From June 12 to November 6, 2005, the 51st International Art Exhibition will explore the state of contemporary art from two points of view: a look at the relationship between the present and the most significant past; and a second look on the relationship between the present and the most innovative trends. The two sections will be proposed in two separate spaces and will each be curated by one of the two Directors. María de Corral will be responsible for the exhibition offering a retrospective approach, to be held in the Italian Pavilion. Rosa Martínez will produce the exhibition dedicated to a greater extent to the latest forms, to be held in the Arsenale di Venezia. Both will certainly make bold and trend-setting selections with an eye to creating exhibitions that the Biennale wishes to be strongly characterised.

The curators:

María de Corral
Spanish art critic and curator. Between 1981 and 1991, she was director of the Visual Arts sector at La Caixa Foundation, for which she curated exhibitions at its spaces in Barcelona and Madrid. In 1985, she began the Foundation's own contemporary art collection. In 1988, she was curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the 43rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, with the exhibition entitled De varia commensuración: Jorge Oteiza, Susana Solano. From 1991 to 1994, she was director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. In 2002, she was director of the project for the new Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Santander. She curated the retrospective exhibition Julian Schnabel: Pinturas 1978-2003, which ran June 3 to September 13, 2004, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

"The exhibition Experience of Art that will be held in the Italian Pavilion should not be understood as a self-serving discussion on the art of our times, but as a field open to distinct practices within which one can fulfill the desire to exchange experiences, ideas, thoughts, or even to provoke them. I would be pleased if the labyrinthian itinerary of art could be experienced not as a finished story but as a process defined in terms of the relationships between different subjects, forms, ideas and spaces, that would be more "similar to a center for experimentation than a stack of certainties". My intention is to show what is common in diversity, so that the viewer may admit the quality of what is unexpected and exceptional, and abandon his own reluctance at the idea of Pleasure in contemporary art."

Rosa Martínez
Spanish art critic and independent curator. In 1979, she graduated from the University of Barcelona in the History of Art. She immediately began to work in co-ordinating cultural activities for La Caixa Foundation. Between 1988 and 1992, she was artistic director of the Barcelona Biennale. In 1996, she was co-curator of Manifesta 1 in Rotterdam, in 1997 directed the 5th International Biennale of Istanbul, and in 1999 the 3rd SITE of Sante Fe in the USA. In 1991-92 and 1997 she returned to La Caixa Foundation in Barcelona as curator. From 1998 to 2002, she was curator for the projects proposed in the international ARCO fair of Madrid. In 2003, she was curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the 50th International Art Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia. This project, given to Santiago Serra, uses the idea of frontier to question the limits of nationality and leads one to reflect upon the themes of blame, madness and punishment. Her career as independent curator is accompanied by an intense activity as journalist, art critic and as organiser of numerous conferences at museums, universities and cultural institutions. She regularly writes for various daily newspapers and specialised periodicals, including "Flash Art International", "El Paes", Atlantica, "Letra Internacional" and "La Guia del Ocio". She is also the author of numerous critical essays and monographs on contemporary artists.

"The exhibition Always a Little Further is an essay presenting artists and aesthetic trends relevant at the beginning of the third millennium. A visit to the Arsenale proposes a fragmentary trip, a subjective and passionate dramatisation to discover the zones of light and dark in our convulsed world. This journey intends to draw the most significant lines in contemporary artistic production and to show that art still holds a promise for those who want to embark on the sort of voyage that made Deleuze take Proust's motto: the real dreamer is the one who goes out to try to verify something."