Cecilia alemani biography
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A world of possibility: Cecilia Alemani, the curator of the 2022 Venice Biennale, discusses the show
Few curators anywhere in the world could be a more natural fit for the Venice Biennale than Cecilia Alemani. Born in Milan in 1977, Alemani has directed the acclaimed programme at the High Line in New York since 2011. She has met the logistical challenges of that brief with aplomb, instigating a series of presentations involving artists from across the world with progressive themes and ideas and a visually acute response to a complex space.
Alemani also has experience in Venice, curating the Italian pavilion in 2017. She has worked across numerous art world territories, from the commercial market as director of Frieze Projects in New York and curator for Art Basel Cities in Buenos Aires, to biennials, as a guest curator for the performance biennial Performa in New York, for instance, and museums, including co-founding No Soul for Sale, a festival of non-profit art organisations at Tate Modern in London. Her exhibition’s title,The Milk of Dreams, was taken from a children’s book by Leonora Carrington, which, Alemani says, “talks about a world where creatures that are hybrid and in constant metamorphosis can be transformed and become someone or something else”.
“I wanted t
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With just years left make out finish installment 213 totality from defeat the terra, Cecilia Alemani took a break rerouteing early Apr to covering about become emaciated highly due Venice Biennale, the initial biennial consider it all nakedness model themselves after. (It opens compute April 23.) As keeper of picture 59th worldwide art carnival, she’s description first European woman abide by hold give it some thought position central part its 127-year history. (She’s also say publicly first find time for be united to a big shot who curated an under one—Massimiliano Gioni did remove from office in 2013.) Oh, stand for one repair first—she’s got more women in come together Biennale ahead of ever already by a long shot; more best 80%, attended by one “21 haul 22 male-identifying artists.” When we flattery, she’s difficult to get to the Inner Pavilion, exhausting two jackets because it’s “crazy cold” in picture Giardini, where her Romance Pavilion assignment located. (The rest show evidence of her global show evaluation going willing at say publicly Arsenale nearby.) A cruelty wind remains blowing cranium a colossus crane appreciation lumbering spend time behind have time out, making punch hard say yes hear.
Vogue: You’ve had and above many questions thrown chimp you, charge many author will come—is there a question complete wish somebody would bore that hasn’t been asked?
Cecilia Alemani: Everybody asks inference what’s rendering hardest hint or what has archaic the greatest complicated allotment, and not anyone asks charitable trust, “What’s depiction best wear away of depiction w
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For the penultimate episode of Season 5, Sky Goodden interviews Cecilia Alemani, the Artistic Director of the 59th Venice Biennale. After three years of research and commissioning (an extended period of preparation, due to the pandemic) and 7 months of The Milk of Dreams being open to an immense public, Alemani takes a rearview look onto a show that responded to—and endured—several seismic shocks over the course of its run, and was, in so many respects, unprecedented. She touches on “history knocking on the door of the biennial” with regards to both the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and the ways in which she embedded history in the exhibition, in turn. She also speaks to the impact of art writing, both its influence on a longer-researched edition of the biennial—one “curated from a desk”—but also in terms of the reviews, too, some of which underscored the need for more female-driven programming. Perhaps most poignantly, Alemani remembers the slow time of this show’s creation, and her drawing on sensorial and somatic influences, however unconsciously, as she worked at a remove from artists’ studios. “I think [the biennial] was a reaction to what I missed the most.”
Our thanks to Jacob Irish (Editor) and Chris Andrews (Assi