The official Grand Prize of the 60th Venice Biennale was announced on April 20. Aboriginal artist Archie Moore became the first Australian artist to win this year's top award, the Golden Lion for Best Pavilion, beating artists representing 85 other countries. In addition, Mataaho Collective, an art collective from New Zealand whose four members are women of Māori descent, won the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the Main Exhibition.
A huge hand-painted family tree tree
Moore revamped the Australia Pavilion this year with two installations. In Kith and Kin, he spent months drawing a genealogical tree on the walls and ceiling of the pavilion with chalk. Moore said the web of 3,484 names dates back 65,000 years. In the center of the pavilion, he built a reflecting pool on which a rectangular base floated. The pedestal sits hundreds of redacted documents documenting the deaths of Indigenous people in police custody.
Moore's "Friends and Family".
In this tranquil and powerful pavilion, Moore hand-painted a monumental Aboriginal genealogy tree with chalk over the course of several months. 65,000 years of history – both recorded and lost – are carved into the dark walls and ceilings, asking viewers to fill in the gaps and accept the fragility inherent in this grief archive. The judges said in a statement.
In his acceptance speech, Moore said, "The Aboriginal kinship system brings all the creatures in the environment into a larger kinship network, and the land itself can be a mentor or parent for the child. We are one and share the responsibility of caring for all living things, now and in the future. ”
Moore was awarded.
The installation "The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin" from the Kosovo Pavilion received a special mention from the jury. In this work, artist Doruntina Kastrati explores the deregulation of the labor market after the Kosovo war in 1999. The judges said the work "resonated in our bones and echoed the broader feminist movement."
A well-woven netted tent
来自新西兰的艺术团体Mataaho Collective凭借其装置作品《Takapau》(2022)获得了最佳参与者金狮奖。 Mataaho Collective由贝克(Erena Baker)、哈德逊(Sarah Hudson)、勒维提(Bridget Reweti)勒特陶(Terri Te Tau)四名毛利艺术家组成。 她们自2012年起开始合作，采用“四脑八手”的方式，以单一作者的身份开发作品。 《Takapau》受传统毛利分娩垫的启发,用带子编织成网状的帐篷,光线透过一个个孔洞在墙壁和地板上投下错综复杂的阴影。
Mata matahoHohetakapau
"The installation embodies the matriarchal tradition of textiles in its womb-like cradle form, both as a cosmology and as a sanctuary," the jury said in a statement, "and its impressive scale is an engineering feat that can only be achieved through collective strength and creativity." The dazzling patterns of shadows cast on the walls and floors recall ancestral technologies and foreshadow future uses of these technologies. ”
"We come from a working-class family, and our material is an ode to a working-class family. It's reflective tape, which you can see on the crew's safety gear," Mataaho Collective said in a statement, "These workwear are highly visible and often paired with fluorescent colors to be seen — even though the person wearing them becomes invisible." This work is dedicated to those whose labor is marginalized, to our parents and siblings, and we salute you. ”
Mata mata mataho 5.5,000
The jury awarded the Silver Lion to the most promising young artist, Karimah Ashadu, a Nigerian-Briton living in Hamburg, Germany, for her work Machine Boys, which depicts illegal taxi drivers in the Nigerian seaport city of Lagos.
Ashadou and the Machine Boys.
Many artists come from both indigenous and immigrant communities
Jerusalem-born artist Samia Halaby and Argentinian artist La Chola Poblete were also highlighted by the jury for this year's work. The 87-year-old dedicated her award to "young journalists from Gaza". Adriano Pedrosa, the curator of this year's Biennale and director of the Museum of Art in São Paulo, Brazil, brought "many stateless, indigenous artists to the Biennale," she said in a video. According to the Biennale's website, Poplert is "an interdisciplinary artist whose work involves performance, video art, painting, and objects, [presenting] complex queer images."
Halabi.
Popler.
Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino and Turkish artist Nil Yalter received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Both artists are participating in the Biennale for the first time. Pedrosa said that Maiolino "has become a reference for many artists in Brazil and other countries". At this Biennale, Maiolino presents a new large-scale work that continues and unfolds her clay sculptures. In the first room of the Central Pavilion, Yalt presented a new adaptation of her innovative installation, Exile is a hard job. At the award ceremony, Yalt dedicated her award to "World Peace". "She (Yalte) is widely regarded as a pioneer of the global feminist art movement," Pedrosa said, adding that she is recognized for her important research related to migration.
Majorino and Yalt.
Founded in 1895, the Venice Biennale is one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art from around the world, and this year's theme is "Foreigners Everywhere". Biennales have long had pavilions for each country to hold its own exhibitions, with Belgium being the first to be built in 1907. Today, the Biennale has spread all over the city of Venice, and countries without permanent pavilions can hold exhibitions in office buildings, dilapidated mansions, and this year one pavilion was set up in a women's prison.
This year's Biennale opened on April 20 and will run until November 24.
News sources: The New York Times, The Art Newspaper, Art Forum, Venice Biennale, some pictures from the Internet
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