Venice Biennale 2019 Names Ralph Rugoff Artistic Director
The director of the Hayward Gallery, London, will serve as artistic director of the biennial event’s 58th edition, due to run 11 May-24 November 2019
While more details on his curatorial remit are yet to emerge, Rugoff has been selected to lead the next edition of the Venice Biennale. “The appointment of Ralph Rugoff confirms the Biennale’s primary goal, to qualify the exhibition as a place of encounter between the visitors, the art, and the artists,” said Biennale president Paolo Baratta in a statement. “An exhibition engaging the viewers directly with the artworks in such a way that memory, the unexpected, the possible provocation, the new and the different can stimulate their visions, their minds and their emotions, and offer them the opportunity for a direct experience.”
Rutgoff, who curated exhibitions such Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957-2012 in 2012, and The Human Factor: the Figure in Contemporary Sculpture in 2014, as well as solo exhibitions featuring artists such as Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller, Carsten Höller and Tracey Emin during his time at Hayward Gallery, has previous experience leading larger institutional events including curating the 13th Lyon Biennale and within his post as director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco. “The Venice Biennale is the oldest and most prestigious exhibition of its kind internationally and I am really looking forward to taking on this new challenge alongside next year’s momentous reopening of the Hayward Gallery and upcoming exhibition programme,” Rugoff said in a statement following the appointment.
The 57th Venice Biennale, titled Viva Arte Viva, ran until 26 November 2017 and was curated by Christine Macel, chief curator at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. See our coverage here.