As the international art world has descended on La Serenissima this week, the 2024 Venice Biennale began the first of its preview days on Tuesday morning, with visitors heading to either (or both) of its main venues: the Arsenale and the Giardini. Curated this year by Adriano Pedrosa, the closely watched artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, the exhibition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” focuses on Indigenous artists and artist from the Global South, highlighting the vastness of art that is out in the world today and, with the historical section, throughout the 20th century.
The first several rooms of the Arsenale are the strongest section of this exhibition—triumphant and elegant in their presentations of monumental works that have presence and touch on the legacies of colonialism and its aftereffects and current realties today, queerness in an expanded form, the cacophony of modernity, and much more. While the Giardini is not as near pitch-perfect, there are standout works there too.
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More than half of this Biennale’s participant list consists of deceased artists, the majority of whom are represented by a single work in the historical section (“Nucleo Storico”). The “Nucleo Contemporaneo,” on the other hand, focuses on contemporary art (though a few deceased artists appear here, too). Here, I’ll focus on living artists included in the “Nucleo Contemporaneo”; below a look at the highlights.
Source: artnews.com