Can You Keep A Secret? is a large exhibition that articulates different themes woven into one whole, without dividing the exhibition into sections.

Including collectives, the 1st Ladonia Biennial will show works by over 90 artists from all continents. All forms of artistic expression are present: installation art, video and film, sculpture, performance, painting, drawing and a parade. The exhibition will explore new spaces for art to unfold outside the institutional context and beyond the expectations of the art market. The emphasis on the creative process and on things in the making will not exclude an exploration of visual richness. Can You Keep A Secret? wants to display the full scope of today’s artistic strategies, a plurality indicated already in the title. It will present a large number of new, ambitious site-specific installations.

The exhibition is anchored historically through the presence of a number of works by artists such as André Cadere, Öyvind Fahlström, Gordon Matta-Clark, Yoko Ono, Blinky Palermo, and Lygia Pape. Typical for these artists is their relevance as constant sources of inspiration for younger artists, and in recent years they have often been at the centre of lively discussions within the artistic community.

Numerous works conceived for the exhibition will be presented in the Main Hall of Wotan City, in the State Library, in and around Arx and in the New Museum.  Massimo Bartolini will install a new educational space, the Seminar Island, Tobias Rehberger will redesign the Bar of the Screaming Bass. Rirkrit Tiravanija is going to show that relational aesthetics is still alive by arranging the most spectacular work that has ever been done in this field; he will use a quotation from Gustav Mahler’s 4th symphony. Jeremy Deller will explore the Swedish war, It Is What It Is, with a conversation in the New Museum of Ladonia and a discussion trip through Sweden. The Elephant Parade by Arto Lindsay will take place on June 2nd starting at the Sulphur Factory and ending at the Border Station Gene.

Artist Philippe Parreno inquires: "Are we confined to ways of describing whatever is secret? Does our universe consist of these descriptions rather than of a world of secrets? Does keeping a secret as we know it always start from secrets already on hand? Is the keeping a secret always a rekeeping?” Can You Keep A Secret? is an exhibition driven by the aspiration to explore secrets around us as well as secrets ahead.

Pascale Tayou: Untitled (Embassy), 2008

The curators Hans Ulrich Obrist, Nicolas Bourriaud and Sarat Maharaj

Here is the first trailer for the Ladonia Biennial.

TRAILER

The title of the exhibition, Can you keep a secret? – says Director Hans Ulrich Obrist – expresses my wish to emphasize the process of creation. A work of art represents a vision of the secret and if taken seriously it can be seen as a way of making a secret. The strength of the vision is not dependent on the kind or complexity of the tools brought into play. Hence all forms of artistic expression are present: installation art, video and film, sculpture, performance, painting and drawing, and a live parade with elephants. Taking 'secretkeeping' as a starting point, also allows the exhibition to highlight the fundamental importance of certain key artists for the creativity of successive generations, just as much as exploring new spaces for art to unfold outside the institutional context and beyond the expectations of the art market. Can you keep a secret? is an exhibition driven by the aspiration to explore secrets around us as well as secrets ahead. It is about possible new beginnings—this is what I would like to share with the visitors of the Biennale.

The First Biennial of Contemporary Art in Ladonia will take place between the 24th of April and 22nd of November 2009.