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On Tuesday, 24th March the Italian Institute of Culture was the scene of the official presentation of Venezia, Catalunya 2009. La comunitat inconfessable, the project with which Catalonia will present itself in June at the Venice Biennale's 53rd International Art Exhibition. The curator of this project is Valentín Roma, who was chosen by an international jury appointed by the Institut Ramon Llull, in charge of Catalan participation at the Biennale. The Catalan pavilion will be placed in Magazzini del Sale number 3, in the Eventi collaterali section.

- Nicola Mesken

The project was presented by Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, Vice-President of the Government, Josep Bargalló, Director of the Institut Ramon Llull, and Valentín Roma, curator of the project. Also present were Manuel Borja Vilell, chairman of the jury for the competition that decided on the winning proposal, the artists taking part, and Bartomeu Marí, Director of the MACBA, in charge of the executive production of the exhibition.

Roma's artistic idea takes its name from the book of the same name by Maurice Blanchot and from his interpretation of communism as "something that creates a community". Starting from here it considers an investigation of the possible meanings of the nature of communal works in the sphere of art, taking the identity of Catalonia as a subject for study.

For this he has selected three projects: Sitesize (Joan Vila-Puig and Elvira Pujol), Technologies to the People (Daniel G. Andújar) and Archivo F.X. (Pedro G. Romero). They all create their work from other already existing ones, showing them without modifying or altering them in a new context in which they are opened up to new interpretations. An important link between these ideas is, according to Valentín Roma, "their questioning of the idea of a single and, even, recognizable authorship". The three artists' projects are works in progress from which capsules of knowledge are taken, concentrating on a particular subject.

Josep Bargalló, Director of the IRL, has said that "Venezia, Catalunya 2009. La comunitat inconfessable deals with the idea of what is communal based on two territories, the territory of art and the territory that is Catalonia. The community of two territories in tension. The tension of creativity in progress."

For his part, the Vice-President of the Government and Chairman of the Board of the Institut Ramon Lull, Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, is convinced that the Venice Art Biennale "will place Catalonia in the front line of creativity". Carod-Rovira says that "we are not going to Venice to show Catalan art off, but to make the rest of the world open its eyes and take a look at Catalan artistic output; we want to open an observatory of the innovative and creative moment that Catalonia is experiencing. This is the image we want to give to the rest of the world," he said, "that of a culture open, free from dogmas, which is constantly being transformed and adapted."

Despite being presented as a unitary project, La comunitat inconfessable has three different lines of action: an exhibition, a book-catalogue and a website. To develop the exhibition, the Institut Ramon Llull, the producer and the body in charge of the whole project, has turned to the MACBA, which will take care of the executive production of the exhibition. Other institutions have also taken an active part in it, such as the Kunstverein Stuttgart, as well as independent groups like the Ateneu Obrer Popular de Barcelona, ZEMOS98, Repensar Barcelona, DPC estudi, and others. Likewise, distribution of the book-catalogue has been given to ACTAR, which will also be joint publisher.

A Long Process
The Institut Ramon Llull began considering taking part in the Venice Art Biennale with a Catalan pavilion at the beginning of 2007. The first unofficial approaches were made at that year's Biennale, in which the people in charge of the organization confirmed that the idea was possible. From there contacts began to be made to find the best site for the possible pavilion. As Bargalló has said, the Mayor of Venice Massimo Cacciari offered the option of it being the Palazzo Fortuny, but the complexity of the necessary alterations that would be required meant that this place was ruled out. Cacciari eventually offered one of the Magazzini del Sale, number 3, which stands on a privileged site: behind the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, a few metres from the new site of François Pinault's well-known collection, which will be inaugurated to coincide with the opening of the Biennale in June 2009, in a building by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

At the same time, the Institut Ramon Llull, following the Document for Good Practice in Museums and Arts Centres, appointed a committee of outside international experts that drafted the guidelines of Catalonia's participation at the Biennale and decided, through an international public competition, what project would shape the Catalan pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

This international jury, headed by Manuel Borja Vilell, Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, also included as members Ignasi Aballí, an artist invited to the 2007 Venice Biennale international exhibition; Daniela Ferretti, curator of the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice; Marta Gili, director of the Jeu de Paume in Paris; Chus Martínez, now Head Curator of the MACBA in Barcelona and then Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and Vicent Todolí, Director of Tate Modern in London. Following the rules, the IRL presented the project to the Biennale and, bringing the process to a close, on 18th December 2008 confirmation was received of the acceptance of the project for inclusion in the official programme of the Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition.

The Biennale will open on the first weekend in June 2009.