“I Felt the Need to Do Something Unusual”: Massimiliano Gioni on Curating Venice

Speaking at a press conference in London yesterday, Massimiliano Gioni invoked Plato: “Nothing is sweeter than knowing everything,” said the New Museum’s associate director, who this year is also curator of the 2013 Venice Biennial. This drive to accumulate knowledge, to understand the world in its infinite complexity and create the visual tools to do so, is at the heart of the exhibition Gioni is currently preparing for the biennial’s eagerly awaited International Pavilion. The show embraces curiosity pushed to the point of “obsession,” of “delirium,” he said.

“The Encyclopaedic Palace” features over 150 artists from 37 countries, and it borrows its title from a utopian project by architect Marino Auriti. In 1955, the Italian American eccentric devised and patented the design for a building destined to contain all human knowledge. The actual palace was never made, but its spectacular maquette will have a place of honour in Venice, sitting alongside works by several so-called outsider artists (James Castle, Augustin Lesage, Aleister Crowley), biennial veterans (Fischli/Weiss, Steve McQueen, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman), and intriguing artefacts, including Carl Jung’s “Red Book” (gathering drawings of his patients’ visions) and French thinker Roger Callois’s collection of stones.

This biennial job is recognition of the unstoppable rise of the Italian-born, New York-based curator Gioni, who has gained critical acclaim for such shows as the Gwangju Biennial(2010), “Younger Than Jesus” at the New Museum (2009), and the Berlin Biennial (which he helmed in collaboration with his long-time friends and collaborators Maurizio Cattelan andAli Subotnick). If one believes the Wall Street Journal, Gioni is the “crowned prince of the art world.” After the press conference, ARTINFO UK got the chance to ask Gioni a few questions about the upcoming show.