If this year’s roster of artists for the 59th Venice Biennale looks a little different than previous iterations of the longest-running survey of contemporary art on the planet, that’s because significantly—and finally!—the majority of the participating artists are women or gender-nonconforming. That much-needed burst of energy is thanks largely to this year’s curator, Cecilia Alemani, who stacks the deck in favor of artists exploring identity, subversive states of being, technology, and an aesthetic rebuff to the tired tropes of straight white males of yore. “The artists in the show portray a world where everyone can change, be transformed, become something or someone else—a world set free,” Alemani explains. “The show looks at art and artists as travel companions, who can help us imagine new modes of coexistence.” To celebrate this sense of freedom, we spotlight eight artists showing their work this spring in the most beautiful city on the planet.
CHARLINE VON HEYL
Age: 61 Medium: Painting Birthplace: Mainz, Germany Hometown: New York City and Marfa, Texas
Describe your studio/work practice.
A friend once compared me to a lizard: very still for long stretches of time and then suddenly acting with great speed. That pretty much sums it up.
What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken as an artist?
I guess it takes a certain courage to become an artist to begin with, even though it didn’t seem to be much of a choice at the time. And with painting, you have to be ready at all times to sacrifice something pretty good for something maybe better, and that doesn’t always work out and then it kind of hurts. Especially when you realize that what you thought was pretty good was actually great. But I wouldn’t call those risks. Some people take real risks.
Which artists influenced you the most at the start of your career?
There was a very powerful painting scene in Cologne through the ’80s. [Martin] Kippenberger was looming large and setting the tone, Albert Oehlen made awesome paintings, Don Van Vlietmade a show there that I’m still thinking about, and there were endless discussions about Gerhard Richter’s approach. But when I was ready to have my first show I was interested in a different discourse, so I joined Galerie Nagel, which had just started in 1990 with artists like MichaelKrebber, Cosima von Bonin, Andrea Fraser, Mark Dion, Renée Green, Christian Philipp Müller, and Fareed Armaly. That was not an easy time, but it was important. It was only when I came to the U.S. that I really found my posse and my painter friends.
How has the art world changed in the past few years?
The art world has become even more grotesque where it was grotesque before. But at the same time, I see a lot of artists out there making important and original new work. They need to have more money and freedom and studios and student debts. And we need more collectors and curators with courage and visual and emotional intelligence.
What can art do or offer that is beneficial in the current apocalyptic state of the world?
It can be an escape or a protest or a warning. It can give something instead of take something away. It can stop you in your tracks. It can make you hear your own thoughts. Or get out of your own thoughts. Or give you new thoughts. It can agitate or delight or satisfy. It can be a revelation. It cannot change the world but the world would be awful without it.
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