Venice Biennale 2019
Angelica Mesiti
Angelica Mesiti (b. 1976) lives and works between Paris and Sydney. She is currently presenting a solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo Paris, and has previously held solo exhibitions at MAXXI Rome, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, O Space, Aarhus, Williams College Museum of Art Massachusetts, and Nikolaj Kunsthal Copenhagen. Her work is held in national and international collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, FRAC Franche-Compté France, and Kadist Art Foundation Paris/San Francisco.
Angelica Mesiti is represented in Australia by Anna Schwartz Gallery and in Paris by Galerie Allen.
Juliana Engberg
Juliana Engberg is a curator, writer and cultural producer. Her recent projects include being programme director and commissioner of the European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017; artistic director of the 19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire; artistic director at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art; curator of the visual arts programmes of the Edinburgh, Melbourne and Adelaide International Festivals; and artistic director of the Melbourne International Biennial: Signs of Life.
Her book En Route is published by MUP. She is a fellow of Goodenough College, London; adjunct professor at RMIT University, Melbourne and a professional fellow at Monash University, Melbourne in the faculties of Architecture, Art and Design.
Application and selection process
The artistic team for the Australia Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale was selected through an open, competitive process. An independent Venice Selection Panel, composed of national and international visual arts experts, oversaw the selection. The panel included:
- Professor Callum Morton, Monash University (Chair)
- Chris Saines, Director, Queensland Art Galler | Gallery of Modern Art
- Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art, National Gallery of Australia
- Professor Nikos Papastergiadis, Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures, University of Melbourne
- Kathryn Weir, Head of Cultural Development, Centre Pompidou in Paris
- Louise Neri, Director, Gagosian Gallery in New York
The following artistic teams were shortlisted:
- Abdul Abdullah and Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, with curators Michael Dagostino and Dr. Mikala Tai
- Richard Bell, with curator Clothilde Bullen
- Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, with curators Susan Best and Ann Stephen
- Joyce Hinterding and David Haines, with curator Anna Davis
