The official Icelandic representation at the 54th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia is the Spanish-Icelandic duo Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, whose collaborations explore the political, socio-economic, and personal forces that affect life in the present day.

© Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson

Their work, which has taken them to cities around the world, and often develops out of their personal interactions with people and places, can be characterized as an interpretation of culture and the complex relationships that compose it. The 2011 exhibition is organized by the Icelandic Art Center in Reykjavík, Iceland, under the commissionership of Dorothée Kirch, and is curated by Ellen Blumenstein. The Pavilion of Iceland is located in the former laundry house of the Palazzo Zenobio at the Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael in Dorsoduro.

Castro and Ólafsson’s exhibition for Venice, Under Deconstruction, unveils current sociopolitical issues in Iceland and elsewhere, using video, performance, sculpture, sound, and music interventions. It features: three new iterations of their ongoing project, Your Country Doesn’t Exist (2003-present); a music-video, Constitution of the Republic of Iceland (2008-2011), showcased within the pavilion and made in collaboration with the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service; as well as a sound sculpture, Exorcising Ancient Ghosts (2010), installed on the roof terrace of the pavilion.

Site: libia-Olafur
Exhibition. Under Deconstrucion
Place 54ª: Biennal de Venezia. Palazzo Zenobio
City: Venecia
Country: Italia
Date:  1 June to 27 November 2011