Venice Biennale and the 2000s: an understanding of gender in contemporary art

Abstract

In contemporary art studies, Venice Biennale has been an authoritative case study while analysing the progress of the main cultural tendencies, and, focusing on this century, one of these concerns gender. This thesis uses pivotal academic literature, institutional critique, and data gathered during a six-month archival research to produce a quantitative analysis focusing on the Venice Art Biennales held from 2005 and 2022 to understand how the art world has progressively changed its relationship with ‘gender’. This study reveals through graphs, on the one hand, the growing interest in female curatorial and artistic practices; on the other, a persistent gender disparity when it comes to representation.

Subsequently, this dissertation presents a comparison between the 51st edition, curated by María de Corral and Rosa Martínez in 2005, the first to be carried out under female lead artistic direction; and the 59th edition, curated by Cecilia Alemani in 2022, the first that saw a majority of female artists' participation. This correlation focuses on the different curatorial approaches, the exhibition structures, the winning pavilions, the winning artists, and artists common attitudes towards performance and body. In this perspective, the author detects the relationship between the Venetian Institution and female artist production.