XIV EDITION 2023 - FB
XIV EDITION 2023
I AM YOU. Individual and Collective Identities in Contemporary Art and Design
Individual and collective identities
The XIV edition of the Florence Biennale, held from 14 to 22 October 2023 at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, focused on the theme "I Am You. Individual and Collective Identities in Contemporary Art and Design" and the concepts of individual and collective identities in their multiple philosophical, psychological, sociological and cultural meanings. The artists and designers participating in the XIV Florence Biennale were invited to propose their own interpretation of these concepts in order to feed a dialogue based on mutual recognition, mutual understanding and cultural exchange, reaffirming intercultural dialogue as one of the main values of the event.
Lifetime Achievement Awards
On the occasion of the XIV Florence Biennale, the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award for Art was presented to the American photographer and filmmaker David LaChapelle in recognition of his unique style and exceptional artistic production, based on imagination, experimentation and creativity, which conveys profound social messages and whose visionary, original and courageous perspective has inspired many other artists and audiences worldwide. In the exhibition space dedicated to him in the Spadolini Pavilion, it was possible to admire a selection of photographs taken between 2009 and 2023 plus a world premiere series in collaboration with rapper Tedua.
The "Leonardo da Vinci" Lifetime Achievement Award for Design was instead awarded to Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava in recognition of his daring experimentation, his extraordinary talent and his ingenious ability to combine architecture and art in projects conceived and realised in harmony with nature and oriented towards the ideals of beauty. Calatrava had a dedicated exhibition space in the Cavaniglia Pavilion, 23 years after his last Florentine exhibition, in 2000 at Palazzo Strozzi. Some ten project models for Italy - realised and unrealised - concerning the cities of Florence, Venice, Rome, Reggio Emilia, Genoa and the port-island of Marina d'Arechi, near Salerno, were exhibited at the Florence Biennale.
Lifetime Achievement Awards from the President
On the occasion of this edition, three artists received the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award from the President, and as guests of honour they had a dedicated space in the exhibition. The first was Milanese artist, designer and sculptor Amalia Del Ponte, who presented and exhibited a new work inspired by the theme "I Am You", which compares an enlargement of her skin and the 'skin' of a tree, delicately evoking the bond between human beings and nature: "You Are Me".
The Peruvian painter and printmaker Enrique Galdos Rivas also received the same award. Born in 1933 and known as "El Mago del Color", the artist exhibited some of his best-known works and a retrospective of his work was also shown during a musical performance by his daughters Martha and Blanca Galdos.
The "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Lifetime Achievement Award from the President was also conferred to Lv Zhongyuan, a Chinese painter who integrates realism and decoration of form, tension of colour and implicitness of thought, giving his paintings a secluded and distant atmosphere full of oriental ideals and forming a personal artistic style that fuses China and the West.
Other Guests of Honour
One of the exhibition spaces of the XIV Florence Biennale inside the Spadolini Pavilion was dedicated to the International Open Call Competition, organised in collaboration with Art Market Magazine and Lens Magazine for the second edition and whose winners were Bulgarian photographer Viktoria Andreeva and French digital artist Jean-Michel Bihorel.
Other Guests of Honour - each with their own space in the exhibition - were the Russian photographer Kristina Makeeva, a refugee in Great Britain after the invasion of Ukraine in total dissent with the Putin regime, and the journalist Giammarco Sicuro who, in collaboration with Unicef, proposed "Can you smile for me? L'infanzia sperduta", an evocative photographic exhibition featuring children caught up in the war scenarios of the countries visited by the RAI reporter. Both were awarded the "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Award from the President.
Another Guest at the XIV Florence Biennale was the paper-artist Federica Ricotti, former creator of the Lupaski character for the "Corriere dei piccoli", reproposed because of a new publication, who presented unpublished strips at the Fortezza da Basso, specifically created on the theme of the edition.
Regarding design, this edition also included the presence of ADI - the Association for Industrial Design with an exhibition dedicated to design milestones: a selection of products awarded the Compasso d'Oro and ADI Index.
Special projects and other presences
On the occasion of its XIV edition, the Florence Biennale has dedicated an exhibition space to a selection of Ukrainian artists, as a sign of solidarity with a country attacked and devastated by war, with the aim of promoting the art and culture of a people who continue to defend their land against invaders and who have not lost hope of soon returning to peace. The artists involved in the "I AM UKRAINE" project include: Valentyna and Valeriia Kniazieva, mother and daughter, originally from Kiev, refugees in France since 23 March 2022, Kyrylo Bondarenko (born in Odessa), Sergey Lutsenko (born in Bila Tserkva), Nadia Lysakowska (born in Donetsk, refugee in Florence) and Stanislav Ukraintsev (resident in Odessa).
