Nauman, Philadelphia Museum Chosen for Venice Biennale

PHILADELPHIA—The conceptual artist and sculptor Bruce Nauman has been selected to represent the United States at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The Philadelphia Museum of Art proposed the exhibition, and it will be organized by the museum's curator of contemporary art, Carlos Basualdo, and curator of modern art, Michael R. Taylor. The decision was made by the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, a group of arts professionals organized by the National Endowment for the Arts to advise the State Department, which is contributing $500,000 to the pavilion, its highest grant for the Biennale yet.

The Philadelphia museum's last contribution was in 1988, when it organized "Jasper Johns: Work from 1974-1986," which won the gold medal for painting that year. Nauman has shown work five times in Venice since 1978, always in exhibitions outside the national pavilions; in 1999, he won a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement there. “Bruce Nauman has fundamentally altered our conception of artistic practice and identity," says Anne d'Harnoncourt, director and chief executive of the Philadelphia museum. "The Biennale provides the perfect venue in which to explore and contextualize his radical ideas."