Venice Biennale curator wrests focus away from politics to art

Venice

IN 2015, the Venice Biennale with Okwui Enwezor as curator sometimes felt more like a political manifesto, with readings from Marx's Das Kapital and work that touched on climate change, colonialism and the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The curator of this year's Biennale, Christine Macel, had a distinctly different vision: to put artists and artistic practices front and centre.

For Ms Macel, chief curator of the Pompidou Center in Paris, the 57th Biennale, which opens this week, is "an exclamation, a passionate outcry for art and the state of the artist".

She added that it is "a Biennale designed with artists, by artists and for artists". But in times like these - after Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump, with the rise of populism and the return of nationalism and with intense political…