Venice Biennale 2024

Venice Biennale 2024: Eva Koťátková to represent the Czech Republic at Venice Biennale 2024, in collaboration with curator Hana Janečková, Himali Singh Soin, David Tappeser, the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective, and children’s and seniors’ collectives

Eva Koťátková’s collaborative project The Heart of a Giraffe in Captivity is Twelve Kilos Lighter will represent the Czech Republic at the world’s most prestigious art show this year. The installation will be put together in collaboration with curator Hana Janečková, as well as artist and composer Himali Singh Soin, composer David Tappeser, and collectives of children and seniors who have contributed their stories. Koťátková, one of the most internationally renowned Czech artists, will return to Venice after eleven years. In 2013, she presented her work at the Biennale’s main pavilion.

The Heart of a Giraffe in Captivity is Twelve Kilos Lighter relates the story of a real giraffe named Lenka, brought to Prague in 1954 from Kenya as the first giraffe in a Czechoslovak zoo. This theme is used to explore the ways in which we encounter, look at, and learn about animals and to denounce the hierarchies, violence, and exploitation of nature that are often part of these processes. The project revives Lenka’s story through a transformative educational art installation and proposes new ways of relating to animals and of reinventing the connections between human institutions and the natural world. To interpret Lenka’s story, Koťátková collaborated with children’s and seniors’ collectives across the Czech Republic and abroad, as well as with the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective, which imbues the project with principles of decolonial pedagogy. Their voices alongside the installation create a collective body as a place of collaboration and sharing based on emotions, experiences and relationships.

A performance will accompany the exhibition from November 21–24, 2024, at 14:00, and 16:30 in the Czech and Slovak Pavilion, Giardini, Venice.

The Heart of a Giraffe in Captivity is Twelve Kilos Lighter also fits in with the theme of the upcoming Biennale: Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. The main show is curated by Adrian Pedrosa and will focus on the current migration crisis, as well as on the different feelings and positions of otherness and foreignness that we experience not only abroad, but also within familiar environments.

The Biennale takes place from 20 April to 24 November 2024. Eva Koťátková’s installation is presented in the provisionally opened Czechoslovak Pavilion in the Giardini gardens. The commissioner of the Czech presentation is Michal Novotný, director of the Collection of Art after 1945.

Slovakia will be represented by an installation by Ota Hudec, situated on the outer shell of the pavilion and in its surroundings, prepared in collaboration with the Slovak National Gallery and curator Lydia Pribyšová.

In cooperation with Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser (Hyzoloic/Desires), the Collective Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures, groups of children and seniors throughout the Czech Republic and abroad.  

Supported by:
Ministry of Culture
National recovery plan
Next generation EU