The 59th Biennale Arte will open to the public on 23 April. But on the 20th, 21st and 22nd there will be the various openings and collateral events that always suddenly animate the Venetian artistic life. The awards ceremony will take place on the day of the opening to the public.

The title of the 59th edition of the Biennale d'Arte is Il Latte dei Sogni that means The Milk of Dreams.

The invited artists are 213 from 58 countries. There are 26 Italian artists, 180 the first participations in the International Exhibition, 1433 the works and objects on display, 80 new productions.

In all, 80 nations will participate in the Venice Biennale in the pavilions at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in the historic center of Venice.

Go to the page of the 59th Venice Art Biennale

Luxembourgish Pavilion, Luxembourg at 59th Biennale Arte of Venice

The title of the exhibition at the Luxembourgish Pavilion is Faraway So Close.

Artists: Tina Gillen.
Curators: Christophe Gallois, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean.
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture.
Seat: Luxembourgish Pavilion, Campo della Tana, Castello - Venice

Press Release of Luxembourgish Pavilion

Tina Gillen (b. 1972, Luxembourg) represents the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at the 59th International Art Exhibitionè La Biennale di Venezia with Faraway So Close. The exhibition, for which the artist has produced a new series of large-scale works, takes the form of an expansive painterly installation in the Luxembourg Pavilion, located within the historic premises of the Sale d�Armi in Venice�s Arsenale. In Faraway So Close, Gillen directs her attention to the connections between the interior space and the outside world.

Concerned primarily with the medium of painting, the work of Tina Gillen (b. 1972, Luxembourg) examines how we relate to the world around us, namely through the themes of landscape and dwelling. Her paintings often originate in photographic images that she modifies, simplifies, pictorially �translates�, and pairs with other elements to arrive at compositions that purposefully nurture a certain ambiguity, somewhere between abstraction and figuration, construction and improvisation, the surface of the canvas and the translation of a space.

They often depict dense, obscure atmospheres that envelop forms culled from everyday life, so that they appear veiled with mystery and strangeness. Tina Gillen�s project for the Luxembourg Pavilion, Faraway So Close, was designed in response to the Sale d�Armi site, which has a history dating back to the fifteenth century, and to its past use as a storage space connected to Venetian military history. �Rather than opting for a scenography in the traditional senseè building an architectural structure, temporary walls �� Gillen responded by working �with the space�.

The exhibition brings together eight large-scale paintings in a scenographic treatment inspired by painted film backdrops �as if [the paintings] were only there temporarily, waiting to be moved and rearranged againè like a set still under production.� In this way, Faraway So Close is an extension of Tina Gillen�s reflections on how painting relates to space, reflections which have driven her work for the last decade. Working in a way that is familiar from the artist�s previous exhibitions, the way the work is presented becomes an integral part of the work and a starting point for an aesthetic experience that is extended to the whole space.

The subjects of the paintings reflect Gillen�s recent research on natural phenomena that elude human control such as meteorological events, rising sea levels and volcanic activity. Collectively, the paintings evoke the four elements that were historically associated with the constitution of the universe (earth, water, fire and air), as well as the manifestations of disruptions brought about by human activity. They echo what the French writer Marielle Mac� describes as �uncertain landscapes� in literature. �Living in a damaged world means living in fundamentally uncertain landscapes, mazes of life lines and death lines. It means living with garbage, ghosts, hybrid beings, poison and danger, but also dreams, desires, inventions, thriving practices, because �life is always inventing��, Mac� writes.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition echo this ambivalence. For instance, in the monumentally sized Sunshine III (2022), a set of black and yellow schematic shapes spread across the canvas space, emerging from a nucleus located at the bottom. It evokes the sun and the rays that emanate from it but can also be read as an explosion blasting through the exhibition space. Meanwhile, Power II (2022) combines a network of lines and thin stripes that look like the outline of an electrical tower and an atmospheric background that suggests a distant horizon. Finally, three paintings sharing the same title, Sealevel (IV, V and VI, 2022), reflect the contemporary challenges caused by climate change.

At the heart of the installation is a sculptural component titled Rifugio (2022), whose shape was inspired by a seaside bungalow the artist discovered on the C�te d�Opale in northern France and painted in a previous work on paper entitled Shelter (2018). In this composition the house is presented floating in an abstract, ethereal space, �as if its whole environment had been erased, washed away by the water.� This interpretation places the same subject within the exhibition space and in relation to the paintings, the form becoming a polysemic space that acts both as a place for withdrawal and a gateway into the world; as a shelter and as a space beset by an abundance of information. Faraway So Close speaks to the complexity of the relationships that exist between interior spaces and the outside world, between proximity and distance.

BIOGRAPHY

Tina Gillen (b. 1972, Luxembourg) has held solo exhibitions at Bozar, Brussels (2015), Mudam Luxembourg (2012), M�Museum, Leuven (2010). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at Mudam Luxembourg (2018, 2010, 2009), K�nstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2012), Mu.ZEE, Ostend (2010), Wiels, Brussels (2009), M HKA, Antwerp (2007), and Platform Garanti, Istanbul (2004). Her work has been the subject of two monographic publications, Echo (MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2016) and Necessary Journey (Hatje Cantz, 2009). She lives and works in Brussels.

THE JURY

The project Faraway So Close by Tina Gillen was selected as part of a call for applications launched by the Ministry of Culture in partnership with Mudam. The jury was composed of Suzanne Cotter (Director of Mudam from 2018 to 2021, president of the jury), Kevin Muhlen (Director of Casino Luxembourgè Forum d�art contemporain), Anke Reitz (Curator of the Steichen Collectionsè CNA, Clervaux), Dirk Snauwaert (Director of Wiels, Brussels), Lorenzo Benedetti (Curator at Kunstmuseum St.Gallen), Michelle Cotton (Head of Artistic Programmes and Content at Mudam) and Christophe Gallois (Curator, Head of Exhibitions at Mudam).

Useful information for the visit

Hours: Gardens from 10.00 to 19.00. Arsenale from 10.00 to 19.00 (from 10.00 to 20.00 on Friday and Saturday until September 30th). Closed on Mondays (except May 13, September 2, November 18).
Tickets: please visit the official website.
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