Art from Asia at the Venice Biennale (1950s–1960s): Before the Infrastructural Turn

The history of the Global South at the Venice Biennale is yet to be  written. Drawing on a large archival project on the presence of more than thirty countries from the above region of the world at this  biennale in postwar Europe, the talk will analyse the first national  participations of Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines in the context of pre-existing cultural exchanges and global politics dynamics occurring during the 1950s and 1960s. How did these Asian countries, institutions and artists represent themselves? How was art from Asia received? Given that the biennale operated as a market during the above decades, was art from the above countries commercially successful? By rethinking the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion that have dominated debates on the Venice Biennale in relation to artistic presences outside the Euro-American universe, the talk will offer novel understandings of the history of the art world and its current trends.

Manuela Ciotti is Professor of the Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Global South at the University of Vienna, where she leads the research team Sedimented visions. She is also the Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project The anthropology of the future: an art  world perspective (ANTHROFUTURE, https://www.anthrofuture.com). Her work has been published in leading journals such as The Journal of Asian Studies, Third World Quarterly, Journal of Material Culture, and Third Text among others.

Image: Palazzo Centrale, '27th International Art Biennal Exhibition 1954'. Source: Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee (ASAC)