A jury presided by Mudam director Suzanne Cotter has chosen Luxembourg-born artist Tina Gillen’s “tableau vivant” project to represent the grand duchy at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2021. “Faraway So Close” has been described as “a reflection on the relations between the inner space and the outer world and will take shape within a specific scenography device inspired by cinematographic sets.”

Gillen, whose work often features architecture, landscape and the relationship between the abstract and figurative, will also create new paintings and in situ works within the context of the Arsenale in which the Luxembourg pavilion is located.

Cotter was joined in the jury by Casino-Luxembourg director Kevin Muhlen, Steichen Collections curator Anke Reitz, Mudam’s artistic programme director Michelle Cotton and head curator Christophe Gallois as well as Dirk Snauwaert, director of the Wiels contemporary art centre in Brussels and Lorenzo Benedetti, curator at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. She said that the jury was impressed by the strength of conviction of Gillen’s project and the way it considered the history of painting while confronting it with other mediums, such as photography and cinema. “The jury also appreciated the way in which the project resonates with issues that cross contemporary societies and the current global situation,” said Cotter in a statement released by the ministry of culture and Mudam on Tuesday morning.

Gillen, who currently teaches at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and lives and works in Brussels, has presented solo exhibitions at Mudam, Bozar in Brussels, Musée M in Louvain, and Galerie Nosbaum Reding in Luxembourg, which has represented her since 2001. A graduate of the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna and HISK in Antwerp, she has also completed residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and at the ISCP in New York.