Venice Agendas returns with ‘Venice Confidential’: Off the Record

Event and interview information:
Venice Confidential: Off the Record
International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
Preview: 20, 21, 22 April 2022
Continuing in Folkestone and London through 2022 & 2023

For its 11^th iteration, beginning at the 59^th Art Show at Venice Biennale, Venice Agendas will return to its origins of Audio Arts, by curating and convening interviews and discussions between artists, curators, writers, and other arts professionals. Venice Confidential: Off the Record, in collaboration with the International Association of Art Critics and DACS, will encourage frank and unvarnished conversations throughout 2022 and 2023 about the art in front of us as well as about the politics & structures of the sector and role of the artist.

Beginning at Venice Biennale in April 2022, AICA UK’s President Sacha Craddock and art historian critic and curator Jean Wainwright will work with Venice Agendas’ team Terry Smith, Mark Segal and Chelsey Browne to capture signature images and curate a series of in-situ discussions, offering immediate first-hand critical reaction and responses, between critics, curators, and visitors, providing unique engagement.

Terry Smith, artist, and Venice Agendas curator says: “Misinformation and fake news have seen a rise in recent years. From elections and referendums to the rise in social media and now war in Europe it seems to be increasingly impossible to tell what is true, what is fact from fiction. Venice Confidential: Off the Record is curated to encourage and allow people within the arts to speak their mind without fear of favour, to facilitate responses in-situ to artwork and how art responds to the world – through published conversations can be anonymous or credited.”

Mark Segal of the Artist Agency and Venice Agendas curator says: “Misinformation and mass information is nothing new. We have had unreliable mainstream media for years, but with over the past 20 years, social network platforms have increasingly delivered poorly researched, unverifiable news, where opinion is presented as fact and this current state of play is unsustainable for our collective health and wellbeing. That is why for 2022 and 2023, Venice Agendas through Venice Confidential: Off the Record will explore this state of play as a theme. Conversations and dialogue that researches, explores and expands through discussion the way that the international art world might see the future of art and how it can respond to the global rhetoric and events.”

Venice Confidential: Off the Record is a work in progress where Venice Agendas will hold and curate discussions, talks and analysis over a two-year project that looks in depth at the place of art in a society. Supported by DACS and the International Association of Art Critics, conversations will range from revelations about the abuse of power to money laundering of art objects. Deepening our collective understanding of the inequalities in society that continue shape our social awareness, force reflection, and rethink our future.

Discussions and interviews will be uploaded daily during 20, 21, 22 April 2022 and subsequently throughout 2022 and 2023 at events in Folkestone and London to the Venice Agendas website, Vimeo, Radio, YouTube and other social media channels including via our partners DACS and the International Association of Art Critics.

Artists and the visual arts community are encouraged reflect, contribute, and comment on the content as well as get in touch with the Venice Agendas team to get involved.

@aicauk, @dacsforartists, @DACSforArtists

©2022 Venice Agendas, DACS