LEANNE GOEBEL ON BRUCE NAUMAN AT THE VENICE BIENNALE 2009
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Bruce Nauman's installation "Topological Gardens," has won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. In its award citation, the Biennale stated that Nauman's work "reveals the magic of meaning as it emerges through relentless repetition of language and form." In accepting the Golden Lion Nauman publicly thanked the woman who had tipped him to the best pistachio gelato in Venice. 
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MONA HATOUM AT FONDAZIONE QUERINI STAMPALIA, VENICE
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Coinciding with the Venice Biennale, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia is hosting a major solo exhibition of new works by Mona Hatoum. The exhibition, entitled Interior Landscape, includes over 25 works, many of which are new or previously unseen in Europe. 
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JERRY SALTZ: ENTROPY IN VENICE
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Venice is the perfect place for a phase of art to die. No other city on earth embraces entropy quite like this magical floating mall. There are now more than 100 biennales around the world; Venice is often called "the most important" of them. The main show of this year's Venice Biennale is the work of Daniel Birnbaum, a well-respected 46-year-old Swedish critic and curator. His "Making Worlds" attains an enervating inertia of exhibitions and brings us to a terminal state of what we'll call "the curator problem."
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BETINNA VON HASE ON THE VENICE BIENNALE AND ART BASEL
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Highlights from the Venice Biennale including François Pinault's Punta della Dogana (below) and Teresa Margolles at the Mexican Pavilion; plus a report on the stand-out works at ArtBasel and Volta such as Franz Burkhardt's series of drawings at Schuebbe Projects, and Brigida Baltar's poignant installation at Nara Roesler. 
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MAIE YANNI ON THE EGYPTIAN PAVILION AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
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In this day and age of "cut and paste" and "buy and sell", where a lot of art has become confused with commodity, the Egyptian Pavillion at the Venice Biennale comes as an extraordinary revelation and a stark reminder of what true art once was. Two artists, twenty-seven years apart, Adel El Siwi and Ahmed El Askalany, have crafted and created the theme for this year's Pavilion.
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JERRY SALTZ'S VENICE BIENNALE HIGHLIGHTS - PLUS WORST IN SHOW
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I've been at the Venice Biennale for a day and a half. I'm just getting over latecomer's remorse, brought on by my having skipped last week's press preview and the opening hoopla. The best thing I've seen so far is the focused survey of the work of Bruce Nauman in -- ta-da! -- the US pavilion (below). My Worst in Show award was a three-way tie between Australia, Japan, and France.
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VENICE BIENNALE PREVIEW
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At this year's Venice Biennale, which opens to the public on 7 June, 77 countries will be hosting exhibitions in their own pavilions, and a further 44 collateral events will take place in various venues across the city. We present our pick of just some of the highlights including Bruce Nauman at the US Pavilion, the Danish and Nordic extravaganza care of Elmgreen & Dragset, Steve McQueen at the British Pavilion, Ragnar Kjartansson at the Icelandic Pavilion, the expanded Pinault Collection presented in two venues, and Axel Vervoordt's follow-up to 'Artempo', one of the stand-out shows of the 2007 Biennale. 
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TACITA DEAN AT FONDATION NICOLA TRUSSARDI, MILAN
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With her slow contemplative films, Dean transforms atmospheric phenomena, pastoral landscapes and abandoned places into sublime panoramas and cinematic frescoes. For this exhibition, Dean has chosen to show only film, making a circular journey through the rooms of the palazzo, moving from works related to portraiture to those about natural phenomena, landscape and the sea, and then into a recent group that reference still life. 
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ANTHONY MCCALL AT HANGAR BICOCCA, MILAN
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Anthony McCall is one of the seminal artists of American avant-garde cinema. His films and installations from the seventies all take as their starting point the irreducible, necessary conditions of cinema: projected light, and real, three-dimensional space. 
