Martin Puryear to Represent United States at 2019 Venice Biennale

Martin Puryear, the 77-year-old sculptor born in Washington D.C. in 1941, has been selected to represent the United States at the 58th Venice Biennale, running from May 11 to November 24, 2019. Although the U.S. Department of State, which oversees the selection process, has stated that the assignment is still ongoing and an announcement is pending, the art world widely considers Puryear's participation confirmed. Art critic Jerry Saltz tweeted the news, and Angela Vettese posted about it on Facebook. Puryear is known for his handcrafted sculptures; his 2007-08 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and exhibitions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2016-17, he installed the large-scale sculpture Big Bling at Madison Square Park in New York, later shown in Philadelphia. Other national pavilions for 2019 include Finland's Miracle Workers Collective, Austria's Renate Bertlmann, France's Laure Prouvost, Estonia's Kris Lemsalu (with a performance titled Fountain at a Giudecca industrial building), Lithuania's Nida Art Colony (Sun and Sea), Scotland's Charlotte Prodger (a video on queer wilderness), Hong Kong's Shirley Tse (promoted by M+ Museum), and New Zealand's Dane Mitchell.