At the heart of the 56th Biennale di Venezia is a consideration
of the state of things

Art & Deal International Correspondent

Okwui Enwezor, director of the Biennale and curator of the international exhibition, organized a show that pushes his audience to ponder the occasionally tenuous relationship between art and social realities. Constellating, or rather reaffirming the connection between, the contemporary global condition and a recent history that spans a century of catastrophe, Enwezor asks us to evaluate the ways in which our conceptualizations and methodologies of humanity breed the tempest of perils and ills that we collectively refer to as the present. In non-academic jargon, the curator asks us to consider how the way we live, and even how we understand what it means to live, is the root of all problems that afflict the contemporary age. What his exhibition asks us to do is to look at contemporary art, the meaningful and discourse-laden objects of the
present, and see the problems of our existence. Acclaimed by The Art Newspaper as one of the best exhibitions within All the World’s Futures, Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale, realizes Enwezor’s vision in an unmistakably optimistic way.