Austria Announces Team for 2017 Venice Biennale Pavilion

Austria has selected its team for the 57th Venice Biennale (May 13–November 26, 2017), appointing Christa Steinle as commissioner and curators, with artists Brigitte Kowanz and Erwin Wurm. Steinle, 64, was the longtime director of the Neue Galerie Graz until 2011, when she was succeeded by Peter Pakesch. Kowanz, a Vienna-born artist aged 59, is known for her neon works and had a solo show in Rome in 1996 and participated in the 2012 group exhibition "Neon-La materia luminosa dell'arte" at MACRO. Wurm, 62, from Styria, lives and works in Vienna; he gained international fame for his "One Minute Sculptures" and previously exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2011 with a narrow house in Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti's garden, and in 2005 at MACRO in Rome with an "obese" house. In 2006, he installed a house precariously on the roof of Mumok in Vienna.