Biennale de Montréal Artists Announced

This morning, the list of artists was announced for the 2014 Biennale de Montréal, which takes launches on October 22, 2014, and closes January 4, 2015.

The list is being closely watched this year since it is the first year that the Quebec Triennial—an effort of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal—has given way to the Biennale de Montréal event.

This means 2014 is the first year that both the biennial’s curators (Gregory Burke and Peggy Gale) and the museum’s triennial curators (Lesley Johnstone and Mark Lanctôt) are working together on a hybrid that will show mainly at the MAC, as well as other venues.

The 2014 Biennale de Montréal will feature 50 artists and collectives from 22 countries. 25 of the artists and collectives on the list are Canadian, with 16 of those artists and collectives being from Quebec. (By comparison, the 2011 Quebec Triennial featured 42 Quebec artists.)

The remaining 25 artists and collectives in the exhibition come from 22 countries: Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

23 new works will be presented at the biennial. Highlights include new public artworks by Krzysztof Wodiczko and Isabelle Hayeur; the North American premiere of Shirin Neshat’s latest film; a recent installation by Thomas Hirschhorn; new archi-sculptural explorations by Hajra Waheed; and a financial trading “laboratory” by Goldin + Senneby.

The theme of the biennial is “L’Avenir (looking forward).” As co-curator Gregory Burke indicates in a curatorial statement, this theme “examines the relationship of contemporary art practices to speculation, futurity and its history, as well as the currency of projecting into the future.”

The complete list of Biennale de Montréal artists and collectives is as follows:

Abbas Akhavan – born 1977 in Tehran, Iran, lives and works in Toronto

Adaptive Actions (Jean-Maxime Dufresne and Jean-François Prost) – based in Montréal

Edgar Arceneaux – born 1972 in Los Angeles, lives and works in Los Angeles

Arctic Perspective Initiative (Matthew Biederman and Marko Peljhan) – based in Canada and Slovenia

Nicolas Baier – born 1967 in Montréal, lives and works in Montréal

Taysir Batniji – born 1966 in Gaza, Palestine, lives and works in Paris

Amanda Beech – born 1972 in Cheshire, England, lives and works in Los Angeles

Ursula Biemann – born 1955 in Zurich, lives and works in Zurich

Raymond Boisjoly – born 1981 in Langley, BC, lives and works in Vancouver

Andrea Bowers – born 1965 in Wilmington, OH, lives and works in Los Angeles

Matthew Buckingham – born 1963 in Iowa, NV, lives and works in New York

Mikko Canini – born 1975 in Guelph, ON, lives and works in Toronto

Simon Denny – born 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand, lives and works in Berlin

Dave Dyment – born 1970 in Toronto, lives and works in Toronto

Charles Gaines – born 1944 in Charleston, SC , lives and works in Los Angeles

Ryan Gander – born 1976 in Chester, England, lives and works in London

Goldin+Senneby (Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby) – based in Stockholm

Babak Golkar, born 1977 in Berkeley, CA, lives and works in Vancouver

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, born 1965 in Strasbourg, France, lives and works in Paris and Rio de Janeiro

Nicolas Grenier – born 1982 in Montréal, lives and works in Montréal and Los Angeles

Isabelle Hayeur – born 1969 in Montréal, lives and works in Rawdon, QC

Thomas Hirschhorn – born 1957 in Bern, Switzerland, lives and works in Paris

Klara Hobza – born 1975 in Czech Republic, lives and works in Berlin

Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens – live and work in Montréal and Durham-Sud, QC

Simone Jones and Lance Winn, live and works in Wilmington, DE

Emmanuelle Léonard – born 1971 in Montréal, lives and works in Montréal

Ann Lislegaard – born 1962 in Tønsberg, Norway lives and works in Copenhagen and New York

Basim Magdy – born 1977 in Assiut, Egypt, lives and works in Cairo and Basel, Switzerland

Lynne Marsh – born 1969 in Vancouver, lives and works in Berlin, London and Montréal

John Massey – born 1950 in Toronto, lives and works in Toronto

Jillian Mayer – born 1984 in Miami, lives and works in South Florida

Shirin Neshat – born 1957 in Qazvin, Iran, lives and works in New York

Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen – born 1979 in Montréal, lives and works in Stockholm and Montréal

Susan Norrie – born 1953 in Sydney, Australia, lives and works in Sydney

Melik Ohanian – born 1969 in Lyon, France, lives and works in Paris and New York

Li Ran – born 1986 in Hubei, China, lives and works in Beijing

Kelly Richardson – born 1972 in Burlington, ON, lives and works in Whitley Bay, England

Kevin Schmidt – born 1972 in Ottawa, lives and works in Berlin and Vancouver

Skawennati – born 1969 in Kahnawake, QC, lives and works in Montréal

Steele and Tomczak – live and work in Toronto

Hito Steyerl – born 1966 in Munich, lives and works in Berlin

Oleg Tcherny – born 1973 in Minsk, Belarus, lives and works in Paris and Venice

Althea Thauberger – born 1970 in Saskatoon, SK, lives and works in Vancouver

David Tomas – born 1950 in Montréal, lives and works in Montréal

Suzanne Treister – born 1958 in London, lives and works in London

Étienne Tremblay-Tardif – born 1984 in Isle-aux-Coudres, QC, lives and works in Montréal

Susan Turcot – born 1966 in Montréal, lives and works in Whitstable, England and Kamouraska, QC

Anton Vidokle and Pelin Tan – live and work in New York, Berlin, Istanbul and Mardin, Turkey

Hajra Waheed – born 1980 in Calgary, lives and works in Montréal

Lawrence Weiner – born 1942 in the Bronx, NY, lives and works in New York and Amsterdam

Krzysztof Wodiczko – born 1943 in Warsaw, Poland, lives and works in New York and Cambridge, MA