The 55th International Art Exhibition entitled Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), curated by Massimiliano Gioni and organized by la Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta, will open to the public from Saturday, June 1 to Sunday, November 24, 2013 at the Giardini and at the Arsenale. Between June 1^st and November 24^th over 300,000 visitors will travel to Venice for the expansive installations of exhibitions of work from artists in 88 nations, at both official and fringe sites.

The central pavilion includes the work of more than 150 artists from 37 countries, including the original manuscript of Carl Gustav Jung’s The Red Book, the paintings of Hilma af Klint,  video work by Steve McQueen and a smaller show within the main pavilion, curated by Cindy Sherman.

photo hotelplazavenice.com

Here is some information on several pavilions:

Finland (Pavilion Alvar Aalto) Falling Trees

Antti Laintinen

Antti felled down five birch trees in his home town Somerniemi, chopped them up and transported them to Giardini. The next step in the process of the work entitled Tree Reconstruction is the laborious putting together of the puzzle consisting of more than five cubic meters of logs in front of the Finnish pavilion.

Antti’s birch trees will successively find their new shape under the Italian sky, the trees inside the Nordic Pavilion are adapting themselves to a new rhythm. Terike has turned the days into nights and the nights into days. The trees inside the pavilion will get light only during the nights when the exhibition is closed. For this purpose numerous UV lights had to be to be installed into the ceiling.

photo www.frame-finland.fi

Norway, Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation

artists Edvard Munch, Lene Berg

The exhibition includes a series of rarely exhibited works by Edvard Munch in addition to a newly commissioned film by Lene Berg, Ung Løs Gris (Dirty Young Loose, 2013), and revolves around emancipation as an issue always vexed with contradiction – between the realm of freedom and the consequences of the isolation that often accompany the pursue of a qualitatively different, ‘alternative’ life.

Edvard Munch
photo myartguides.com

England, English Magic

artist Jeremy Deller

English Magic addresses events from the past, present and an imagined future. Deller frames these instances in a way that is contemporary but also true to the original subject, weaving a narrative that is almost psychedelic; hovering delicately between fact and fiction, real and imagined.

http://youtu.be/B3FfRNrmfKI

Croatia, Between the Sky and the Earth

artist Kata Mijatovic

Kata Mijatovic’s art comes to life in the remembering, archiving, and recreating of dreams, both her own ones and other people’s, ranging from texts and interactive forms, public actions, installations, publishing and performances, to the artistic climax of showing them in a single work uniting projection and performance, which literally visualizes the duality of separated worlds.

Croatia
photo myartguides.com

Bosnia Herzegovina, The Garden of Delights

Artist : Mladen Miljanovic

The Garden of Delights, a solo exhibition of new works by the artist, speaks about the idea of unbridled human desires and individual truths as the collective absurd of social reality, taking inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch’s famous Renaissance triptych Tuin der Lusten (The Garden of Earthly Delights).

Bosnia Herzegovina
photo myartguides.com

Uruguay, Time (Time) Time

artist Wifredo Díaz Valdéz

The artist creates unusual wooden sculptures out of imaginatively deconstructed everyday objects. He constructs artworks by disassembling furniture, tools, and all sorts of everyday utensils to be found in rural Uruguay. This dismantling is not about destruction, but rather the creation of something entirely new.

Uruguay
photo myartguides.com

Azerbaijan, Ornamentation

Artists: Rashad Alakbarov, Sanan Aleskerov, Chingiz Babayev, Butunay Hagverdiyey, Fakhriyya Mammadova, Farid Rasulov.

The concept of the exhibition, proposed by the curator Hervé Mikaeloff is to show the great importance of tradition and rich ornamental culture of Azerbaijan, with its roots dating back to the thick of the centuries and today continuing its life in the works of modern art.

Six artists interpret their country great ornamental legacy by using different mediums and perspectives.

Azerbaijan
photo myartguides.com

Here is a clip of the making of the Venice Biennale:

http://youtu.be/FPRXrO88Fmw

via labienalle.org, venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org, myartguides.com