Venice Biennale 2024 | Kapwani Kiwanga will represent Canada

Multidisciplinary artist Kapwani Kiwanga will represent Canada at the 60^e international art exhibition during the next Venice Biennale in 2024. The news was announced this Thursday by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC).

The Hamilton-born artist – of Tanzanian descent – ​​is well known for her installations, videos, sculptures and performances. She had won the Sobey Prize for the Arts in 2018.

Kapwani Kawanga was chosen by a panel of contemporary Canadian art experts, including Daisy Desrosiers, Director and Curator of Gund Gallery, Kenyon College; Heather Igliorte, Concordia University Research Chair; or Adeline Vlas, Director of Museum Affairs, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.

The co-chairs of the Artist Selection Committee, Michelle LaVallee, Director, Indigenous Pathways and Decolonization Department at the NGC, and Jonathan Shaughnessy, Director of Curatorial Initiatives, praised “Kiwanga’s interdisciplinary approach to artistic creation.” “The treatment of space for Kiwanga is an artistic gesture,” they wrote in a statement.

Canada Pavilion curator Gaëtane Verna, executive director of the Wexner Center for the Arts, said in a statement that “Kapwani Kiwanga delves into the world’s archives and conducts in-depth research, which is elegantly integrated to his works of art. She is also interested in the role of art as a catalyst for revealing and addressing the divergent and often muzzled marginalized socio-political narratives that are part of our shared histories. »

In 2022, the Canada Pavilion, located in the Giardini in Venice, presented the works of Stan Douglas.