The project “You are another me– A Cathedral of the Body”, proposed by Adina Pintilie, was extremely well received by the international press, being included in the ranking of the most appreciated participation in the Venice Art Biennale this year.

The Venice Art Biennale is an international cultural event that takes place every two years in several locations in the “lagoon city”. Founded in 1895, at the initiative of a group of Venetian intellectuals, the Venice Biennale is one of the oldest and most prestigious artistic manifestations of its kind.

This year’s edition opened on April 23 and will last until November 27. The international exhibition is held at the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and in the Arsenal. 213 artists from 58 countries are included, 180 of them participating in the international exhibition for the first time. Also, this year the Biennale includes 80 national participations in the Central Pavilion, in the arsenal, and also in the city. The states that participate for the first time in the cultural event, during the 59th edition, are Cameroon, Namibia, Nepal, Oman, and Uganda. Moreover, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan have, as of this year, separate pavilions.

The Romanian Pavilion is represented by Adina Pintilie’s project, “You are another me– A cathedral of the body”, curated by Cosmin Costinaş and Viktor Neumann. The audio-visual installation proposed by Adina Pintilie, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin with the film “Touch me not” (2018), follows the relationships of three couples: their relationships with their bodies, but also with those of their partners. The exhibition also extends to the New Gallery of the Romanian Institute of Culture and Humanistic Research in Venice, with a VR (virtual reality) installation, offering the public a multimedia sensory experience.

The project “You are another me – A cathedral of the body” was chosen following the national contest organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Romanian Cultural Institute. According to the jury, Adina Pintilie’s project was selected due to “the aesthetic impact of the video installations enhanced by the immersiveness of the exhibition space, which deconstructs the unidirectional cinematic gaze”, but also due to “the actuality of the theme, the rigor of the curatorial concept and the intersectional approach of the proposed subject”. According to Adina’s vision, art is used as “a tool to open a space where the idea of a more inclusive community can materialize”, thus capturing the intimacy of the body through visuality.

The project “You are another me– A cathedral of the body”, was extremely well received by the international press, being included in the ranking of the most appreciated participation in the Venice Art Biennale this year. The Art Newspaper publication included the Romanian Pavilion at the top of the seven exhibitions worth visiting at the Biennale. “Follow the facility for its entire duration and you will find it captivating: a visceral and unsettling experience that will stay with you for the rest of the Biennale,” advises Aimee Dawson, the magazine’s editor, to the public.

Together with Adina Pintilie, two other Romanian artists are included this year in the central exhibition: Alexandra Pirici – who also participated in the Biennale during the 2013 edition alongside Manuel Pelmuş – and Andra Ursuța, who practices sculpture, and currently operates in New York. At the same time, at the Palazzo Loredan, the headquarters of one of the most important cultural institutions in Venice: The Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, the project “Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from the Seraglio and Roma Women: Performative Strategies of Resistance”, curated by Ilina Schileru, is exhibited.

This year, Cecilia Alemani (b. 1977, Milan, Italy) was chosen as the curator of the entire Venice Biennale, the title she chose for the event is “The Milk of Dreams”. The name is inspired by Leonora Carrington’s book, which bears the same title. The surrealist writer describes in her work a magical world, in which life is constantly reinvented through the prism of imagination – an idea from which the curatorial concept also starts. Starting from the otherworldly beings described by Leonora Carrington in her book, the theme of the 2022 edition of the Venice Biennale focuses on three main topics: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses, the relationship between humans and technology, and the connection between the body and the Earth.

Cecilia Alemani is active in cultural life internationally, having been the curator of High Line Art since 2011, the public art program in the New York City park, built on a suspended railway. Also in 2018, he curated, in collaboration with the city of Buenos Aires and Art Basel Cities, “Rayuela/Hopscotch”, a public art exhibition dedicated to the Argentine cultural eco-system. In 2017, the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was called “Il Mondo Magico” (The Magical World) and was also curated by Cecilia Alemani. The exhibition then proposed a return to the imaginary and the fantastic as a means of experiencing the richness and multiplicity of the world.

Cover photo: Thomas Adank (Wallpaper.com)