Lisa Reihana: Emissaries features the artist’s vast panoramic video in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015—17, alongside interrelated photo-based and sculptural works. The exhibition is presented at Tese dell’Isolotto, one of the oldest and most expansive maritime buildings in the Arsenale. This is the first time the New Zealand pavilion has been located within the Biennale’s central exhibition area. Lisa Reihana’s (b.1964) technically ambitious and poetically nuanced practice draws on fiction, historical evidence, mythology and kinship to disrupt notions of truth, gender and modes of representation. In Lisa Reihana: Emissaries, curated by Rhana Devenport, imperialism’s glare is returned with a speculative twist and the exhibition aims to unravel Enlightenment ideals and philosophy, the colonial impulse, and the pervasive gaze of power and desire. in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015—17, is a cinematic reimagining of the French scenic wallpaper Les Sa
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