ArtReview Magazine

ArtReview’s April features cover artist Julien Creuzet, who, in challenging Venice Biennale’s defining principles, launched his project for the French Pavilion in Martinique. The issue also explores the work of Swiss artist and provocateur Christoph Büchel (in 2015, he turned a tenth-century abbey in Venice into a mosque, which was subsequently shuttered by the city’s authorities) and Koo Jeong A, who is representing South Korea at the Venice Biennale and is known for their site-specific architectural spaces that centre the ephemeral, including elements like smell and sound. On the occasion of the Venice Biennale’s 60th anniversary, ArtReview looks back on its historical coverage of event; meanwhile, J.J. Charlesworth questions what’s next for the contemporary art biennial, now that the era of neoliberal globalisation that shaped it starts to unravel.

Also in this issue: an interview with philosopher Paul B. Preciado, about the making of his new feature film Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same title; art-historian and curator Manuel Borja-Villel asks whether it’s possible to decolonise a biennial; Deepa Bhasthi looks at how, in India, true-crime documentaries are deployed to reinforce patriarchal fantasies; Cassie Packard considers art’s role in creating and recycling e-waste; and Adam Thirlwell asks what aesthetic strategies can make sense of an unstable present. Plus, exhibition and book reviews from around the world.