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THOMAS RUFF AT CASTELL DE RIVOLI MUSEI D'ARTE CONTEMPORANEA, TURIN
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Since the early 1980s Thomas Ruff has been creating photo-based artworks that investigate the photographic medium. This exhibition focuses on the artist's most recent production, specifically examining subjectivity and our relationship with manipulation and visual culture in the digital era.
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PALESTINE REPRESENTED AT THE VENICE BIENNALE FOR THE FIRST TIME
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This year Palestine will for the first time be participating in the Venice Biennale. The work in the exhibition, by artists including Emily Jacir and Jawad Al Malhi (below), will question the disproportionate use of images in the media of nameless faces and voiceless people. Two of the art projects will involve collaborations with different Palestinian communities, some of whom will travel to Venice for the opening of the exhibition. For those Palestinians under siege and unable to obtain travel passes, six art institutions in Palestine will exhibit duplicates of the works shown in Venice, thereby allowing Palestinian audiences to participate in the exhibition. 
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NEWS: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ANNOUNCES UAE PAVILION AT THE 2009 VENICE BIENNALE
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The UAE's Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development has announced plans to create the first UAE Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, which opens in June 2009. In recognition of the emergence of the UAE as a cultural hub, and of the historic importance of this first national pavilion to be created by a Gulf state, the Biennale has provided a large and highly visible site for the UAE Pavilion. The curator for the UAE Pavilion is Tirdad Zolghadr and details of the featured artists in the exhibition will be announced in March 2009. 
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'ITALICS' AT THE PALAZZO GRASSI, VENICE
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Somewhere between tradition and revolution - this exhibition, curated by Francesco Bonami and co-presented by the Palazzo Grassi, Venice, and later to tour to the MCA in Chicago, explores Italian art and creativity from the late 1960s to the present (pic: Maurizio Cattelan, 'Felix', 2001).
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ROME PRIZE APPLICATION DEADLINE
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Established in 1894 and chartered by an Act of Congress in 1905, the American Academy in Rome is a center that sustains independent artistic pursuits and humanistic studies. It is situated on the Janiculum, Rome's highest hill. Each year, through a national competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to 15 emerging artists and 15 scholars. This year's application deadline is 1 November.
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'YOU PRISON' AT FONDAZIONE SANDRETTO RE REBAUDENGO, TURIN
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'Youprison, Some thoughts on the limitation of space and freedom' is a show dedicated to the theme of prison architecture. Curated by Francesco Bonami, the exhibition brings together 11 international architectural studios and their designs for a living unit of a correctional facility, a cell equipped with all the essential features the inmates require. The designs, all realized at the exhibition space, give visitors the opportunity to physically experience a space designed for isolation or confinement.
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AOIFE ROSENMEYER ON MANIFESTA 7, TRENTINO
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Aoife Rosenmeyer reports on the highlights of this year's Manifesta, including Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska's Polish amateur film archive; Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji's Tantalum Memorial, an archaic telephone exchange relaying contemporary calls which are a mournful reminder of the destructive mining of a finite metal used in mobile phones; Jörgen Svensson's films that parody the excesses of societies influenced by pop culture (below); Judi Werthein's investigation of a German enclave that still exists in Chile Secure Paradise; and Ragnar Kjartansson's delightfully kitsch Schumann Machine, an all singing and dancing melodrama of angst. 
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TOBY CHRISTIAN WINS INAUGURAL BERNARD NOBLE SCULPTURE FOUNDATION AWARD
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The Bernard Noble Sculpture Foundation has awarded its inaugural Noble Sculpture Prize (2008) to Toby Christian for 'Snowball'. The Foundation exists to support and encourage young, emerging and/or unrepresented sculptors by means of its annual award of a sculpture prize to an artist for a sculpture to be acquired and exhibited by the Foundation. Toby Christian's winning work is now on view in the Colletta di Castelbianco Sculpture Park in Italy. 
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MITCH EPSTEIN: VIETNAM AT BRANCOLINI GRIMALDI ARTE CONTEMPORANEA, ROME
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A pioneer of colour photography, Mitch Epstein has been making pictures, films, and photographic books for 35 years. His Vietnam pictures from the 1990s offer the artist's characteristic balance of formal rigour and nuanced wit. The photographs were taken between 1992 and 1995, as Vietnam started to open its borders to outsiders after two decades of isolation. 
