Venice Biennale 2024, here are the first photos of the international exhibition

First images from the Venice Biennale after press day, the day reserved for the press that anticipates the three-day preview before the major international exhibition finally opens its doors to the public (this year it will do so from April 20 to November 24, 2024). Curated by Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, director of MASP in São Paulo, Brazil, this year’s edition is titled Strangers Everywhere. The aim of the exhibition is to challenge cultural stereotypes with an exhibition that talks about diversity, similarities, juxtapositions and juxtapositions, and then again themes such as immigration, diaspora, globalization and cultural coexistence.

The theme “Strangers Everywhere” is meant to present itself as a reminder of the plurality and fluidity of human experience in the contemporary era. Through artworks by artists from around the world, the Biennial thus offers a glimpse into the complexity of global identities, challenging traditional notions of belonging. The title Foreigners Everywhere - Foreigners Every where is taken from a series of works created by the Claire Fontaine collective since 2004. These works consist of neon sculptures of various colors bearing the words “Foreigners Everywhere” (also featured in the exhibition) in different languages. The expression was in turn taken from the name of a collective of the same name in Turin that fought against racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s.

For this edition is curator Pedrosa has chosen to invite artists who have never participated in the International Exhibition, although some of them have already exhibited in a National Pavilion, in a Collateral Event or in a past edition of the International Exhibition. Special attention is given to outdoor projects, both at the Arsenal and the Giardini, and a performance program during the pre-opening days and the last weekend of the 60th Exposition.

The international exhibition is essentially divided into two parts: the Contemporary Core and the Historical Core. Outsiders, indigenous and queer make up the backbone of the Contemporary Core. The Historical Core, on the other hand, consists of 20th-century works from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Arab world. This core aims to explore the global modernisms of the Global South, presenting works from these territories as a curatorial essay aimed at questioning the boundaries and definitions of Modernism. The room titled “Portraits,” the one dedicated to “Abstractions,” and a third room devoted to the Italian artistic diaspora around the world will constitute the Historical Core in the Central Pavilion.

The context in which this edition of the Biennale comes, Pedrosa explains, “is a world full of multifaceted crises that affect the movement and existence of people within countries, nations, territories and borders and that reflect the risks and pitfalls concealed within ’within language, its possible translations and nationality, expressing differences and disparities conditioned by identity, citizenship, race, gender, sexuality, freedom and wealth. In this landscape, the expression Strangers Everywhere has more than one meaning. First, it is meant to imply that wherever you go and wherever you are, you will always encounter foreigners: they are we are everywhere. Second, c and regardless of one’s location, deep down one is always truly a foreigner. Moreover, the expression takes on a very special and specific meaning in Venice: a city whose original population was made up of refugees from Roman urban centers, a city that in the past was the most important hub of international exchange and trade in the Mediterranean, a city that was the capital of the Venetian Republic, dominated by Napoleon Bonaparte and conquered by Austria, and whose population today is about 50.000 inhabitants, but which in peak season can reach 165,000 in a single day because of the huge number of tourists and travelers (foreigners of the privileged type) who visit it. In Venice, foreigners are everywhere. But one can also think of this expression as a motto, a slogan, a call to action, a cry of excitement, joy or fear: Foreigners Everywhere! And, above all, it takes on a crucial significance today in Europe, the Mediterranean and the world, as the number of forced migrants peaked in 2022 (with 108.4 million according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and is expected to increase further in 2023.”

Will the 2024 Biennial meet expectations? It will be some time before we see the first thoughtful reviews come out: for now, a roundup of photographs, and then the evaluations will come.

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