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08.05.2023 #visual arts

Andrea Mancini & Every Island's "A Comparative Dialogue Act" project selected for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024  

© Andrea Mancini & Every Island

The jury of the call for applications for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art 2024 met for a second round on Tuesday 25 April. Among the four finalists, it selected the project A Comparative Dialogue Act by Andrea Mancini & Every Island.

On 23 January 2023, Kultur | lx, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Mudam Luxembourg, launched a call for applications for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art 2024 and received twenty-two applications.

Following a first round on 8 March 2023, the jury composed of Adam Budak (Director, Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover), Michelle Cotton (Head of the Artistic Programming and Content Department, Mudam Luxembourg), Hélène Doub (Head of the Visual Arts Department, Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg), Hélène Guénin (Director, MAMAC | Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain de Nice), Stilbé Schroeder (Curator, Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain), Bettina Steinbrügge (Director, Mudam Luxembourg, President of the Jury), Joel Valabrega (Curator of Performance and Moving Image, Mudam Luxembourg) has selected four proposals for the second round.

 

The jury’s statement
The jury unanimously chose the proposal of Andrea Mancini and Every Island, which it considered the most contemporary and unique proposal in terms of form and content. The collective won over the judges with its concept of the Luxembourg Pavilion as a site of artistic production. Entitled A Comparative Dialogue Act, the project takes the form of an open laboratory in which the collective initiates research processes and invites other collaborators to jointly develop a collage-style soundscape throughout duration of the Biennale, encompassing everything from experimental sounds and melodic structures to the spoken word. The collective will invite a young generation of sound artists and body performers whose practices speak to the many shapes performance can take, to further develop and respond to the installation on site in a production studio integrated into the pavilion’s architecture.

It is an exceptionally generous project; representative of the current efforts being led towards collectively developing narratives and allowing the public to acquire fundamental insights into artistic processes. It will see the group take on an experimental approach to creating a programme for the Biennale. A Comparative Dialogue Act can only exist as each part and intervention responds to what came before and after, thereby creating a cohesive and organic whole that will evolve and expand throughout the duration of the exhibition. Within a clear, carefully constructed and open display, it will offer an exciting synthesis of production and reception.

The project speaks to the engagement of a country that is constantly in flux and open to change. Similarly, the composition of the collective is representative of the great diversity and linguistic variety characteristic of Luxembourg.

 

The selected team
The winning team consists of Andrea Mancini and Every Island.
The pavilion is to be curated by Joel Valabrega.

Andrea Mancini (b. 1989) is a luxembourgish artist and musician based in Brussels. His practice is multidisciplinary and investigating the interrelation of space, subject and sound through installation, video and performance by using confrontations in the intangible materiality of sound. Andrea’s work is also using codes from the club-culture, a scene in which he’s been emerging in the past years. Some of his recent projects have been Minerals (audiovisual installation & performance, Rotondes), Matter of Deep Dreaming (audiovisual installation & performance, Casino Luxembourg) & New Age Landscape (sound and video installations, Casino Display residency).

Every Island is a design collective formed in 2021 by Alessandro Cugola, Caterina Malavolti, Damir Draganić, Juliane Seehawer, Martina Genovesi, based in Brussels. The collective investigates performativity in space through ephemeral architectures and installations. Using ambiguity as a design tool, space is conceived as a scenography for transitions, of roles, of stages and of meanings. Every Island has among others carried out the following projects: Maintenance as an act of Care (Residence in Off the grid- Casco, Leuven) Off-Temple (Santarcangelo Festival), Scenography for a party (MUDAM, Luxembourg), Welcome: a ceremony (Stam Europa, Brussels)

Joel Valabrega (b. 1991) is Curator of Performance and Moving Image at Mudam Luxembourg. She holds a master’s degree in Architecture (Politecnico di Milano and IUAV of Venice). She has worked within the institutional context (Hangar Bicocca, Triennale Milano, V-A-C Foundation and Mudam Luxembourg) as well as in independent spaces. Together with Davide Giannella, Giovanna Silva and Delfino Sisto Legnani she is responsible for programming MEGA, a Milanese project space. She has previously worked as visiting curator at the V-A-C Foundation in Moscow & Venice (2018-2019). She has curated exhibitions, performances and major new commissions with artists including Monira Al Qadiri, Tarek Atoui, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Cecilia Bengolea, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, Joanna Dudley, William Engelen, Lara Favaretto, Nicholas Grafia and Mikolaj Sobczak, Trajal Harrell, Yasmine Hugonnet, Christian Jankowski, Jacopo Jenna, M¥SS KETA, Ligia Lewis, Taus Makhacheva, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Gianni Pettena, Alessandro di Pietro, Éliane Radigue, James Richards, Michele Rizzo, Mika Rottenberg, Vasya Run, Sam Stewart, Strasse, Nora Turato, Guan Xiao and ∞OS. Her curatorial practice is carried out alongside research and collaboration with art magazines.

 

The International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Established in 1893, the International Exhibition of Contemporary Art – La Biennale di Venezia is one of the oldest and most important international platforms for contemporary art. In addition to the main exhibitions organised by curators, some 90 countries participate in the Biennale with national contributions.

Appointed in December 2022 by the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, the Brazilian curator and current artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP, Adriano Pedrosa, will be the General Curator of the 2024 Arte Biennale.

The president of the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, Roberto Cicutto, envisages the next edition of the event not as ‘a catalogue of the existing, but [as an event that] gives form to the contradictions, dialogues and kinships without which art would remain an enclave devoid of vital sap’.

The 60th International Exhibition of Contemporary Art – La Biennale di Venezia will be held from 20 April to 24 November 2024.