Necessarily Provisional: Ireland at the Venice Biennale

Abstract

Ireland’s history at the Venice Biennale is one of uncertain circumstances and regular mobility. This article reflects on Ireland’s status as one of the non-permanent, ‘provisional’ pavilions at the Biennale, and considers the multiple ways in which Irish exhibitions (since the early 1990s) have dealt with curatorial challenges in this unpredictable context. By tracing the history of Ireland’s diverse exhibitionary efforts to test models of national representation away from the Biennale’s core group of settled, permanent pavilions, I argue (with reference to writings by Maria Lind and Irit Rogoff) for the merits of curating in a ‘provisional’ mode, finding useful lessons in Ireland’s varying levels of commitment to realizing ‘context-sensitive’ pavilion projects.