"national theme" at the Venice Art Biennale

This thesis, entitled "Austria and the United Kingdom: Artistic and Curatorial Case Studies of National Contributions on the Theme of 'National Identity' at the Venice Biennale", focuses on an examination of two contributions to the Venice Biennale. In 1993, Austria's Biennale contribution "Stellvertreter/Represantatives/Rappresentanti.", featuring Austria's "foreign artists", caused just as much of a stir as Britain's Jeremy Deller managed to do with his presentation of "The English Magic" in the British Pavilion in 2013. In their artistic concepts, the two curators, the Austrian Peter Weibel and the British Emma Gifford-Mead, had attempted to give expression to the concept of the 'national idea' in different ways. The study examined which phenomena and characteristics emerged with and through the emphasis on the 'national idea' in a direct comparison of the contributions from Austria and the UK within the context of the historical and political development of the Venice Biennale.