Cecilia Alemani, chief curator of
High Line Art, served as the 59th Venice Biennale's artistic director. Her central exhibition is titled "
The Milk of Dreams", after a book by the English-born Mexican surrealist artist
Leonora Carrington filled with magical tales in which everything can be transformed through imagination. The exhibition follows three themes: body representation and
metamorphosis, human relationships with technology, and the relationship between the body and Earth. Her curator's essay invokes feminist activist
Silvia Federici and science fiction writer
Ursula Le Guin. "The Milk of Dreams" features 213 artists. Unlike prior shows, in which the majority of artists identified as male, instead less than 10 percent of Alemani's artists identified as male. Alemani underplayed this element and did not describe her show as overtly feminist, but has spoken about questioning the "universal ideal of the white, male 'Man of Reason' as the fixed center of the universe and measure of all things". Many of the central exhibition's artists are associated with the 20th century
avant-garde. Nearly half of Alemani's artists are deceased, much higher in proportion than prior Biennales. These avant-garde artists are underrepresented, having been underrecognized in their time, and the Biennale services to highlight their work. After the exhibition was postponed one year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Alemani hoped to use the extra year to prepare new projects and use the opening, which now precedes the Italian
Liberation Day, to mark an occasion of togetherness. Alemani is the first Italian woman to serve as the Biennale's artistic director. She previously curated the
2017 Biennale's Italian pavilion. Her husband,
Massimiliano Gioni, curated the
2013 Biennale. == National pavilions ==