Art Biennale 2024 in Venice
Highlights of the “strangest” works of the 60th International Art Exhibition
In homage to the theme of the 60th International Art Exhibition, held in Venice until November 24, 2024, namely the wonderful “extraneus” in all its forms, we tell you about an itinerary through some of his “strangest” and most colorful works.
Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the first Latin American to curate the International Art Exhibition of the Biennale, this year’s title is Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, taken from a series of works by the collective Claire Fontaine, born in Paris and based in Palermo, consisting of neon sculptures of various colors that report in different languages the words “Foreigners Everywhere” and that can be seen in a suggestive installation at the Arsenale.
This article is a tribute to the Italian term “straniero”, in Portuguese “estrangeiro”, in French “étranger”, in Spanish “extranjero”… All linked on an etymological level respectively to the words “strano”, “estranho”, “étrange” and “extraño”, that is, to the stranger and the strange in all its nuances.
Certain that being “strange”, out of the chorus, unique, courageous and visionary, is the engine of art, strong feelings and freedom, we tell you in this article about some of the strangest works, in an ideal journey through the various venues of the exhibition.
The Exhibition is divided between the Central Pavilion in the Giardini and the Arsenale into two distinct nuclei: the Contemporary Nucleus and the Historical Nucleus. It is precisely starting from the Central Pavilion that the most photographed work strikes us: the large mural created for the facade by the Huni Kuin Artists Movement (MAHKU) of the Alto Rio Jordão region, Acre, in Brazil, who sell art to buy land to protect it from deforestation.
Inside the Central Pavilion at the Giardini, we find the dialogue, perhaps, most exciting of this edition, it is the one between two extraordinary gay artists, Louis Fratino, a young American born in 1993, and the Italian Filippo de Pisis, born in Ferrara in 1896.
The first today at the peak of the art market (his works have touched a million euros at auctions), perhaps thanks to his wonderful and sensual male bodies, the second, on the contrary, hindered at the time precisely because he was homosexual and who should be “rediscovered” at an international level for his dandy, aristocratic and very refined nudes. In any case, a truly beautiful comparison.
Moving to the United States of America Pavilion, the second “wow” effect. It is the contrast between the Israel Pavilion, closed in protest and the request for a ceasefire, and the resounding Stars and Stripes Pavilion, just located next to it, that sees a single protagonist: Jeffrey Gibson.
Of Cherokee origins, he is the first indigenous artist to represent the country and enchants us with his interdisciplinary works that mix up to 150 colors and that take inspiration from Indian traditions, including beads and high fashion decorations.
Among the other works at the Giardini to enjoy and to study in depth by reading the (very strange) stories of the authors, we find those of Magde Gill, an incredible English artist born in 1882 who always declared that she painted “possessed”, and the exhibition The Museum of the Old Colony by Pablo Delano that investigates the persistent colonial structures through the lens of the experience of Puerto Rico with a truly suggestive cinematic staging.
At the Arsenale, the second venue of the Art Biennale, the exhibition dedicated to the artists who “emigrated” to other countries is truly wonderful with the installation created in 1968 by Italian Lina Bo Bardi: the very famous “glass easel”, a self-supporting sheet of glass with a cubic concrete base, perhaps the most celebrated exhibition support in the world.
Among the other particularly original works, those of the Lebanese Omar Mismar with his mosaics dedicated to free love, a tribute to the heroic actions of the forgotten and benevolent guardians of an archaeological museum in Syria, and of Santiago Yahuarcani, a self-taught artist from the Amazon with “shaman” and hypnotic canvases.
While, among the pavilions of the various countries, the colorful ones of the Republic of Benin, a nation exhibited for the first time, are striking, which through incredible blue tones tells the story of the slave trade and the Voodoo religion in a collective, or that of Lebanon with the artist Mounira Al Solh who narrates the kidnapping of Princess Europa by the god Zeus.
The Swatch space is also always very entertaining, with works by, among others, the Argentine collective Chiachio & Giannone, with their wonderful tapestries, and the Chinese Jiannan Wu with his satirical merry-go-rounds.
And if Karl Lagerfeld said “I don’t like standard beauty, there is no beauty without some strangeness”, this Biennale is certainly the perfect edition to take a trip around the world and discover some of the most incredible non-European artists.
The Secret
Adriano Pedrosa has traveled extensively between South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia to bring to the Biennale artists who are still little or not at all known in Europe.
