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BOLTANSKI TO REPRESENT FRANCE IN VENICE
France is getting a head start—not on 2010 but on 2011. As Agence France-Presse reports, France has chosen the artist Christian Boltanski to represent the country at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. The announcement was made by a branch of the Ministry of Culture and by the organization Culturesfrance, which is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Born in 1944 in Paris, Boltanski is currently preparing for an exhibition that will open on January 13 at the Grand Palais, and another that will open January 15 at the contemporary art museum Mac/Val de Vitry-sur-Seine. Boltanski has chosen as a curator Jean-Hubert Martin, who has directed several museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf. After Annette Messager, who won the Biennale's Lion d’Or in 2005, France was represented by Sophie
Calle in 2007 and by Claude Lévêque in 2009.
“HOMOEROTIC” EXHIBITION CAUSES STIR IN POLAND
An exhibition at Warsaw’s National Museum is already having a major political impact—long before opening. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports, the focus of the planned show—homoerotic motifs in art—has led to protests among national-conservative politicians in the country. Citing the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, the Süddeutsche Zeitung notes that the exhibition curator Pawel Leszkowicz had hoped the exhibition would contribute to breaking down prejudices against homosexuality in Poland.
SWEDISH CALL FOR ROYAL POEMS GOES SOUR
The Liljevalchs Konsthall in Stockholm has unleashed yet another furor—albeit between Swedish poets and the monarchy. As Le Monde’s Olivier Truc reports, Marten Castenfors—the director of Liljevalchs Konsthall—invited the top poets of Sweden last fall to compose a short poem about “the mysteries of love” that would be read during the royal marriage between the Swedish Queen-in-Waiting Victoria and Daniel Westling in June. From the thirty poets invited, a full twenty refused to make a contribution. “From now on,” writes Truc, “it’s an established fact: The circle of the Swedish poets is a den of savage republicans who really think little of their monarch.”
The reluctant poets—accused of being republicans in the antimonarchy strain—have more to say about their reluctance to participate than love. “Whether or not I’m a republican has nothing to do with my refusal,” said Magnus William-Olsson. “Anyone who would have ordered a poem would have received the same response.” Other invited poets were lost for words and yet managed to establish their position. “I can’t find words to express the distaste that I felt for this event,” said Thomas Tidholm. “I am absolutely against the monarchy, I hate all this spectacle, it’s not worthy of a democracy.” Ditto for Jenny Tunedal: “The main reason is that I am republican. Writing a love poem would be part of this [royal wedding] celebration, and I cannot separate the poem from the context.”
Among the yea-sayers was Eva Ribich. “I find it’s nice to celebrate love, and I don’t think only about the royal couple when I do so.” Pamela Jaskoviak accepted, only to renege. “Things changed when I understood that many had said no because [saying yes] would be interpreted as a move in favor of the royal family.” Göran Greider, both a poet and an editor of a social-democratic newspaper, would have liked to participate but refused in the name of another love. Greider’s wife, a member of a republican association, threatened divorce if he penned a poem.
It’s not the first time Castenfors has caused a storm. The former art critic, who became the director of Liljevalchs in 2008, created a polemic by hosting an exhibition about the Swedish furniture giant IKEA, which was also sponsored by IKEA. Castenfors is surprised by the most recent scandal. “It’s a bit silly that people are so sensitive.”