The title of the main exhibition* is inspired by an aphorism invoked by the Marxist thinker and politician Antonio Gramsci in the Prison notebooks written between 1929 and 1935. Gramsci wrote : "the challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusionned (...) I'm pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will".

The exhibition takes Gramsci's aphorism as a point of departure to reflect on the current crisis that governs much of the Mediterranean region, the geographic focus of the Biennale.

*Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will"

Main exhibition curated by Katerina Gregos

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