maria Eichhorn uncovered the structure of the Nazi-modified building and thus its history.
Curator Alemani has invited 213 artists from 58 countries with more than 1500 works for “The Milk of Dreams”. The title goes back to a children’s book by the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917–2011), who describes in it a magical world that is constantly reinventing itself through imagination. In addition, 80 nations will present themselves with their country pavilions.
Alongside the documenta in Kassel, the art biennale is the most important exhibition for contemporary art. The 59th Biennale, postponed by a year due to the corona virus, is open from Saturday to November 27th. (dpa)