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If the art world has a true spiritual home, then it is the Venice Biennale. Now in its 54th outing, the event is as much a pulse-check of where contemporary art is heading as a biennial barn dance for the international scene's big players to meet, network and ruminate.
The doors open today for industry insiders - a horde of curators, collectors, critics and artists who regularly make their pilgrimage to the red-roofed wonder-on-the-sea that is Venice, before the exhibition opens to the public on June 4. The Biennale is host to a record 89 national participations this year and six of these are from countries in the Middle East.
Swiss critic and art historian Bice Curiger has been appointed visual arts director for this year's Biennale. This means in addition to creating an expansive show of works that sums up her vision for the Biennale, she is involved in the selection and approval of the applications from national participants.
Organised according to national pavilions - a debated remnant of the Biennale's more competitive origins - the pronounced Middle Eastern presence comes from the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, who each have a space to present some of the foremost talent in their respective countries. Curiger's vision for the Biennale has culminated in a theme titled ILLUMInations, and her acknowledgement of the event's importance as a space of inter-nation dialogue explains the overwhelming Middle Eastern presence in the event this year.
"ILLUMInations will focus on the 'light' of the illuminating experience," Curiger explains. "Focusing on the epiphanies that come with intercommunicative, intellectual comprehension."
The UAE's appearance at the last Biennale signified that the Emirates was ready to be taken seriously as a fixture on the international art scene. The UAE made a double debut in 2009, with both a national pavilion and a platform curated by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, used partly to showcase the cultural projects being developed across the country. Under the direction of Tirdad Zolghadr, the 2009 national pavilion functioned partly as a exploration of national identity. Second Time Around, as the UAE's 2011 participation has been dubbed, will be no less exciting.
At the curatorial helm is Vasif Kortun, a Turkish curator, who...