4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art
New Intersections-Make it New
September 2013 – January 2014
The Mediterranean sea, as a geographical space, in which the current cultural and social reality is researched and studied, although yet vague and still extremely interesting due to the constant dramatic changes in recent years, with its traditional elements along with influence and impact of the global model indicated, will be again this year’s thematic of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, to be hosted from September 2013 until January 2014 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Under the general title “New Intersections-Make it New” the Thessaloniki Biennale retains, for the second time, the same spatial and cultural focus, under the strategic decision taken by the State Museum of Contemporary Art, organizer of the Biennale, on 2010 to turn its audience’s attention towards the Mediterranean Sea until 2015.
Chief Curator of the main exhibition of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is Αdelina von Fürstenberg, Independent Curator and Film Producer, President of ART for The World.
The Director of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is Katerina Koskina, President of the Board of Trustees of the State Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Historian & Curator, who developed the Mediterranean focus of the 2011-2015 Thessaloniki Biennials.
As in the previous years, this year’s organization will be also hosted in museums, exhibition spaces and monuments and will be realized with the collaboration of the “5 Museums’ Movement in Thessaloniki” (namely, apart from the State Museum of Contemporary Art, the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, the Museum of Byzantine Culture, the Teloglion Foundation of Art of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art). The City of Thessaloniki along with a number of other cultural and educational agencies and institutions will be also involved.
Members of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art International Advisory Committee are the followingprominent art professionals: Katerina Gregos (Curator, Writer), Marieke Van Hal (Director of the Biennial Foundation), Beral Madra (Art Historian-Curator), Jan–Erik Lundström (Art Historian, Co-curator of the 1st Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art) Gabriela Salgado (Art Historian, Co-curator of the 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art), Thierry Ollat (Director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Marseille), Thierry Raspail (Artistic Director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon).
The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is funded under the Operational Programme Macedonia-Thrace 2007-2013, is implemented by the State Museum of Contemporary Art and is co-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund).
Αdelina von Fürstenberg / Biography
Adelina Cüberyan von Fürstenberg is a Swiss citizen, from Armenian origin, born in Istanbul. She is an international and renowned curator and one of the field’s pioneers in broadening contemporary art.Von Fürstenberg took a more global and flexible approach to contemporary art exhibitions, in bringing art in spaces such as monasteries, medersas, public buildings, squares, islands, parks, etc. Her objective is to give a larger context for visual art in making it a more vigorous part of our lives, in creating a vivid dialogue for it with other arts, and relating it to worldwide issues.
During her studies of Political Sciences at the University of Geneva, Adelina von Fürstenberg founded the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, working with prominent artists, such as Sol LeWitt, Daniel Buren, General Idea, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner. In the same period she organized performances with John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Joan Jonas, Robert Wilson. Few years later until 1994, she directed Le Magasin, Centre d’Art Contemporain of Grenoble, France, where she curated large solo exhibitions of major artists, such as Vito Acconci, Alighiero Boetti, Gino De Dominicis, Ilya Kabakov, as well as symposia and lectures on architecture, science and philosophy. Furthermore, for five years she directed the Ecole du Magasin (School of Curators). In 1993 the International Jury of the 45th Venice Biennale awarded her a prize for her direction of Le Magasin and its School of Curators.
In 1995, on the occasion of the United Nations 50th Anniversary, she was invited to curate the exhibition Dialogues of Peace, an international exhibition presented at the UN Headquarters, in Geneva. In 1996 she founded Art for The World, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) for the diffusion of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through contemporary art and cinema. Adelina von Fürstenberg collaborates on yearly bases with the Regional Direction of SESC Sao Paulo, Brazil, In curating shows such as Balcan Erotic Epics by Marina Abramovic (2006), Voom Portraits by Robert Wilson (2008), Urban Manners (2010) on Indian contemporary art for the first time in South America, and more recently The Mediterranean Approach (2012), an itinerant exhibition presented previously at Palazzo Zenobio in Venice (2011) and in Marseille at the mac – Museum of Contemporary Art. Her most recent project is FOOD, a large show with 31 artists exploring the fascinating question of food, simultaneously dealing with survival, health, economy and culture. The FOOD project is organized in partnership with Spazio Oberdan Milan, SESC Sao Paulo and MuCEM (Museum of Civilizations of Europe and Mediterranean), Marseille.
Parallel to the art shows, Adelina von Fürstenberg is also a Film Producer and between 2008 and 2011, she conceived and produced for the European Commission, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Council of Europe, 29 short fiction movies with well known independent filmmakers form all over the world, on the Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.