French curator Christine Macel, currently chief curator at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, has been appointed as the new director of the 57th Venice Biennale, to be held 13 May – 26 November 2017.
Following her studies in art history, Christine Macel was a curator and inspector of artistic creation in the department of visual arts of the French Ministry of Culture (from 1995). Since 2000 she has been chief curator at the Centre Pompidou, where she curated many exhibitions, including solo shows by Anri Sala (2012), Gabriel Orozco (2010), Philippe Parreno (2009) and Sophie Calle (2003). In 2013, Macel curated the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (Anri Sala) and the Belgian Pavilion for the 2007 edition (Eric Duyckaerts). She also contributes to magazines including Artforum, Flash Art, Parkett and Art Press.
She will succeeds Okwui Enwezor, whose edition All the World’s Futures closed last November. In a statement, the Biennale’s president Paolo Baratta explained that while Enwezor’s edition centred on ‘the rifts and divisions that pervade the world’, Christine Macel will emphasise ‘he important role artists play in inventing their own universes and injecting generous vitality into the world we live in’.
25 January 2016.
