The Board of Directors appoints Okwui Enwezor Director of the Visual Arts Sector

For the 56th International Art Exhibition 2015
12 | 04 | 2013
Enwezor is a curator, art critic, editor and writer

The Board of Directors of la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, met in the headquarters of Ca’ Giustinian and, after thanking and expressing its gratitude to Massimiliano Gioni for the excellent results of the 55th International Art Exhibition, appointed Okwui Enwezor Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with the specific responsibility of curating the 56th International Art Exhibition, to be held in 2015 (Venice, Giardini and Arsenale, May 9th > November 22nd, 2015).
 
Born in Nigeria in 1963, Okwui Enwezor is a curator, art critic, editor and writer; since 2011 he has been the Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich. He was Artistic Director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa (1996-1998), of documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany (1998-2002), the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo de Sevilla in Spain (2005-2007), the 7th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea (2008) and of the Triennal d’Art Contemporain of Paris at the Palais de Tokyo (2012). Enwezor’s wide-ranging practice spans the world of international exhibitions, museums, academia, and publishing. In 1994 he founded “NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art” published by Duke University Press. He is the author of numerous essays and books, among others: Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art (2008).
 
At the end of the meeting of the Board, President Paolo Baratta stated:
“We have closed an extraordinary research-exhibition which was brought to term with great success by Massimiliano Gioni, and had the record in the number of visitors and particularly of young visitors. This success demonstrates the ever-widening range of people who directly enjoy the cultural and the emotional experience that la Biennale can provide. We now turn, for the next edition, to 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.”
 
On his part, Okwui Enwezor has stated:
“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.”
 

Biographical Note
Okwui Enwezor (Nigeria, 1963) is a curator, art critic, editor and writer, since 2011 he has been the Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich.
He was Artistic Director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa (1996-1998), of documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany (1998-2002), the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporaneo 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).
Enwezor’s wide-ranging practice spans the world of international exhibitions, museums, academia, and publishing. He is interested in African, European, Asiatic, North and South American art of the 20th and 21st Century, in modern and contemporary art of the African countries and the contemporary art of the African diaspora. Enwezor’s research includes video and photography, archives theory, photographic documentation, photojournalism and museums history. He also studies theories on diasporas and migrations, of post-colonial modernism and the architecture and urbanism of postcolonial African cities.
In 1994 he founded “NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art” published by Duke University Press. As a writer, critic, and editor, he has been a regular contributor to exhibition catalogues, anthologies and journals, and has published articles and interviews in the major daily newspapers and periodicals of the world. He is the author of many books, including Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary (Gottingen: Steidl and New York: International Center of Photography, 2008), Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (Damiani, 2009, with Chika Okeke-Agulu), Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity (Duke University Press, 2008, with Terry Smith and Nancy Condee), James Casebere: Works, 1975-2010 (Damiani, 2011).
He has held many academic positions such as Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President of the San Francisco Art Institute (2005-2009), Visiting Professor at the Department of Art and Architectural History at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Visiting Professor at the Department of Art History and Archaeology of Columbia University, New York. In spring 2012, he was the Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor in Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.
His many exhibitions include: ECM: A Cultural Archaeology, Haus der Kunst, Munich; Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, International Center of Photography, New York; The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Century City, Tate Modern, London; Mirror’s Edge, Bildmuseet, Umea; In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940-Present, Guggenheim Museum; Global Conceptualism, Queens Museum, New York; David Goldblatt: Fifty One Years, Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona; Stan Douglas: Le Detroit, Art Institute of Chicago; Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography, International Center of Photography, New York; The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville; Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, International Center of Photography, New York.