What Will Germany’s Rising Art Star Do at the 2017 Venice Biennale?

The artist is having a very good year.

Anne Imhof Angst (2016). Photo: Nadine Fraczkowski, courtesy Kunsthalle Basel.

Artist Anne Imhof will represent Germany in the 2017 Venice Biennale, the ifa institute, which has coordinated Germany’s representation at the Venice Biennale since 1971, announced today.

The pavilion will be curated by Susanne Pfeffer, director of the Fridericianum museum in Kassel, and commissioner of the German Pavilion. This will be Pfeffer’s second consecutive edition at Venice. In 2015, she curated the Swiss Pavilion, with an immersive presentation by artist Pamela Rosenkranz.

It has been an extremely successful year for the Frankfurt-based artist, who’s career has been on a meteoric rise since having won the Nationalgalerie Prize for Young Art in 2015, awarded biennially by the Berlin institution.

The 38-year-old Imhof is now represented by Galerie Buchholz and by Isabella Bortolozzi, considered two of Germany’s most influential dealers. This year, she has staged a mammoth project across three institutions and two continents: her multi-part opera “Angst” first opened at the Kunsthalle Basel during Art Basel, the second iteration of the work, shown at Hamburger Bahnhof, was the highlight of Berlin Art Week this past September, and the third and final part of the ambitious piece is currently on view in Montreal, as part of the second Biennale de Montréal.

Imhof has gained recognition for her durational performances, which often take place at night, after traditional opening hours, and completely transform the museum space.

“Anne Imhof is an outstanding selection for the German contribution at the 57th Biennale Arte di Venezia,” says Elke aus dem Moore, head of the art department at ifa. “Imhof creates visually rich performances with dense imagery and penetrating intensity. The curatorial concept of Susanne Pfeffer is to look at how man is changing through the current technological and socioeconomic conditions, and how our concept of the body must be rethought. “


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