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GOD & GOODS AT VILLA MANIN CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, UDINE, ITALY
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Curated by Francesco Bonami and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto, 'GOD & GOODS: Spirituality and Mass Confusion' confronts the topic of religion head on, aiming to encourage new interpretations of spirituality, myth and iconography, and to open up debates around belief and faith in the 21st century. 
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SIMON HARPER ON BINARY OPPOSITIONS, CITRIC GALLERY, BRESCIA
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In an increasingly shiny and slick world, sometimes the lo-fi approach makes a welcome change. That's the theme of 'Binary Oppositions', a project that pulls together opposing subjects, processes and media among the work of ten emerging artists based in Birmingham, UK. 
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BILL ROBERTS ON ARTEMPO AT THE PALAZZO FORTUNY, VENICE
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Coinciding with this year's Biennale and marking the opening of the home of Mariano Fortuny, the Spanish fashion designer, to the public for the first time in over 20 years, 'Artempo' is a show of over 300 works by more than 80 artists. From the ancient to the contemporary, the works are drawn predominantly from the collection of the Belgian antiques dealer and interior designer Axel Vervoordt, but also from museum collections in Venice and further afield, all of which are set amongst the extraordinary assortment of stuff amassed by Fortuny himself. 
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JAN FABRE AT PALAZZO BENSON, VENICE
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As one of the Venice Biennale satellite exhibitions, GAMeC has 'relocated' to Venice to the Palazzo Benson overlooking the Grand Canal, where it is showing a major solo exhibition by Jan Fabre. 'Anthropology of a planet' presents the multifaceted oeuvre of the Flemish artist, ranging from sculpture to films, drawings and installations. The exhibition is on view until 23 September. 
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SUBODH GUPTA ON 'VERY HUNGRY GOD', PALAZZO GRASSI, VENICE
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Whilst the skull on everyone's lips of late has been Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted 'For the Love of God', the skull exciting many people at the Venice Biennale is the enormous 'Very Hungry God' made out of stainless steel utensils by Indian artist Subodh Gupta. The work was first exhibited in Paris in 2006 and is now in the collection of Francois Pinault. Subodh Gupta explains here the background to this work which is currently on view by the Grand Canal outside Pinault's Palazzo Grassi in Venice. 
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ANDRE GUEDES, XANA KUDRJAVCEV-DEMILNER AND ELSA SALONEN, 'TRANSITI' AT NOSADELLA DUE, BOLOGNA
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Echoing the title of exhibition, Guedes and Kudrjavcev-DeMilner, accompanied by Salonen, the young Bologna-based Finnish artist and last year's winner of Italy's National Prize for the Arts (and Saatchi Online member), will present work that reflects on the ideas of time's passing and of transition, whether it be in a spatial, cinematic, or physical manner (pic: from Guedes' 'Better Days').
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JERRY SALTZ ON THE VENICE BIENNALE
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Whether you think of it as a harmonic convergence, a cattle call, or a clusterfuck, every ten years the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, Documenta, and Sculpture Project Münster open one after the other over the course of a week. This is one of those years. Starting June 6, thousands of art-worlders from all over the globe flocked to the start of this season-long blitz, the usual combination of summer camp, convention, carnival, and binge. And it has me thinking about biennial culture and who these wingdings are for, how they're organized, whether they're good for art, and whether they're outmoded. 
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52ND VENICE BIENNALE HIGHLIGHTS
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As hundreds of exhibtions open this week as part of the 52nd Venice Biennale, don't miss the late Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres at the US Pavilion, Francesco Vezzoli's US presidential elections spoof starring Sharon Stone, young artist David Altemjd representing Canada, the bad girl of Brit art Tracey Emin at the British Pavilion, a new Sicilian Pavilion led by Aleksandra Mir, so radical it doesn't even have a venue, and Jason Lim whose enormous chandelier made out of 1500 porcelain lotus flowers will be dropped from the ceiling at the launch of the Singapore Pavilion today. 
