The sixtieth edition of the Biennale International Art Exhibition has kicked off in Venice. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, it addresses the theme “Foreigners everywhere”, chosen as the guideline for the event scheduled until November 24th. Here is our journey through the pavilions for the Flash column
Foreigners everywhere
It can’t be easy to encapsulate in a title the meaning of a work that involves hundreds of artists: outsiders, queer, indigenous, folk and self-taught. Adriano Pedrosa, Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro, born in 1965, chose “Foreigners Everywhere”, to indicate his vision of Art, a vision which is the result of a profound reflection on the role of Art itself and of those who creates it.
The curator of the Biennale has placed the term “foreigner”, declined in different meanings, at the center of his thought and analysis. A term that draws on the themes of immigration, diaspora, difference, marginalization, decolonization to give substance to what – in different shapes, colours, materials, fabrics, shades – we call Contemporary Art.
All 90 participating nations followed – each in their own way – this sort of north star, which guided them in the creation of the hundreds of works on display in the various pavilions of this Biennial.
Foreigners everywhereis inspired by the works of the French collective, based in Palermo, Claire Fontaine and their neon writings, translated into dozens of languages (including indigenous and extinct languages), precisely the title of the 2024 BIennale.
The Italian Pavilion
Curated by Luca Cerizza, the Italian Pavilion is designed by the Tuscan artist Massimo Bartolini, with the collaboration of musicians and writers. Is titled Two Here/Two Hear and plays on the double meaning of the Italian and English meaning. A play on words that refers to listening and finds its wonder precisely in it, inviting us not to act, to think.
The visitor thus finds himself in the Arsenale area, within a project divided into three environments, in the center there is a labyrinth of innocent tubes, some of which hide the organ which sends out widespread music. Then there is a tub, an integral part of the work, which contains water and clay and moves in time with the music itself.
Artists from the south of the world
Adriano Pedrosa has personally traveled, especially in the south of the world, to find ideas, to discover and make the public discover names unknown to most people, who have never taken part in a Biennial, who were trained far from academies and art schools. ‘Emblazoned art. They are artists who bring out vitality, energy, the strength of life, all elements that pass from their expert and imaginative hands and converge in their magnificent works.
You have until November 24th to visit the Gardens, the Arsenal, around Venice, a city which is an open-air museum in itself and which in recent months offers over 30 collateral events and exhibitions everywhere. A journey into Beauty to be undertaken by everyone with their own sensitivity, guided by their own curiosity, with a personal sense of orientation in Art, made of attraction or repulsion, but still to be achieved. Sometimes you may feel like a foreigner, among so many works and so much on offer, among very different countries and artists. On the other hand, though, isn’t that the beauty of it? Feeling like foreigners and then trying to feel at home.
