Splendid NZ venue for Venice Biennale

New Zealand will have one of Venice's impressive exhibition spaces at next year's Biennale featuring the work of artist Bill Culbert.

Creative New Zealand has secured one of the city's great churches, La Pieta (Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà), which is just along from the Doges Palace.

The church is on the Riva, the main pedestrian thoroughfare between Piazza San Marco and the Biennale Gardens, which is the site of most of the major pavilions.

British-based New Zealand artist Culbert is a photographer, light sculptor and installation artist who has exhibited internationally for several years.

He has major public works in Wellington at Skyblues in Post Office Square and the large neon sculpture Fault on the exterior of City Gallery which was a collaboration with Ralph Hotere.

La Pieta is famous for its association with great Italian priest Antonio Vivaldi, composer of the Four Seasons.

He worked there and also conducted his girls' choir for many years. A plaque outside the church notes his involvement in the design of its interior acoustics.

Being on the major pedestrian route means New Zealand will be able to increase the number of visitors. In past years the sometimes hard-to-find venues have meant our exhibitions have been seen by only 10% of more than 300,000 visitors to the event.

The new location means up to 100,000 visitors may see Culbert’s work.

La Pieta features four exhibition spaces and it is intended that the artist will create site-specific works for the pavilion.

The curch is in front of the exhibition space where et al. showed at the Biennale in 2005.

Says Creative NZ chairman Alistair Carruthers: “The venue worked very well for the New Zealand presentation in 2005 and it is exciting that we have been able to secure a larger exhibition complex for 2013, allowing Bill to respond to and create a journey through some very different spaces, and extending New Zealand’s presence to the busy edge of the Grand Canal."

Venice Biennale commissioner Jenny Harper says: “Many of Bill’s most fascinating works have appeared in settings that are not conventional art gallery spaces. Even now, it’s tempting to imagine the play-off between his light works and the historic textures and broader context of Venice.”

Culbert began as a painter at Canterbury University’s School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, London. In the 1960s, he began to experiment with light and movement, and since the 1970s his art has encompassed photography, electric light and found objects.

Since 1960 he has had more than 100 solo exhibitions in New Zealand, England, Europe, the United States and Australia, and appeared in many group exhibitions.

Culbert has also produced major public sculptures in spaces, ranging from the Millennium Dome in London to the Wellington waterfront in New Zealand.

New Zealand has exhibited at the Venice Biennale since 2001. Kiwi artists who have exhibited include Peter Robinson and Jacqueline Fraser (2001), Michael Stevenson (2003), et al. (2005), Brett Graham and Rachel Rakena (2007), Judy Millar and Francis Upritchard (2009) and Michael Parekowhai (2011).

The Biennale runs for six months from June.