Çağla Ilk will be responsible for the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024, as announced by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa). The Istanbul-born architect, curator and theater dramaturge is best known in Germany as director of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. Previously she worked at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin.
There was also dancing in her art hall
Çağla Ilk works primarily in an interdisciplinary manner: As director of the Kunsthalle, for example, a dance performance by Yvonne Rainer was part of her program. Regarding her contribution to the German Pavilion, she has only said so much that “at a time when war, man-made natural disasters and authoritarianism are revealing the susceptibility of our societies to crises”, she will question a way of life “shaped by national thinking”.
Some of her predecessors already practiced overcoming national-state thinking: Thirty years ago the Korean Nam June Paik was exhibited together with Hans Haacke, in 2009 the Brit Liam Gillick – and four years later Susanne Gaensheimer even swapped houses with France. However: Even if the curators repeatedly and politely refuse to compete nationally, the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, which has been appointing the curators since 1971, proudly points out that the Federal Republic of Germany has already been awarded a Golden Lion for the best national contribution seven times was rewarded. Most recently, in 2017, Anne Imhof won with “Faust”.