La Biennale Di Venezia, German Pavilion

"The official catalog of Germany's pavilion at the Venice Biennale festival of art. The international art event La Biennale di Venezia will take place for the fifty-fifth time from June 1 through November 24, 2013. For this occasion, Germany is not only switching pavilions with France, but is also showing artowrks that focus on themes of intercultural and intellectual transference. Susanne Gaensheimer, director of Frankfurt's Museum fur Moderne Kunst, has curated a selection of work for the German pavilion by Chinese conceptual artist and regime critic Ai Weiwei, the German-French-Iranian film director and screenplay author Romault Karmakar, the South African photographic artist Santu Mofokeng, and the Indian photojournalist Dayanita Singh. These artists are continuing in the vein of Gaensheimer's transnational approach from 2011 that presented Germany as playing an active role in a complex, global structure that benefits from international exchange. Gaensheimer states: ""The artists that I invited and their work represent various themes that result from the convergence of diverse ideologies and ways of life that have a large impact on us today. It was important to me that all of them succeed in expanding our perspectives to include the points of view of the 'other'--even in ways that may be uncomfortable."" This official catalog of the German pavilion is as international as the work shown within it. It contains 14 bylined articles and detailed artist portraits as well as extensive photo features that explore Germany's contribution and its cultural and sociopolitical background. This content goes beyond the German perspective to put the featured work into the context of the current global art world. Among the authors are academics from the fields of art and cultural science, curators, journalists, philosophers, writers, artists, critics, political scientists, patrons, and igration researchers who are debating art and (intern)nationality including Geoff Dyer, Jacques mandelbaum, Santu Mofokeng, Uli Sigg, Mark Terkessidis, Ranjit Hoskote, Elke aus dem Moore, Aveek Sen, Francois Jullien, Simonj Njami, Jeff Kelley, Achille Mbembe, and Gilles Kepel. These critically sophisticated texts are put into visual form by Chris Rehberger, whose work also makes a clear contribution to their debate. "