The Venice Art Biennale 2024
The Venice Art Biennale celebrates its 60th edition this year by inviting for the first time a Latin American curator, the Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa.
The theme presented is ‘Strangers Everywhere - Foreigners Everywhere’, a title that takes its cue from the neon works of the Claire Fontaine collective, and through different meanings wants to imply that wherever you go you will always meet foreigners, but also that no matter where you are, deep down you are always a foreigner.
The exhibition, open to the public from 20 April to 24 November 2024, is articulated in two venues: the Central Pavilion at the Giardini, which in some cases are veritable architectures, and the Arsenale, where the Italian Pavilion is also to be found, this year curated by Luca Cerizza and dedicated to a single artist, Massimo Bartolini with the project Due qui / To hear.
The exhibition is subdivided into two sections, one contemporary and one historical. Together, there are artworks by over three hundred artists, mainly from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, without gender discrimination and who, in most cases, had never exhibited at the Biennale before. The artists presented are foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporics, exiles and refugees, in particular people who have moved between the global South and North. Migration and decolonisation will be the key themes of the exhibition.
This year's Biennale is distinguished by the high level of projects presented by the national pavilions, a programme of quality collateral exhibitions and an equally rich programme of performances between national pavilions and exhibition spaces in the city.
Reflecting on the relationship between the Biennale and the art market, it is interesting to note that even if it is not a fair and the artworks are not for sale, the exhibition is a very important showcase for artists. Participation in the Biennale is, in fact, an important note in the curriculum vitae of the artists and their artworks and can generate a re-evaluation of already well-known artists or the rediscovery of others who have been overlooked in the past. At the same time, the exhibition can be an opportunity for collectors to discover figures that have not yet been valorised by the market and to explore trends and themes with an eye to the present but also to the future.
