PiraMMMida: Palazzo Perverso #2 at the Venice Biennale

The UCL European Institute, under its Jean Monnet Programme 2019-21, supports a multi-year UCL-based project called Perverting the Power Vertical: Politics and Aesthetics in the Global East (PPV).

Co-convened by Dr Michal Murawski (UCL SSEES), Maria Mileeva (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Denis Maksimov (Avenir Institute), the PPV team has been invited to curate a pavilion for the Biennale Architettura 2020, the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

Concept

“To this day, pyramidal structures give spatial expression to both physical and metaphysical institutions: from skyscraper-obsessed cities and new cults to Ponzi and pyramid schemes. While theorists of egalitarian societies seek to “keep the social flat”, novel forms of hierarchy and inequality continue to sprout. Is “generously living together”, as the curator of the Biennale calls it, at all possible in the context of the new-old pyramidal hierarchies of today? Can we find ways of queering, subverting and perverting the pyramids looming among us?”

Format

The pavilion was due to take place between 21 May and 30 September 2020 in the S.a.L.E. Docks on the Dorsoduro waterfront in Venice (Italy). The Biennale has now been postponed and will run from 29 August to 29 November 2020.

The Pavilion will draw in several institutions and grassroots initiatives of Venetian artists and collectives and feature an exhibition/construction, collective actions, workshops, lectures, performances and other interventions.

More details to follow.

For further information, see our project page, the PPV general website, or contact Dr Michal Murawski, m.murawski@ucl.ac.uk

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