Nigerian curator and writer Okwui Enwezor has been appointed Director of the 56th International Art Exhibition at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Enwezor has been the director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich since 2011. His CV includes time as the Artistic Director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa (1996-1998), documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany (1998-2002), the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla in Spain (2005-2007), the 7th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (2008) and the Triennal d’Art Contemporain of Paris at the Palais de Tokyo (2012).
In 1994 Enwezor founded NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, published by Duke University Press. He is the author of numerous essays and books, including Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art (2008).
Commenting on his appointment, Enwezor said: “No event or exhibition of contemporary art has continuously existed at the confluence of so many historical changes across the fields of art, politics, technology, and economics, like la Biennale di Venezia. La Biennale is the ideal place to explore all these dialectical fields of reference, and the institution of la Biennale itself will be a source of inspiration in planning the exhibition.”
After announcing the appointment, Venice Biennale president Paolo Baratta said: “[Okwui Enwezor] is a person who has a great many experiences to his name, with an ample history of activities and studies in a wide range of topics concerning art. Enwezor has investigated, in particular, the complex phenomenon of globalization in relation to local roots. His personal experience is a decisive starting point for the geographic range of his analysis, for the temporal depth of recent developments in the art world, and for the variegated richness of the present.”
The 56th International Art Exhibition takes place from 9 May to 22 November 2015.
