OUR ARTIS­TIC TEAM FOR VENICE 2019

The Aus­tralia Coun­cil is delight­ed to announce that Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti and Juliana Eng­berg have been select­ed as the artist and cura­tor for Australia’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the 58^th Inter­na­tion­al Art Exhi­bi­tion, Venice Bien­nale 2019. Fol­low­ing an open call for expres­sions of inter­est, the artis­tic team were select­ed by an inde­pen­dent pan­el of high­ly respect­ed arts pro­fes­sion­als. Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti is one of Australia’s most cel­e­brat­ed con­tem­po­rary artists work­ing across video, per­for­mance and instal­la­tion. Since her ear­ly work with per­for­mance col­lec­tive The King Pins, Angel­i­ca has devel­oped a sophis­ti­cat­ed solo prac­tice char­ac­terised by large-scale video works. She is known for using cin­e­mat­ic lan­guages and per­for­mance to explore deeply per­son­al sto­ries of the indi­vid­ual and the col­lec­tive, grap­pling with the com­plex dimen­sions of human expe­ri­ence. Angelica’s Venice exhi­bi­tion will be curat­ed by Juliana Eng­berg. Juliana is a cura­tor with an extra­or­di­nary depth of expe­ri­ence and a glob­al rep­u­ta­tion, with over 500 exhi­bi­tions curat­ed to date. Juliana has curat­ed crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed exhi­bi­tions in Aus­tralia and inter­na­tion­al­ly, includ­ing through her roles as Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art, the Bien­nale of Syd­ney and the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al. She has been Cura­tor of the Visu­al Arts Pro­grams for the Edin­burgh, Mel­bourne and Ade­laide Fes­ti­vals. Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti Biography Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti was born in Syd­ney in 1976. She lives and works between Paris and Syd­ney. She was a mem­ber of the per­for­mance col­lec­tive The King­pins from 2000 to 2010 with whom she per­formed and exhib­it­ed in inter­na­tion­al bien­nales and muse­um shows includ­ing Gwangju, Taipei (2004) and Liv­er­pool (2006) bien­nales, NuitBlanche Paris and NotreHis­toire, Palais de Tokyo Paris (2006), and Play­back, Musée d’Art Mod­erne de la Ville de Paris (2007). In 2009 Rap­ture (silent anthem) was the first video to win the 58^th Blake prize for reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al art. Her work Cit­i­zens Band won the Anne Lan­da Award for Video and New Media Art in 2013 and has since been exhib­it­ed world­wide in bien­nales includ­ing Istan­bul, Shar­jah, Kochi-Mizuris, Auck­land, Aichi and solo pre­sen­ta­tions at MAXXI Rome, Musée d’Art Con­tem­po­rain de Mon­tréal, Williams Col­lege Muse­um of Art Mass­a­chu­setts, Niko­laj Kun­sthal Copen­hagen and Palais de Tokyo Paris. In 2013 she was the inau­gur­al recip­i­ent of the Ian Pot­ter Mov­ing Image Com­mis­sion, pro­duc­ing The Call­ing which has been shown at the Banff Cen­tre, Basis Frank­furt and the Nation­al Gallery of Aus­tralia. Also that year Juliana Eng­berg com­mis­sioned her to pro­duce a new work for the 19^th Bien­nale of Syd­ney, The Ear of the Tyrant. Oth­er major works include The Colour of Say­ing (2015), Relay League (2016); and Moth­er Tongue (2017). Mesiti’s work is held in nation­al and inter­na­tion­al col­lec­tions includ­ing Nation­al Gallery of Aus­tralia, Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art Syd­ney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of West­ern Aus­tralia, Queens­land Art Gallery |GOMA, Monash Uni­ver­si­ty Muse­um of Art, FRAC Franche Compte France, Kadist Art Foun­da­tion San Fran­cis­co, Deutsche Bank and Art Bank. Image cred­it: Josh Ray­mond Juliana Eng­berg Biography Juliana Eng­berg is a cura­tor, writer, edi­tor and design­er. She is cur­rent­ly the Pro­gramme Direc­tor of the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture Aarhus 2017 in Den­mark. She is the imme­di­ate past Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Aus­tralian Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art. She was the Artis­tic Direc­tor of the 2014 Bien­nale of Syd­ney: You Imag­ine What You Desire and Artis­tic Direc­tor of the 1999 Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al: Signs of Life and 1998 Ade­laide Bien­ni­al: All This and Heav­en Too (with Ewen McDon­ald). In addi­tion­al to Bien­nale work she has also been the cura­tor of visu­al art projects for the major inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­vals: Mel­bourne, Edin­burgh and Ade­laide. She was cura­to­r­i­al advi­sor for the Aus­tralian pre­sen­ta­tions at the Venice Bien­nale 2007 and with cura­tor, Char­lotte Day, pre­sent­ed the ACCA Venice Pop-Up Projects at the Venice Bien­nale in 2011. Juliana has held teach­ing posi­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne and RMIT Uni­ver­si­ty. She is a Pro­fes­so­r­i­al Fel­low at Monash Uni­ver­si­ty and an adjunct pro­fes­sor of RMIT in the Fac­ul­ty of Archi­tec­ture and Urban Design. Image cred­it: Kay Camp­bell Artis­tic Selec­tion Process An open call for artis­tic pro­pos­als was extend­ed in Octo­ber 2017, enabling all Aus­tralian artists and cura­tors who met the pub­lished cri­te­ria to sub­mit an EOI as part of a two stage process. The artis­tic team was select­ed by an inde­pen­dent Venice Selec­tion Pan­el, made up of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al mem­bers with exper­tise across the visu­al arts. This rig­or­ous peer assess­ment process respond­ed to pub­lished cri­te­ria, which includ­ed con­cept, pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ment, via­bil­i­ty and impact. The Aus­tralia Coun­cil wish­es to recog­nise and con­grat­u­late all the short­list­ed teams who par­tic­i­pat­ed in this high­ly com­pet­i­tive process, includ­ing; Abdul Abdul­lah and Abdul-Rah­man Abdul­lah, with cura­tors Michael Dagosti­no and Dr. Mikala Tai Richard Bell, with cura­tor Clothilde Bullen Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, with cura­tors Susan Best and Ann Stephen Joyce Hin­ter­d­ing and David Haines, with cura­tor Anna Davis Pro­fes­sor Mor­ton said that Mesiti’s pro­pos­al was high­ly regard­ed by the selec­tion pan­el and that they were look­ing for­ward to see­ing the project realised in the Aus­tralian pavil­ion. Arti­cle link: here