The artist for the Estonian pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale will be selected by an international jury consisting of Chus Martínez, Hendrik Folkerts, Lolita Jablonskiene, Maria Arusoo, Anu Allas and Maria-Kristiina Soomre.
In 2024, the selection process for the Estonian pavilion will take place in two stages. In the first stage, artists will need to submit their portfolio and motivational letter via an open call by 30 September. The members of the jury will independently evaluate the submitted materials and make a selection of approximately five artists by mid-October. In the second stage, the jury will conduct studio visits with the selected artists between 19 and 21 October.
Members of the jury
The jury is comprised of art experts from both Estonia and outside the country. When selecting the members of the jury, the CCA followed a principle of including international experts with a new perspective on the local field as well as ensuring that local experience and expertise is continuously represented.
Chus Martínez is currently the Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW in Switzerland, and associate curator of TBA21 in Madrid/Venice. She also has been appointed Artistic Director of the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, opening in 2025.
Hendrik Folkerts is an art historian and curator. In 2021, he was appointed as Curator of International Contemporary Art and Head of Exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Prior to this, he worked in curatorial roles at the Art Institute of Chicago, documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Lolita Jablonskiene is an historian and curator based in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1993–1999, she worked as a deputy director of the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts-Lithuania – an agency promoting Lithuanian contemporary art internationally; in 2002, was appointed chief curator of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Vilnius. She was the commissioner of the Lithuanian pavilions at the Venice Bienniale in 1999 and 2005; she has curated modern and contemporary art exhibitions in her home country and abroad, contributed art critical texts to Lithuanian and international press.
Anu Allas is an art historian and curator based in Tallinn. Her research focuses on art from the second half of the 20th century in Estonia and socialist Eastern Europe, experimental and performative artistic practices from the 1960s and 1970s and Baltic regional art history. She has worked as a curator and programme manager in Kumu Art Museum (2014-2020) and is currently vice rector for research at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Maria Arusoo is a Tallinn-based curator and from 2013, she has held the position of the director of the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art, where she has also been the commissioner of the Estonian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. As part of the latter, Arusoo has worked with artists Dénes Farkas, Jaanus Samma, Katja Novitskova, Kris Lemsalu, Kristina Norman, Bita Razavi and Edith Karlson. Her recent curatorial projects include the exhibition “Through the Black Gorge of Your Eyes“ (2023, with Eha Komissarov and Eda Tuulberg) at Kumu Art Museum and Sequences Art Festival in Iceland (2023, with the team of the CCA).
Maria-Kristiina Soomre is the art advisor to the Estonian Ministry of Culture. Between 2004 and 2011, she worked at Kumu Art Museum as a project manager and curator. As an art historian, her main focus is the history of exhibitions, she has explored both in academic writing as well as in exhibition format. Soomre has also thoroughly researched the history of the Venice Biennale, written art criticism and lectures at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Additional information
The final selection will be announced in November 2024.
The International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, is the oldest and largest international art event. Estonia has been participating with a Pavilion since 1997. The commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion is Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art. The participation is funded by the Estonian Ministry of Culture. The 61th Venice biennale will take place from April to November, 2026.
More information:
Maria Arusoo
The commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion
maria@cca.ee
Press contact:
Keiu Krikmann
Communication manager of the CCA
keiu@cca.ee
