Venice Biennale Catalogue

Project Background

Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the sixtieth edition of the Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art exhibition held in Italy, will take place from April to November 2024. The exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, brings together 331 artists and collectives from 80 different countries and reflects on how artists have traveled and relocated, particularly between the Global North and the Global South.

As part of the exhibition, Karen Marta Editorial Consulting (KMEC), a publications consultancy specializing in art books, was tasked with managing the editorial process for volume 1 of the two-volume eponymous catalogue, consisting of critical essays, interviews, and an introduction to the artists, and the on-site guide to the Arsenale and the Giardini. Written by an international team of curators and art writers, the texts were simultaneously edited by two Flatpage copyeditors on an ambitious schedule of approximately two months.

KMEC had previously collaborated with Flatpage on a number of other catalogues over the past two years, and we were confident that they would be the perfect partner for such a complicated and high-stakes project. We figured their highly regimented, systematic approach would help us maintain control of a project with a significant number of moving pieces, while maintaining a tight workflow and communication throughout. We also knew from past experience that their balanced approach to copyediting would fit the expectations of our curatorial partners, which was key because we couldn’t take the risk of texts being delayed during the editorial process.

Todd Bradway, Managing Editor/Production Director, KMEC Books

The Collaboration

The team at KMEC, under the direction of project lead Todd Bradway, approached Flatpage to provide copyediting services for the Venice Biennale catalogue, for which KMEC was overseeing editorial management of the English edition. Copyediting was the perfect service for this project, since the team needed to ensure consistency across all essays and that all texts were free of grammar and punctuation errors before publication.

Two team members at Flatpage were tasked with copyediting approximately 300 short biographical texts about the artists and ten essays and interviews written by the curators and other international authors, many of whom are multilingual. Extracts from the biographical texts were then converted into shorter entries for the guidebook. These editors were chosen based on their background in art history and exhibitions, as well as their training as expert copyeditors.

Flatpage is an absolute pleasure to work with. Their system is efficient and easy to work within, allowing us to have a firm grip on the editorial management of each project we work on. Flatpage consistently beats our expectations in terms of turn around time and we are constantly hearing positive things from our clients in terms of the quality of their editorial work.

The editors performed at least two editorial passes on each text in order to ensure that they conformed to the style and content guidelines determined in collaboration with and managed by KMEC. Our editors ensured that the texts were written in easily accessible UK English, were free of mechanical errors, followed La Biennale’s style guide, and addressed the Biennale’s content goals.

If it were up to us, we would work with Flatpage for the copyediting on all of our book projects.

The Outcome

Volume 1 of the catalogue, consisting of 450 pages designed by Estudio Campo, was published by Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia in conjunction with the opening festivities in April 2024.

Working with Flatpage has allowed KMEC to expand the number of projects it can take on, thus growing our business, while allowing us to feel confident that it has a consistent partner for editorial work that it can rely on for a range of projects. I would tell colleagues that they should definitely work with Flatpage and if they do they will find an excellent partner they can trust for whatever the scope of their individual project.