INTRODUCTION TO BRITAIN AT THE VENICE BIENNALE

The British Pavilion was originally built in 1887 by the Italian engineer Enrico Trevisanato as a restaurant to serve the International Art Exhibition, a forerunner of the first Venice Biennale founded in 1895. It was bought for Britain by a group of private benefactors in 1909 and re-modelled into a gallery the same year by the British architect Edwin Rickards.

Since 1938 the British Council has been responsible for the British Pavilion, presenting British artists at the Biennale of Art. Although at one time group exhibitions were presented, since 1970 a single UK artist or practice has been commissioned to produce an exhibition for the Pavilion. From 1991 we have also taken part in the International Architecture Exhibition and the 2004 British Pavilion exhibition Nice Positions was curated for us by architect Peter Cook.

In 2005 Gilbert & George accepted our invitation to represent Britain at the 51st Venice Biennale of Art and made 25 completely new pictures for their exhibition Ginkgo Pictures in the British Pavilion.

Following on from the success of the 2004 presentation in the British Pavilion, this year we present Echo/city at the 10th Venice Biennale of Architecture. Echo/city is conceived and designed by Jeremy Till, Professor of Architecture at Sheffield University, and a team from Sheffield including Ian Anderson, Ruth Ben-Tovim, Tim Etchells, Hugo Glendinning, Jim Prevett, Trish O’Shea, Martyn Ware and Sarah Wigglesworth.