The French and German contingents to next year's Venice Biennale will swap pavilions, it has been announced. Anri Sala, who is representing France, will show work in the German pavilion, and artists Ai Weiwei, Romuald Karmakar, Santu Mofokeng, and Dayanita Singh, who make up Susanne Gaensheimer's group presentation for Germany, will exhibit in the French pavilion. A statement from the Institute Français elaborated, 'This move had been discussed time and again in the past decade, and this year the curators and artists chosen for the French and German Pavilions decided to start a constructive dialogue, eventually agreeing to exchange the spaces of the pavilions, without any specific artistic collaboration. International dialogue is a given in today’s art world, which seems much more defined by the meeting of cultural spheres than by the rigidity of national borders. Moreover, the curators as well as the artists feel committed to the vision of a common European culture in the larger framework of a global cultural community.'

In other Venice news, Berlinde De Bruyckere has been selected to represent Belgium and Antti Laitinen will represent Finland.