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Prada Foundation / Enrico Castellani
Enrico Castellani (b. 1930), one of Italy’s most celebrated living artists, will be included in the group show at the Prada Foundation to celebrate the opening of its new home at Ca’ Corner della Regina, an historic palazzo set to become an important new landmark in Venice’s cultural landscape. The Enrico Castellani exhibition will open on 1 June 2011 and is located at Ca' Corner della Regina.

The Iraq Pavilion Wounded Water / Ahmed Alsoudani
After a 35-year hiatus, 2011 marks Iraq’s triumphant return to the Venice Biennale. In an exhibition curated by Mary Angela Schroth, the 2011 Iraq Pavilion will present to the world six internationally celebrated Iraqi artists, including Haunch of Venison’s Ahmed Alsoudani (b. 1975), an emerging artist whose paintings of war and human conflict have garnered him international attention and broad critical applause. The artists in the exhibition span two generations: Ali Assaf, Azad Nanakli, and Walid Siti were born in the 1950s and experienced periods of vast cultural richness and creativity in the country despite political turmoil; Ahmed Alsoudani, Abel Abidin and Halim Al Karim grew up during the Iran-Iraq War, the Invasion of Kuwait and daily life under intense UN sanctions and the tyrannical Ba’athist regime. The exhibition, entitled Acqua Ferita/Wounded Water, revolves around the six artists’ interpretations on the theme of water loss in the region through diverse mediums including painting, performance, video, photography, sculpture and installation art. According to Schroth, “The pavilion, through its artists and collaboration with the new government, is one small, but significant step.” The Iraq Pavilion will open on 2 June 2011 and is located at the Gervasuti Foundation, Fondamenta S. Ana (Via Garibaldi), Castello 995, between Giardini and Arsenale.

The Future of Promise / Ahmed Alsoudani
Alsoudani will also be featured in The Future of a Promise exhibition, Venice Biennale’s largest pan-Arab exhibition of contemporary art. From Tunisia all the way to Saudi Arabia, this landmark exhibition brings together more than 25 recent works and commissions by some of the foremost artists from the Arab world. The Future of a Promise will open on 2 June 2011 and is located at Magazzini del Sale, No. 262 - Dorsoduro, Fondamenta Delle Zattere.

Palazzo Grassi, The World Belongs to You and In Praise of Doubt
Joana Vasconcelos, Ahmed Alsoudani, Edward Ralph Kienholz and Adrian Ghenie
Four Haunch of Venison artists will be shown at two exhibitions marking the fifth anniversary of the François Pinault Foundation’s Palazzo Grassi. The exhibitions, curated by Caroline Bourgeois will bring together works by approximately 40 artists from 20 countries including Joana Vasconcelos (b. 1971) , Ahmed Alsoudani Edward Ralph Kienholz (1927-1994). and Adrian Ghenie (b. 1977). The exhibition is comprised of works from the François Pinault Collection, most of which have never been shown before. The World Belongs to You will include commissions and site-specific installations by international artists who reflect a globalized world “now characterized by proliferation, multiplicity, movement, and nomadism.” In Praise of Doubt will present “another re-assessment of the traditional limits of the geography of art, and how we relate to others and the world.” The World Belongs to You will open to the public on 2 June 2011 and will be held at the Palazzo Grassi, Campo San Samuele, 3231 30124 Venice, Italy. In Praise of Doubt will be on view from 10 April 2011 to 31 December 2012 and is located at Punta Della Dogana at Fondamenta della Dogana alla Salute, 2, 30123 Venezia, Italy.

One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy / Adrian Ghenie
Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie’s work will also feature in the show One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy, an official collateral project of the 54th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art which will open on 3 June. This major international exhibition features monumental new works by four of the most exciting and renowned artists working today including Alexander Ponomarev (Russia), Hans Op de Beeck (Belgium) and Ryoichi Kurokawa (Japan). One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy is located at Arsenale Novissimo, Tesa Nappa 89.

Gervasuti Foundation, Memory of Books / Chiaru Shiota
Haunch of Venison is pleased to present Memory of Books at the 54th Venice Biennale, a new site-specific installation by Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972) curated by James Putnam. At the Gervasuti Foundation, Shiota will create an evocative installation by suspending countless strands of black wool from the walls, floors and ceiling of the space. This giant web through which visitors must find their way, envelops the hundreds of books Shiota found stacked up in situ at the Foundation. It criss-crosses the space forming a visible network that connects a simple reading table and chair, piles of books and loose pages, together with the surrounding room. Memory of Books also coincides with The Knowledge exhibition also curated by James Putnam at the Gervasuti Foundation and the launch of Chiharu Shiota’s new monograph with texts by Mami Kataoka and James Putnam published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin. Memory of Books will open on 2 June 2011 and is located at the Gervasuti Foundation, Fondamenta S. Ana (Via Garibaldi) Castello 995, between Giardini and Arsenale.

Haunch of Venison and AnOther Magazine, 100 Billion Suns / Katie Paterson
Haunch of Venison is pleased to announce a project with Scottish artist Katie Paterson, in collaboration with AnOther Magazine, to coincide with the vernissage of the 54th Venice Biennale. 100 Billions Suns (2011) will take place from 1 June at a series of undisclosed locations around Venice. Gamma Ray Bursts are the brightest explosions in the universe, which burn with a luminosity 100 billion times that of our sun. The confetti canons created for 100 Billion Suns contain 3,261 pieces of paper whose colours correspond to each of these cosmic events. Every burst of confetti creates a miniature explosion of all of these vast explosions, in just under a second. Canons will be set off at regular intervals during the vernissage of the 54th Venice Biennale at a series of unspecified locations around Venice, from major piazzas to the smallest back streets. Each explosion will be documented in an ongoing photographic essay hosted on AnOther Magazine’s website, showing a unique perspective of Venice during the opening days of the Biennale.

Burials / Polly Morgan
Workshop Arte Contemporanea is pleased to announce the opening of Burials, the first solo exhibition by the London-based artist, Polly Morgan, in Italy opening 3 June 2011. Morgan is at the very forefront of modern taxidermy. She has contributed to a shift in public perception that has taken ‘the art of preparing, stuffing and mounting the skins of animals with lifelike effect’ to places never dreamed of by its original Victorian practitioners. The vitrines are still there but little else remains. Birds are taken out of their natural habitat and are reassembled, often in mass, creating sculptures of astonishing and often disquieting beauty. Burials will open on 3 June and will take place at Workshop Arte Contemporanea, Dorsoduro 2793/A.

TRA Edge of Becoming / Meekyoung Shin and León Ferrari
Korean artist Meekyoung Shin (b. 1967) and Argentine artist León Ferrari (b. 1920) will be included in the group show TRA Edge of Becoming at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, curated by Daniella Ferretti, Rosa Martinez, Francesco Poli and Axel Vervoordt. TRA means a passage through an open doorway. A gateway to what lies beyond. The threshold of thought. The expansion of perception. The energy within the void. The power of beginnings. The exhibition features more than 300 works from art including a selection of Meekyoung Shin Ghost Series Vases last shown in Translation, her debut show with Haunch of Venison London in early 2011. TRA Edge of Becoming will open to the public on 4 June 2011 and will be located at Palazzo Fortuny, San Marco 3958.