Irina Nakhova and Tobias Zielony at Venice Biennale

We are very proud that two artists who teach in Salzburg this summer will be official representatives of their home countries at the 56th Venice Biennale, open to the public from May 9: Tobias Zielony (German Pavilion) and Irina Nakhova (Russian Pavilion).

 “The Green Pavilion by Irina Nakhova is in dialogue with Ilya Kabakov’s Red Pavilion, built for the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993. In The Green Pavilion, Nakhova […] carries out its transformation by repainting the exterior in its original green, activating a signifying mechanism of color in each of the pavilion’s rooms. Inside, Nakhova unleashes the trans-painterly potential of color, demonstrating its ability to react to social and cultural transformations.” (press release Russian Pavilion)

Read here a current interview with Irina Nakhova in Russia Beyond The Headlines.

„Tobias Zielony’s documentary essay consists of photographs that he took of African refugees in Berlin and Hamburg. On the one hand, they form an autonomous photographic narrative, on the other, they are the subjects of articles that African authors have published in newspapers in the protagonists’ countries of origin – in Sudan, Cameroon, and Nigeria.“ (press release German Pavilion)

Tobias Zielony, Die Überfahrt (like real boat people. dislike maritime marketing), 2014, installation view, Lichtwark revisited, Hamburger Kunsthalle, photo: Tobias Zielony, courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin