Cecilia Alemani, Curator of New York’s High Line Art, Will Be Artistic Director of the 2021 Venice Biennale

Curator Cecilia Alemani will serve as artistic director of the
59th edition of the prestigious Venice Biennale. Alemani,
who will become the fifth woman ever to helm the international
exhibition, is the junior director and chief curator of High Line Art, the public art program at
New York City’s High Line, an elevated railroad turned popular
park.

“It is a great honor to be able to take on this role in one of
the most prestigious and recognized Italian institutions in the
world,” said Alemani in a statement. “As the
first Italian woman to hold this position, I understand and
appreciate the responsibility and also the opportunity offered to
me and I intend to give voice to artists to create unique projects
that reflect their visions and our society.”

Alemani previously curated Italy’s national
pavilion at the 2017 edition of the biennale with a critically
acclaimed exhibition of site-specific
work by Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Adelita Husni-Bey, and Roberto
Cuoghi.

“I am sure that her new project will be equally courageous and
innovative,” Paolo Baratta, chair of the biennale’s board of
directors, told the Italian news outlet Ag Cult.

Alemani follows in the footsteps of her husband, Massimiliano
Gioni, who curated the 55th biennale in 2013. The most recent
edition, in 2019, was helmed by Ralph Rugoff, the
American-born director of London’s Hayward Gallery, who offered
a grim outlook on the
planet’s future in “May You Live In Interesting
Times.”

At the High Line, Alemani has organized exhibitions of artists
including El Anatsui, John Baldessari, Rashid Johnson, Barbara
Kruger, and Ed Ruscha. Particularly memorable installations include
a timely presentation of Zoe Leonard’s I want a
president (1992) ahead of the 2016
election, and Tony Matelli’s creepy half-nude man Sleepwalker
(2014).

In 2019, as the High Line opened its
final section, Alemani launched the highly
anticipated High Line Plinth, a
permanent space for monumental artwork, with a sculpture by the
artist Simone Leigh.

Alemani also served as curator of
Frieze Projects at the Frieze Art Fair in New York from 2012 to
2017, the artistic director for
the Art Basel Cities program in Buenos Aires in
2018, and the guest curator of Performa 11 in New York in 2011. Working as
an independent curator, she organized exhibitions at numerous
international venues, notably the No Soul for Sale—A Festival
of Independents art “convention” at the Tate Modern in
2010.

The post Cecilia Alemani, Curator of New York’s High Line
Art, Will Be Artistic Director of the 2021 Venice Biennale
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