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LAURA K JONES PREVIEWS MAT COLLISHAW'S AND PAUL FRYER'S FORTHCOMING SHOW AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
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Giorgione's painting 'The Tempset' is the inspiration for one of the many satellite exhibitions in Venice during this year's biennale. Mat Collishaw and Paul Fryer have been brought together by curator James Putnam to create an installation that "explores ideas of duality, positive and negative forces and notions of balance and imbalance" which Giorgione's multi-layered work throws into question. 
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LARA BALADI AT BRANCOLINI GRIMALDI, ROME
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Approaching Lara Baladi's new photographic installation at Brancolini Grimaldi, Rome, might feel a little like having a near death experience - the countless flashing characters and collaged situations that fill the invisible grid of her dark background panels look like they could be someone's lifetime's memories set on a figurative theatre stage.
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CATHERINE BORRA ON MAGGIE CARDELUS AT FRANCESCA KAUFMANN, MILAN
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Spanish-American artist Maggie Cardelùs is best known for her installations and wall reliefs composed of
material drawn from her personal archive of photos. In 'Looking for time', the title of her recent exhibition at Francesca Kaufmann gallery in Milan, the artist expands her technical repertoire, presenting one collage and three new videos. The work moves into more conceptual territory, privileging mind over matter and getting rid of what lies between the artist and the act of creation. 
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APRIL ELIZABETH LAMM ON TOBIAS REHBERGER AT THE FONDAZIONE PRADA, MILAN
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'After running into Anthony Haden-Guest, the Grand Pooba of art gossip ("My gosh, did Prada ship you in from New York?", "No, London", "I'm just glad that Hezbollah let you free"), we broke off for a fancy affair involving a four-course white wine lunch at Milan's fine and fancy 'da Giacomo', where I sat next to an exhausted Rehberger (sleepless in Milan, hard at work), comedian Florian, and the tall and fetching Mark van Huisseling from Vanity Fair Germany. Anthony Haden-Guest was sitting at the far corner next to arte povera mega-curator Germano Celant and a handful of editors from magazines one sees on the newsstands but never reads.' 
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DOMINGO MILELLA AT BRANCOLINI GRIMALDI, ROME
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Whether it be a panorama of a landfill or of tourists surrounding an aged magnolia tree, human traces over a natural environment are not the focus in these photographs. Rather it is these traces as the last layer on a growing mountain of material accumulation and visually significant accretion.
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HIROSHI SUGIMOTO AT VILLA MANIN, ITALY
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The first large-scale exhibition in Italy dedicated to the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto opened last week at the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art. The exhibition brings together fifty large-scale photographic works and two sculptures - and has given Sugimoto the chance to hang his photograph Napoleon Bonaparte in the very bedroom in which Napoleon used to sleep when he made Villa Manin his headquarters while he was mapping out his new definition of Europe. 
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BIANCO-VALENTE AT ENRICO FORNELLO, PRATO
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The predominant themes in Naples-based artist duo Bianco-Valente's work is the duality between the mind and the body and the relationship between nature and artifice, themes which they explore through a very personal exploration of a little-known 17th-century theory of humanity's cosmic possibility. Lupe Nunez-Fernandez introduces the artists' latest exhibition.
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HANS OP DE BEECK, 'EXTENSIONS', AT GALLERIA CONTINUA, SAN GIMIGNANO
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'Op de Beeck has a rare gift for a special kind of visual double entendre, between light and darkness, which really pulls viewers in; his new film and installation further show the way in which reality's failures are rendered crystal-clear through the slightly disjointed mirror-image world of the artist's fictions'.
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Q&A WITH EVA MARISALDI BY LUPE NUNEZ-FERNANDEZ
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An exclusive q & a with the artist, whose intriguing new works in collaboration with Enrico Serotti explore what they term 'very advanced services' and will be unveiled in Milan on Tuesday.
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