Buy the publications by La Biennale di Venezia on Biennale Store

Already available for purchase at the Biennale Store are the publications of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – titled How will we live together? and curated by Hashim Sarkis – which opened very successfully in Giardini and Arsenale on May 22 and will close on November 21, 2021. The Catalogue How will we live together?, in two volumes, dedicates Volume I to the International Exhibition curated by Hashim Sarkis, and opens with an essay that expands on the themes of the Exhibition and presents its protagonists. The architects and firms illustrate the projects on display in words and images. Volume II of the Catalogue presents the National Participations, a Special Project in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Collateral Events of the 17th Exhibition. Richly illustrated, the Catalogue contains texts that detail the many projects on exhibit. In addition to the Short Guide, the publications of the Biennale Architettura 2021 also include two books that further develop the themes of the 17th Exhibition: Expansions, curated by Hashim Sarkis and Ala Tannir, and Cohabitats.

One of the most popular publications, which has captured the interest of critics, is The Disquieted Muses. When La Biennale di Venezia Meets History, the illustrated catalogue of the important exhibition held on site, with all the due safety measures, in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini from early September to late October 2020, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the foundation of La Biennale.
The exhibition, organized by the Historical Archives of La Biennale – ASAC, was curated for the first time by the Directors of all six of the Artistic Departments together (Art, Architecture, Cinema, Dance, Music, Theatre): Cecilia Alemani, Hashim Sarkis, Alberto Barbera, Marie Chouinard, Ivan Fedele and Antonio Latella. In the introduction to the book, Cecilia Alemani underscored how “The Disquieted Muses is the first exhibition in the history of La Biennale conceived at the intersection of the six disciplines that constitute the principal areas of research, creating a dialogue between the events and episodes in the history of La Biennale and the history of the twentieth century”.

Particularly interesting and successful, now available online on the Biennale Store, are the two invaluable Annuari, the directories that for the first time gather all the data since their foundation of the two La Biennale events that have made world history in their disciplines, the International Art Exhibition and the Venice International Film Festival.

In particular, the volume Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, La Biennale di Venezia, 1895-2019 gathers the data of all the editions from 1895 to 2019, publishing information drawn exclusively from the official sources of La Biennale di Venezia. The book is divided into three chapters for consultation in chronological and alphabetical order. The first section gathers the institutional information relative to each edition: the commissioners, the awards juries, the sections, the artists, the main installations, the new pavilions built each year and the awards. The second chapter publishes the official posters and a selection of photographs that portray the installations, and chronicle the events. In the last part, the participating artists are listed in alphabetical order by surname, specifying the year and the section they participated in.

The volume Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica, La Biennale di Venezia, 1932-2019 collects the data on all the film festivals organized by La Biennale from 1932 to 2019, relating or reconstructing the information about the structure and composition of the Venice Film Festival year after year, section after section. All the information is drawn from official sources from the time of each festival, conserved in the Historic Archives of La Biennale di Venezia. The book consists of three parts for consultation in chronological or alphabetical order. The first part lists the film festivals in chronological order, and gathers the institutional information about each festival, the juries, the awards, the sections and the films. The second part lists the films in alphabetical order by title. The third part lists the directors in alphabetical order by surname, followed by the year of participation in the Festival.

Another very interesting publication is the recent Ambiente/Arte. Dal Futurismo alla Body Art, an anastatic copy enriched by an interview with the great curator Germano Celant, who passed away a year ago. The book, published in 1977, accompanied the exhibition titled Ambiente/Arte organized in the Central Pavilion as part of the Biennale Arte 1976. Kounellis’ horses, the various installations of chromatic, material and figural works, from Merz to Beuys, the constructions in wood, steel and glass by Acconci, Nauman and Palermo, the enormous wall drawing by LeWitt: in documentary images and critical texts, the book conveys the richness and complexity of the 1976 exhibition, of that remarkable experimentation on the work of art in relation to the space around it.