LYON.- The Biennale de Lyon announceds the opening of the 16th edition of its Contemporary Art Biennale, under the title manifesto of fragility. The Biennale exhibitions are curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, Directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery for contemporary Art in Berlin, and Curators of the French Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Originally planned for 2021 and postponed until this year due to the ongoing pandemic, the Biennale opens after two and a half years of extensive research and preparation with 40 diverse institutional partners in Lyon, and abroad. The exhibitions will be on view at 12 venues in Lyon, including several of the city’s museums, as well as abandoned sites such as the former Fagor Factory of 29.000 sqm in size, and the building of the former Guimet Museum, now opening again to the public after 15 years.

In total, 202 artists from over 40 countries, with works spanning two millenia, are participating in manifesto of fragility. The exhibitions include 66 new commissions, as well as many site-specific and large-scale immersive installations that directly engage with the architecture and history of their respective location.

Isabelle Bertolotti, Artistic Director of the Biennale, said: “It is with great pleasure that we celebrate the 16th Biennale in full strength today. We are beyond grateful to all our public funders, as well as all the many individual donors, non-profit organizations, and international partners, for their generous support and enthusiasm. There is great sense of anticipation, and we are now looking forward to sharing the work we have done over the past years with our audience”.

Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, curators of the 16th Lyon Biennale, elaborated: “The Biennale’s title manifesto of fragility captures a current sentiment that is universally shared, whether it stems from the endangered conditions of the environment, the losses felt through wars, the hardships brought upon by illness and pandemics, or through the perilous conditions of our society’s marginalized members. Fragility is also formally and conceptually at the heart of artistic creation and is the threadconnecting all exhibitions and participating artists. As a gathering of all participants, creators, and visitors alike, the Biennale aims for a collective Manifesto that positions fragility as a generative form of resistance, which allows us to reimagine our future”.

More than 250.000 visitors are expected to explore the different sites and exhibitions through the duration of the exhibitions. Several Biennale venues will be free to the public. An extensive public program offers specific insights into the artistic presentations to a broad range of audiences, and equally provides a dedicated line of engagement for families and schools.

PUBLICATIONS

A trilogy of publications is accompanying the exhibitions, each covering one of the Biennale’s layers: The many lives and deaths of Louise Brunet, Beirut and the Golden Sixties, and A world of endless promise. The titles are published by Silvana Editoriale, Milano, and are available through the Biennale and through book retailers worldwide.

THE CURATORS

Bardaouil and Fellrath are Directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof, National Gallery for Contemporary Art in Berlin. They are Founders of the multidisciplinary curatorial platform Art Reoriented, which they launched in New York and Munich in 2009 and Curators of the French Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Over the past 12 years, Bardaouil and Fellrath have jointly curated exhibitions and collaborated with more than 70 institutions worldwide, including Centre Pompidou in Paris, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Reina Sofia in Madrid, ARTER in Istanbul, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, Tate Liverpool, Gwangju Museum of Art in South Korea, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm. At the Venice Biennale, they curated the National Pavilions of Lebanon (2013) and the United Arab Emirates (2019). Central to their work is inclusivity in artistic and institutional practices, and a revisionist approach to art history.