The 60th International Art Exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa and titled "Stranieri Ovunque" (Foreigners Everywhere), will open to the public from Saturday, April 20 to Sunday, November 24, 2024, at the Giardini and the Arsenale. The pre-opening will take place on April 17, 18, and 19; the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on April 20, 2024.

Hosting 90 countries and 332 artists on display, in addition to 30 collateral events, this year's edition puts "diversity" under the spotlight, examining the processes that lead to defining others as "foreigners". The title of Venice Art Biennale is drawn from a series of works started in 2004 by the Paris-born and Palermo-based Claire Fontaine collective. The works consist of neon sculptures in different colors that render in a growing number of languages the words “Foreigners Everywhere”. The phrase comes, in turn, from the name of a Turin collective that fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s.

"The expression Stranieri Ovunque, explained Adriano Pedrosa, has several meanings. First of all, wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners, they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner."

The Exhibition will take place in the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and the Arsenale, and it will present two sections: the Nucleo Contemporaneo and the Nucleo Storico. Nucleo Contemporaneo will develop between the “Central Pavilion” and the “Cordiere”, where there will be works dedicated to the different meanings of the term “foreigner”, etymologically connected to the word "strano". This part of the exhibition unfolds and focuses on the production of other related subjects: the queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self-taught artist, the folk artist and the artist popular; the indigenous artist, frequently treated as a foreigner in his or her land. The Nucleo Contemporaneo will also feature a special section in the Corderie devoted to the Disobedience Archive, a project by Marco Scotini, which since 2005 has been developing a video archive focusing on the relationships between artistic practices and activism. The second part called Nucleo Storico gathers works from 20th-century Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, it will be spread over three rooms are planned for the Nucleo Storico: one room is titled Portraits, one Abstractions, and the third is devoted to the worldwide Italian artistic diaspora in the 20th century.

30 Collateral Events admitted by the Curator and promoted by non-profit national and international bodies and institutions, will take place in several locations around the city of Venice. They offer a wide range of contributions and participations that enrich the diversity of voices that characterize the Exhibition.

There are two Special Projects at this year's Venice Biennial. Ten works by the Italian artist Nedda Guidi, in competition at the International Art Exhibition, will be on display in Forte Marghera inside the building known as the Austrian Armoury. Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes, known for her work that overlays the Brazilian cultural imagination with references to Western modernist painting, will present seven paintings and seven collages, all large-scale works. The project for the Pavilion, curated this year by Adriano Pedrosa and now in its eighth edition, is a collaboration between La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London.

A must-attend event will be during the inauguration ceremony, where the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement will be awarded to the Italian-born Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino and the Paris-based Turkish artist Nil Yalter, taking place on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at Ca’ Giustinian, the headquarters of La Biennale di Venezia.

The 60th International Art Exhibition
April 20 – November 28, 2024
Giardini – Arsenale
Venezia, Italia
www.labiennale.org