Scotland and Venice Biennale

Exhibition Concept

Art and Venice are inextricably intertwined. One has depended on the other throughout the city's history; for artists Venice has been a source of inspiration and centre of patronage and production for many hundreds of years; for Venice, art has formed its image and drawn countless people to it.

Against this background, the Venice Biennale has developed, conceived from its outset as a forum for international art which would contribute to the redevelopment of the city both economically and culturally. The Biennale continues to adapt, expand and shift according to the countries, political events, personalities and controversies which shape it each year, and it is partly because of the consequent debates these matters generate that it continues to be recognised as the foremost contemporary art event in the world.

Scottish art has been included in the Biennale since its beginning, appearing there at its own most progressive moments. The Scottish painters included in 1897 were among the most advanced within British art of the time because of their receptiveness to wider European ideas. In the years after the Second World War the work of Alan Davie, William Turnbull and Eduardo Paolozzi was regularly to be seen. Each had travelled early in their careers in a desire to be close to avant-garde developments, and their consequent work could be best understood within the sort of international context offered by the Biennale.

These respected post-War artists are resistant to national classification because of their peripatetic nature and through their concern for common international issues, whether political, cultural, artistic or other. This raises a paradox at the heart of the Venice Biennale; it retains as a principal element the notion of national presentation, but invariably the work of the most interesting artists is treated as successful because its concerns are universal.

Such a debate, tied up with the idea that an artistic body of work might somehow express an aspect of a national condition, in itself might be said to be anachronistic. The Venice Biennale remains vital because it brings together mature and younger, conservative and experimental work together in a manner which, through the mechanism of national contributions, resists a uniform conceptual approach.

These ideas have shaped our thoughts in making our selection of artists for Scotland's presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2007. This process has been made additionally exciting and challenging in the several months it has taken because of the extraordinary wealth of talented artists whose work we saw. Our final selection has been decided first and foremost by our impression of the sheer talent of the six artists chosen. We believe their work is art of the most vital and stimulating kind, art made by highly gifted individuals who, happily for us, can count their involvement with Scotland as a formative part of their careers.

In arriving at this choice, we have been naturally interested in how each maintains an interest in this country, when their developing careers have already taken them beyond Britain. Charles Avery, from Oban, is based in London and has recently exhibited there, in Edinburgh and in Italy, but his work demonstrates the continuing importance to him of Hebridean life. Louise Hopkins, from Hertfordshire, has remained based in Glasgow since studying there, producing work which is profoundly international in concern.

Tony Swain, from Northern Ireland, also came to Glasgow to study and also remains based there, producing work using methods inherited from 20 th-century international art movements to produce paintings highly personal in vision. Rosalind Nashashibi works around the world to produce mesmerising films, and has in part been supported in this by undertaking a studio residency in New York, supported with Scottish funds.

Lucy Skaer has also taken up this residency, as well as working in Berlin and Amsterdam, making art inspired by these places, while maintaining a home in Glasgow. Henry Coombes, from London, studied in Glasgow and is based there, producing art dealing with issues both Scottish and worldly in concern.

Scotland 's internationally recognised art schools, a highly supportive network of fellow artists, and a range of galleries and funding opportunities forms part of the reason why artists of such ability maintain their connection with this country. We hope that the invitation to exhibit in Venice encourages the selected and other artists to think of Scotland as a place which can provide an expanding range of opportunities, not only at home but also abroad.

The Venice Biennale provides global exposure and we feel each of the selected artists is at a particular point in their career when such an opportunity will bring the wider attention they deserve, as has been the case for artists involved in Scotland's previous presentations. We are delighted that the exhibition will take place in the Palazzo Zenobio, home to the Armenian Cultural Institute in Venice, where exhibitions from several other countries will provide an international context, the most appropriate for our artists' work. We also hope that the exhibition will return to Scotland, as it did in 2005, and plans for this are in development.

Scottish art is at one of its most progressive moments and our chosen artists represent this position in the form of six highly individual talents. As with the heterogeneous character of the Biennale, the work of Avery, Coombes, Hopkins, Nashashibi, Skaer and Swain is diverse, exciting and unpredictable. Each artist, however, seems to us to share as part of their concern an interest in cultural similarities and differences, and the issues such differences present. Some on occasion use invented worlds to investigate their concerns; others make use of comparisons, real situations or look back into history.

What is clear is that each artist works with such ability and often with such surprising and new means that they have the power to alter perceptions.

Philip Long

Curator, Scotland and Venice 2007