Universes in Universe

For an optimal view of our website, please rotate your tablet horizontally.

Venice Biennale 2017

Venice Biennale 2013

57th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia


Tour: Central Exhibition

Viva Arte Viva

Christine Macel, the curator of the 57th International Art Exhibition, explaines her project as follows:

Today, in a world full of conflicts and shocks, art bears witness to the most precious part of what makes us human. Art is the ultimate ground for reflection, individual expression, freedom, and for fundamental questions. (…) The role, the voice and the responsibility of the artist are more crucial than ever before within the framework of contemporary debates. It is in and through these individual initiatives that the world of tomorrow takes shape, which though surely uncertain, is often best intuited by artists than others.

Viva Arte Viva is an exclamation, a passionate outcry for art and the state of the artist. Viva Arte Viva is a Biennale designed with the artists, by the artists and for the artists. It deals with the forms they propose, the questions they pose, the practices they develop and the ways of life they choose.

Nine Trans-pavilions

The Exhibition in the Arsenale and Central Pavilion of the Giardini organically evolves in a sequence of pavilions, offering the spectator a journey, from the interiority to the infinity. These nine Trans-pavilions, which gather artists of all generations and origins, sinuously follow one another like chapters of a book:

The Pavilion of Artists and Books: The material and spiritual worlds of artists, in particular through their relationship with books, texts and knowledge in its broadest sense, which is a recurrent theme in several artists’ works.

The Pavilion of Joys and Fears explores the relationship between the individual and his own existence, his emotions and feelings or the ones he tries to generate.

The Pavilion of the Common in the Arsenale is concieved around the work of artists exploring the notion of the common world and the way to build a community, as a way to counter individualism and self-interests, which represent a worrisome threat in today’s troubling climate.

Likewise, the Pavilion of the Earth is centred on environmental, animal and planetary utopias, observations and dreams.

The Pavilion of Traditions: More and more artists explore not only contemporary or recent history, but also a more distant past, as if fired by the fever of archaeology, excavation, re-interpretation and reinvention.

In the Pavilion of the Shamans, many artists subscribe to the definition of the artist as a “shaman”, and there are also those who become “missionaries”, as per Duchamps’s definition, stirred by an internal vision.

The Dionysian Pavilion celebrates the female body and its sexuality, life and pleasure, all with joy and a sense of humour, and features numerous works created by female artists.

The Pavilion of Colours can be described as the “fireworks” at the end of the journey through the Arsenale, where all the questions presented in the preceding pavilions come together.

The Pavilion of Time and Infinity: In the final chapter the notion of time re-emerges with a new metaphysical quality, within borgesian mazes and speculations of a future that is already embedded in the present, or in an ideal infinity.

More details about each chapter:
Macel’s curatorial statement


Special Features by UiU:


More visual tours

Informative photo tours including a selection of national pavilions and parallel shows throughout the city


Awards of the 57th International Art Exhibition:

Golden Lion for best National Participation:
Germany, Anne Imhof

Special mention for a National Participation:
Brazil, Cinthia Marcelle

Golden Lion for the Best Artist of the exhibition Viva Arte Viva:
Franz Erhard Walther (* 1939 Germany)

Silver Lion for a Promising Young Artist:
Hassan Khan (* 1975 UK)

Special mentions:
Charles Atlas (* 1949 USA)
Petrit Halilaj (* 1986 Kosovo)

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement:
Carolee Schneemann


Jury of the 57th International Art Exhibition:
Manuel J. Borja-Villel (President of the Jury, Spain)
Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Italy)
Amy Cheng (Taiwan)
Ntone Edjabe (Cameroon)
Mark Godfrey (Great Britain)


Organizer, contact:
La Biennale di Venezia
Art and Architecture
Ca' Giustinian
San Marco 1364/A
30124 Venezia, Italy
Website | Email

Visual Art Press Office:
infoartivisive(at)labiennale.org
Tel.: +39 41 - 5218849 / 846 / 716


See also in UiU:

Back to Top