After the art week that just ended in Milan, now it's time to move to Venice for the 60th International Art Exhibition, this year curated by Adriano Pedrosa and scheduled from 20 April to 24 November.
Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, the title of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 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 colours 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 Exhibition is divided into two venues, Giardini and Arsenale, both equally important and complementary to one another.
But there are many Venetian events scheduled during the 2024 Art Biennale: in addition to exhibitions linked to the themes of migration and encounters with others, such as the exhibition of 10 international artists in the Ghetto, there are also fusions between different artistic languages, such as in the case of the CYFEST 15 International Media Art Festival.
Here are 10 projects not to be missed:
1. The Italian Pavilion at the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale
The Italian Pavilion at the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale, sponsored and promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, is curated by Luca Cerizza. The project Due qui / To hear by the artist Massimo Bartolini includes contributions specifically created by musicians and writers.
2. Berlinde De Bruyckere, City of Refuge III, Isola di San Giorgio, Venezia
The Venetian exhibition by Berlinde De Bruyckere (Ghent, 1964) is entitled City of Refuge III, from the song by Nick Cave, and is the third in a series of exhibitions by the artist which thematise art as a place of refuge and shelter.
3. Jean Cocteau: The Juggler’s Revenge
The Guggenheim Collection offers the first major Italian retrospective dedicated to the artist, curated by Kenneth E. Silver who has studied his work and personality in depth; until 16 September 2024, the exhibition presents over 150 drawings, objects, photographs and archive materials, a worthy tribute to a key figure for the artistic avant-garde and for the developments of contemporary art.
4. Pierre Huyghe, Liminal, Punta della Dogana
Liminal, an exhibition created by Pierre Huyghe in close collaboration with curator Anne Stenne, presents major new creations alongside works from the last ten years, particularly from the Pinault Collection. Pierre Huyghe transforms Punta della Dogana into a dynamic, sensitive milieu perpetually evolving.
The exhibition is a transitory state inhabited by human and non-human creatures and becomes the site of the formation of subjectivities that are constantly learning, changing, and hybridizing. Their memories are expanding with information captured from events, both perceptible and imperceptible, that permeate the exhibition.
5. Francesco Vezzoli Musei delle Lacrime
Together with the curator Donatien Greu, the artist will place his works alongside the museum's Venetian art collection and the architecture of Carlo Scarpa, mixing the sacred with the profane.
6. ULYSSES. WE ARE ALL HEROES - Palazzo Bonvicini
The exhibition brings to life the spirit of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey in the context of our contemporary world. Four international artists — Gayle Chong Kwan, Stephanie Blake, ISAO and Didier Guillon— reinterpret and breathe new life into the classical tale. The first of a mythological trilogy, ULYSSES. We Are All Heroes narrates four of the most crucial events of the book, in which Ulysses undergoes a number of remarkable encounters. If Ulysses is the hero of this art exhibition, next year Palazzo Bonvicini will develop its curatorial project on Telemachus, followed by the final chapter of this series on the Odyssey, focusing on the figure of Penelope.
7. Berggruen Arts & Culture - Palazzo Diedo
A Biennale presents a prime opportunity to establish a new Foundation in the city. Nicolas Berggruen's initiative at Palazzo Diedo is set to become a must-visit destination. The inauguration of this new permanent contemporary art venue, the city's largest in a decade, features the Janus exhibition with 11 site-specific works by renowned international artists. Additionally, two special projects, in collaboration with The Kitchen of New York and the Polaroid Foundation, will be showcased, inviting artists to engage with the iconic instant camera.
8. Diamanti di Prada
Fondazione Prada presents the “Monte di Pietà” project conceived by the artist Christoph Büchel in its Venice headquarters, the historic palace of Ca' Corner della Regina. With a collection of historical and contemporary works, new exhibition interventions and a vast selection of objects and documents relating to the history of property, credit and finance, the artist investigates the concept of debt as the basis of society and an instrument of power.
9. The Arch within the Arc
At the Palazzo Grimani Museum, Rick Lowe's first solo show in Italy: the exhibition of new paintings The Arch within the Arc recounts the technique in acrylic painting and collage that develops geometric motifs and improvisation.
10. Edith Dekyndt - Song to the Siren - Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi
In the light of an autumn morning in 2022, Edith Dekyndt photographed a young woman lying in the waters of the lagoon, next to the Partisan Monument which is located along the shore, in front of the Gardens of Venice. The young woman holds a white cloth in her hand with which she cleans, cleanses, repairs, caresses or even consoles the bronze statue which portrays a woman from times gone by, partially immersed in the lagoon, her hands tied, probably directed towards its end, as were numerous partisans, including Venetian ones, during the Second World War.
In this video work, presented in the Foyer of the Teatrino of Palazzo Grassi, Edith Dekyndt draws the viewer's attention to the possibility of cultivating and preserving her memory, to avoid a possible repetition. The bronze sculpture, created in 1969 by the sculptor Augusto Murer, is positioned on a structure and a hydraulic pedestal conceived by Carlo Scarpa. The work “Song to the Siren” is part of a series of actions in which the same gesture is repeated at public historical monuments, chosen by virtue of their resonance in the contemporary world. The titles of the speeches always reflect the titles of the songs, taking on an open and eternal echo. In this case, the title is “Song to the Siren” (1970), a song written by Larry Beckett and Tim Buckley and reinterpreted over time by numerous artists, from This Mortal Coil to Robert Plant
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