14th Florence Biennale: international exhibition of contemporary art and design in October. The previews

From October 14 to 22, 2023, the 14th Florence Biennale will be held at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence. International Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Design, but the event is already shaping up. The theme will be I Am You. Individual and Collective Identities in Contemporary Art and Design: the XIV Florence Biennale will thus focus on the concepts of individual and collective identities, in their multiple philosophical, psychological, sociological and cultural meanings. The final program is being finalized, but there are already anticipations regarding the prizes and special projects that will characterize the 2023 edition of the exhibition that will occupy the spaces of the Spadolini Pavilion and the Cavaniglia Pavilion at the Fortezza da Basso.

Lifetime Achievement Awards

As previously announced, American photographer David LaChapelle and Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava will be the recipients, respectively, of the “Lorenzo il Magnifico Award” and the “Leonardo da Vinci Award,” both for lifetime achievement. LaChapelle will be honored on Oct. 17, and for the occasion in the exhibition space dedicated to him it will be possible to admire a selection of photographs taken between 2009 and 2023 as well as a world premiere series in collaboration with the famous rapper Tedua, who will also be present at the award ceremony. Calatrava, who will be honored on Thursday, Oct. 19, will exhibit in the Cavaniglia pavilion a dozen models of projects for Italy - realized and unrealized - concerning the cities of Florence, Venice, Rome, Reggio Emilia, Genoa and the port-island of Marina d’Arechi, near Salerno.

President’s Awards.

A very large group of artists and designers are the guests of honor at the 14th Florence Biennale who will have a dedicated space in the exhibition. Two of them will receive the President’s “Lorenzo il Magnifico Award” for lifetime achievement. The first is Milanese artist, designer and sculptor Amalia Del Ponte, who will present a new themed work created especially for this edition. The second is Peruvian painter and engraver Enrique Galdos Rivas, born in 1933 and known as “El Mago del Color,” who will exhibit some of his best-known works and to whom a musical performance will also be dedicated, with the participation of his daughters Martha and Blanca Galdos. Also, Natalia Almada, great-granddaughter of Mexican President Elìas Calles, awarded at the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City (USA) for the direction of the documentary Users (focused on the relationship between people and technology) unpublished in Italy. Finally, the “Memorial Award” and memorial space, dedicated to Argentine photographer and architect Raquel Bigio, who had participated in the 13th Florence Biennale in 2021 and passed away last year, are worth mentioning.

Guests of honor

Other guests of honor, each with their own space in the exhibition, will be Russian photographer Kristina Makeeva, a refugee in Britain after the invasion of Ukraine in total dissent with the Putin regime; RAI reporter Gianmarco Sicuro who, in collaboration with Unicef, will offer Can you smile for me? Lost Childhood, a photographic exhibition whose subject is children caught up in war scenarios; Chinese artist Lv Zhong Yuan, who will offer abstract works, including one dedicated to the theme of the exhibition; paper-artist Federica Ricotti, former creator of the character of Lupaski for the Corriere dei piccoli, repurposed for a new publication that will appear by the end of this year, who at the Fortezza da Basso will present unpublished strips, created specifically on the main theme of the XIV Florence Biennale.

Special Projects

Among this edition’s special projects is I Am Ukraine, featuring a dozen artists from Ukraine, including a pair of female painters, mother and daughter, who fled the war-torn country and will be showing both physical and digital works at the Fortezza da Basso.

Another special project is titled I Am Mahsa dedicated to Mahsa Amini, whose death sparked protests against the repression perpetrated by the regime in Iran. In this space, the public will find a wider selection of works created by artists (mostly women) almost all of whom reside in Iran; among the sculptures is one that depicts a girl in the act of stretching her veil over her face until it is almost torn off; also not to be missed is a collection of jewelry by Sogand Nobahar, MyCity Bloody Tehran, inspired by the architecture of the Iranian capital, but appearing bloodied to remind us of the violence of the repressions still ongoing.

Other presences

The 14th Florence Biennale will also offer other spaces dedicated to guests of honor: two of them (Bulgarian photographer Viktoria Andreeva and French digital artist Jean-Michel Bihorel) will be the prerogative of the winners of the International Open Call Competition organized in collaboration with Art Market Magazine and Lens Magazine.

Also of note are the participation of a collective of ten Maori artists (project Tāhū - A Legacy of People and Place), an Australian Aboriginal artist, a collective of Argentinian artists led by master Ricardo Juarez, performances by U.S. dance companies directed by Sandra Parks (Women in Dance) and Donterreo Culp, a performance combining visual and sound arts byartist/composer Sergio Maltagliati, and a talk by renowned author Giulio Rapetti (aka Mogol), who will give a talk on music and poetry.

International Jury

Also already decided is the composition of the International Jury of the 14th Florence Biennale, which will consist of Dominique Baechler, Pasquale Celona, Maria Teresa Constantin, Perla Gianni Falvo, Gregorio Luke, Paolo Naldini, Mario Pachioli, Paolo Penko, Regina Schrecker, Maurizio Vanni and Han Yuchen.

Image: Jean-Michel Bihorel, Sedimental Memories.

14th Florence Biennale: international exhibition of contemporary art and design in October. The previews

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