Photo: Eimear Walshe, '‘ROMANTIC IRELAND’, 60th International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2024. Photo by  Faolán Carey.

The Venice Biennale has for 120 years been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world. The Biennale was established in 1895, when the first International Art Exhibition was organised. In the 1930s, new festivals were born: Music, Cinema, and Theatre and the Biennale  took on the multidisciplinary character that it has to this day. 

The Venice Biennale remains the most important international showcase for contemporary arts and attracts over half a million visitors, including global curators, gallerists, art critics, and artists. The biennial International Art Exhibition offers a unique opportunity for Ireland to showcase Irish contemporary art on a global stage. The Biennale is a vital platform for Irish artists, curators and commissioners to gain international profile and to generate opportunities. It serves as a global showcase for artists and offers a prominent platform for Irish artists to engage with international audiences, curators and gallerists. 

Since 2005, national representation at the Venice Biennale has been a Government initiative led by Culture Ireland in partnership with The Arts Council. Both partners consider the Venice Biennale to be an important opportunity for artists' development and for Irish curators to work in an international context. An open call is issued biennially to invite expressions of interest for the appointment of the Curator and Commissioner of Ireland’s National representation at Venice. The selection of the team to represent Ireland is made following an open, competitive process with international jury members, in partnership with Culture Ireland and The Arts Council.

In recent years, Ireland has been represented by Niamh O’Malley with TBG+S and by Eva Rothschild in an exhibition curated by Mary Cremin. Project Arts Centre previously presented Jesse Jones’ Tremble Tremble at Venice in 2017, curated by Tessa Giblin. To view the artists and commissioners that have represented Ireland at Venice Biennale from 2005-2022, please visit the Ireland at Venice Archive.

Irish representation at 60th Venice Art Biennale 2024

Photo: Eimear Walshe, '‘ROMANTIC IRELAND’ installation, 60th International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2024. Photo by  Simon Mills.

Artist, Eimear Walshe, with curator Sara Greavu and Project Arts Centre are representing Ireland at the 60th Venice Art Biennale 2024. Their exhibition ROMANTIC IRELAND explores the complex politics of collective building through the Irish tradition of the ‘meitheal’: a group of workers, neighbours, kith and kin who come together to build. The pavilion responds to the theme, Foreigners Everywhere - selected by curator of the Biennale 2024, Adriano Pedrosa. Through a practice that spans video, sculpture, publishing, sound, and performance, ROMANTIC IRELAND traces the legacies of late 19th century land contestation in Ireland and its relation to private property, sexual conservatism, and the built environment. The video work was shot on location at the sustainable skills centre, Common Knowledge, based deep in the Burren, on Ireland’s west coast. It features a group of seven performers led by choreographer Mufutau Yusuf. The soundtrack is an opera describing the scene of an eviction, composed by Amanda Feery with a libretto by Walshe. 

ROMANTIC IRELAND is on view at the Venice Biennale 2024 from 20 April to 24 November, 2024. Following its presentation in Venice, ROMANTIC IRELAND will tour nationally through 2025 supported by the Arts Council, returning to locations and communities across Ireland that have helped to inspire and foster the making of the work. 

The Arts Council is delighted to be in a position to continue to support the Irish presentation of the Ireland at Venice National Tour, as part of the commitment to our ten-year strategy: 'Making Great Art Work' which aims to support artists to create ambitious, innovative work and to engage audiences across the country.