ICONOCLASTS

The book documents the exhibition Iconoclasts. Women Rule Breakers at the Biennale Danza, curated by the Artistic Director of the Dance Department Wayne McGregor with Elisa Guzzo Vaccarino and the Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts (ASAC), and open to the public in the Portego at Ca’ Giustinian from 17 July 2024.

“One of the true wonders of La Biennale di Venezia is their incredible Historical Archive – ASAC. Not only is it a treasure trove of captured institutional knowledge and essential artifacts for the most historic festivals in the world, but it is replete with memories, meanings and other stories these documents, films and photographs reveal when we encounter them anew, today. Correspondences from and with the most important artists of their time are stored with those often overlooked in our time and only when we venture back do we uncover the most potent golden thread which connects, distils and dialogues with our most vital cultural capital.
We have, in dance, been notoriously remiss in capturing our form in the moment – often explained away by a medium that celebrates the ephemeral and the transitory, perhaps at the expense of legacy. And yet when we do collect and are able to trace back, when we have the rare opportunity to piece together our danced fragments, placing each in the timeline of experimentation, innovation and evolution we are able to understand, embody and experience the total work afresh. In this way, archives are as much a quest forward, resonating today in a finely retuned sense of wonder as when it was made, invigorating and vibrating – alive – in a necessary contemporary context.
This fragment of our living archive of dance in Venice, ICONOCLASTS, connects the female pioneers and adventurers who have shared their radical art with us in the lagoon and in doing so pushed against their times, pushed across boundaries, pushed forward their unique perspectives and pushed us towards the possible. We are standing on the shoulders of giants, some you will be familiar with and others may well be revelatory to you, but each contributes to our palimpsest of global movement geniuses.”

Wayne McGregor

Graphic design and layout by Riccardo Cavallaro.