The artistic director of the Biennale di Venezia, Cecilia Alemani, on her world art show between Corona and war.
Interviewed by
Catherine Lorch
In Venice you are always late. Because the vaporetto doesn’t run, or when there’s high tide. Cecilia Alemani is late for the video call because the previous interview lasted longer, she says cheerfully. The vernissage of her exhibition “The Milk of Dreams”, the central show of the Venice Biennale, is coming up soon. The art historian Alemani, born in Milan in 1977, was the first Italian to take over the management of the world art show. She had previously attracted attention as the artistic director of New York’s High Line park, which was built on a discarded railroad track in southern Manhattan. With “Il Mondo Magic” she gave her business card in Venice in 2017 – the exhibition in the Italian pavilion received a lot of positive attention. Nevertheless, Alemani stayed in the USA with her family (she is married to the curator Massimiliano Gioni and has a son), where, after studying philosophy in Milan, she completed her training as a curator at Bard College.