Venice Biennale 2024 closes with 700,000 visitors

It closed on Sunday, November 24, 2024, the 60th Venice Biennale, entitled Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere (our review here). Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the edition recorded 700,000 tickets sold, marking an 18 percent increase over 2019 and ranking as one of the most attended in the history of the event (however, the record of the 2022 edition, when attendance was 800,000, was not reached). This means that there were 3,300 average daily visitors, to which must be added the 27,966 pre-opening attendance, and 4,289 accredited journalists also in the pre-opening.

The Biennale attracted an international audience, with 59 percent of visitors coming from abroad and 41 percent from Italy. The involvement of young people was definitely important: more than 190,000 under-26s attended the event, representing 30 percent of the total.

Educational activities reached significant numbers, with 80,613 participants including young people (39,844), schools (1,096, including 50 kindergarten, 187 primary, 72 middle and 787 high schools), teachers (5,941 onsite, 2,199 at previews) and organized groups (1,827). Italian and international universities responded enthusiastically, with 76 academic institutions involved (31 Italian and 45 foreign, led by Germany and France with 6 universities each, followed by Italy and the U.S. with 5 universities), which facilitated the visit of thousands of students and teachers (a total of 3,000 university students participated in the project).

On the digital front, the Biennale’s official website recorded 1.6 million active users and 101 million views on social media. The public also appreciated the “30 active catalogs” (i.e., young graduates who were hosting and giving information) along the exhibition route, which provided detailed information about the works and the protagonists. Sold, during the exhibition period, both at the bookshop and on the online ecommerce, 938 catalogs in Italian, 3,538 in English, 6,941 short guides in Italian and 20,470 short guides in English.

The exhibition involved 331 artists from around the world and 86 national participations, including debuts from Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Timor Leste. Two special projects enriched the exhibition offerings: the Applied Arts Pavilion in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the exhibition in Forte Marghera dedicated to Nedda Guidi.

Among the awards given by the International Jury, chaired by American curator Julia Bryan-Wilson, the Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to Australia, while Kosovo received a special mention. The Mataaho Collective was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Participant, and Karimah Ashadu was awarded the Silver Lion as a promising young person. Special mentions were awarded to Samia Halaby and La Chola Poblete. In addition, Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement were awarded to Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino and Turkish artist Nil Yalter.

"We greet Adriano Pedrosa’s Art Biennale with nostalgia, his exciting success and his great lesson: we are all Foreigners Everywhere," says President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco. "The works in the exhibition he curated crossed the boundaries of the Giardini and the Arsenale to enter the everyday and our mental horizon. In this difficult time for the world, art reminds us that everything is polemos between cultures, points of view, past and future. But it also teaches us that the direction of life is in the encounter of the you, the we, beyond the desperate loneliness of the self. We are all Strangers Everywhere in the crossing of worlds, in the experience of existence, and thus in the becoming of beauty and our own freedom, where the common feeling of Art holds us."

“As the Biennale Arte 2024 comes to a close,” says curator Adriano Pedrosa, "after a week of extraordinary performances, I am grateful above all to the artists who participated in the Exhibition, to the Biennale staff, to my team, and to all the lenders, galleries, sponsors, and donors who supported the Exhibition so generously, just as I am grateful to the 700,000 visitors who came to see the exhibition. I am grateful to President Roberto Cicutto for nominating me and to President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco for his support. It is always melancholy to see an exhibition of this magnitude come to an end, however, in a sense the journey continues. Now I’m curious to see what future Foreigners Everywhere - Foreigners Everywhere will have, especially in terms of understanding, welcoming and giving visibility to artists from the Global South, as well as indigenous, queer, self-taught artists and 20th century figures from Africa, Asia and Latin America."

Venice Biennale 2024 closes with 700,000 visitors

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.