No Place for Art? - Ebbs and Flows of Arts and Politics

Panel discussion and book launch "Built on Water. The German Pavilion 2009-2022"

Like the city of Venice itself, the Biennales are built on water and written in the tides. They are barely washed ashore when their contours are already making way for the next wave. How deep are the ripples that political events create in the world of art? Saying that "there is no place for art when civilians are dying under the fire of missiles," the artists and curators of the Russian contribution to this year’s Biennale have resigned. Can art assert a political position?  Must it do so? And under these circumstances, what is the role of the model based on national contributions to the Venice Biennale?

Panelists

• Sanja Kojić Mladenov, art historian and researcher, curator of the Serbian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011
• Shwetal Ashvin Patel – writer, researcher and arts specialist, founder member of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala, India
• Gitte Zschoch – Secretary General of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen

Moderator

Niklas Maak – author, art and architecture journalist at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Words of Welcome

Prof. Dr. Dr. Ulrich Raulff – President of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen

You are warmly invited to an apéro after the discussion.

RSVP by 15 April 2022 at art(at)ifa.de
The number of places is limited. The discussion will be held in English.

For 50 years ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen has been coordinating the German Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. The Book "Built on Water" gives a voice to participating artists and curators, writers, art scholars and journalists. They examine the many facets of the Biennale Arte, including performance and participation, visitors, entrances and access to the German Pavilion, Venice and the Mediterranean, Venice as a place where East meets West, the Masked Ball and more.

Published by Schirmer/Mosel (ISBN 978-3-8296-0953-1). Edited by ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. With contributions by Anne Carson, Susanne Gaensheimer, Liam Gillick, Katerina Gregos, Ann Mbuti, Susanne Pfeffer and others. 

Orders via art(at)ifa.de