Another exhibition space was dedicated to the 'Women's Revolution' through the selection of works by Iranian artists, in moral support of the ongoing demonstrations in Iran and condemning the repressive actions against the people. The "I AM MAHSA" space was named after Mahsa Amini, whose death has become a symbol of the Iranian popular revolution, whose motto is 'Women, Life, Freedom' and which has spread throughout the world.
The project involved more than 20 Iranian artists exhibiting more than 30 works and was developed in cooperation with the ME Art Group, the International Centre for Peace Among Peoples and the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation. The artists involved included Elham Angell, Partin Bastan, Hanieh Eshtehardi, Marjan Jafari, Mehrdad Sedaghat Baghdani, Maryam Sedighi Jafari, Alaleh Shakouri, Azade Shirmast, Nobahar Sogand and Samaneh Vahabi. The other artists who participated in the project had to remain anonymous for their own safety and that of their families.
Also among the special projects was the presence of three day centers for the disabled in Tuscany (l'Abbraccio, l'Aquilone and l'Arcolaio), which exhibited works on the theme of the edition in a dedicated space.
Among the artists' collectives, the XIV Florence Biennale included the participation of the Maori project "Tāhū - A Legacy of People and Place" and the group from the Argentinean school founded by master Ricardo Juárez.
Among the performances, visitors of the XIV Florence Biennale were able to see that of the Karakorum group (contemporary dance), Lynn Guo and Viola Panik on the theme of body shaming, and that of the artist/composer Sergio Maltagliati combining visual and sound arts. From the collaboration between Florence Biennale, FERCAM and Street Levels Gallery was also born the project "CR(E)ATE - CRATES BECOME ART", with the idea of transforming some crates, previously used for transporting works of art of important museum institutions, into real artworks, born under the eyes of the visitors of the XIV Florence Biennale thanks to the street artists involved.
Another exhibition space was dedicated to the art competition inspired by the theme "Living for Justice: passion, commitment and sacrifice", which involved the fourth and fifth grade classes of the Liceo Artistico P. Petrocchi of Pistoia, G. Sismondi - A. Pacinotti and Liceo Artistico B. Berlinghieri of Pescia, born from a collaboration between Florence Biennale and the Court of Pistoia, the National Association of Magistrates, subsection of Pistoia and the Lawyers' Group at the Library of the Court of Pistoia. The first five classified works were exhibited in a space dedicated to the project on the occasion of the XIV edition.
The Cavaniglia Pavilion
In the Cavaniglia Pavilion, various artists and designers had space alongside Santiago Calatrava's models. These included Czili, Aleksandra Piasecka and Marco Olivier, winner of the first "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Award for sculpture and whose works also found a place in the outdoor spaces of the Fortezza da Basso.
The same pavilion also hosted the 9999 group, born in Florence in the second half of the 1960s and formed by exponents of radical architecture, authors of revolutionary projects such as the Space electronic disco and the first projection of images on Ponte Vecchio in 1968.
Other notable presences were those of Raymundo Sesma, a Mexican multidisciplinary artist whose model of the architectural project for the Municipality of Peccioli was exhibited, and the young multimedia artist and designer Davide Stitz (Ophir Studio), with a multisensory installation realised in collaboration with the Saudi architect Rawan M. Alderjem: "The Unbearable Lightness".
Also in the Cavaniglia Pavilion, a space was dedicated to Arch. Dorota Szlachich, a well-known Polish designer who gave a lecture relating her projects to the theme of the XIV Florence Biennale.
The museology conference and other talks
During its XIV edition, the Florence Biennale hosted the conference "La museologia del presente. Musei inclusivi e sostenibili si diventa", curated by Domenico Piraina (Director of the Royal Palace of Milan) and Maurizio Vanni (museologist, University of Pisa and Superintendency of Lucca and Massa Carrara, and also moderator), in which some of the most qualified national and international professionals with interdisciplinary expertise took part.
Among the scheduled talks, those by Gregorio Luke (member of the International Jury) dedicated to Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and the speech by Giulio Rapetti (aka Mogol) on the relationship between music and poetry were outstanding.
The winners' exhibition
At the end of the event, as in 2021, an exhibition of the winning works was also held. I Am You - Exhibition of the winners of the XIV Florence Biennale was held from 11 to 28 January 2024 in the Exhibition Hall of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. On this occasion, the works that won the first "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Award for each of the 12 competition categories were exhibited, in addition to the winners of the International Open Call Competition and the work awarded by the public of the XIV Florence Biennale, in collaboration with Scan.art.
Patronages
European Parliament
Italian National Commission for UNESCO
Ministry of Culture
Tuscany Region
Municipality of Florence
United States Consulate General in Florence
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