Venice Biennale gets two women curators

The foundation that runs the Venice Biennale has broken a century of tradition by appointing two women to co-direct the 2005 international art exhibition: Maria Corral, director of La Caixa Foundation in Barcelona, and Rosa Martinez, an independent curator also based in Barcelona. Robert Storr, a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, has been chosen for 2007. The appointments are part of a three-year initiative to renew the exhibition (p.8). In the US, the main funders of the American pavilion at the biennale have withdrawn their support and the State Department has appealed to the Guggenheim for help (p.9). Above, Ron Mueck’s monumental sculpture of a crouching boy at the 2001 biennale.