The program for the 60th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition in Italy - whose general theme is "Foreigners Everywhere" - which will take place between April 20th and November 24th 2024, was announced at a joint press conference by the president of the biennial, Roberto Cicutto, and the curator appointed by the organization, Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).
"As a guiding principle, the 2024 Art Biennale privileged artists who have never participated in an international exhibition - although some of them may have been presented in a National Pavilion, in a collateral event or in a 20th century edition", said Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa, the first Latin American curator of this international event.
In addition to the representation of Portugal, with the "Greenhouse" project, on the themes of identity and culture, by artists Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges and Vânia Gala, from the Portuguese-speaking world, Timor-Leste will be present, for the first time, with the project by artist Maria Madeira "Kiss and don't tell", curated by Natalie King, about the history of women's struggle against the Indonesian occupation.
The art biennale's program includes national representations and a general exhibition for which works by invited artists are selected. This year, the list of 332 selected included Angolan artists Kiluanji Kia Henda, born in 1979, Sandra Poulson, born in 1995, and Mozambican artists Malangatana (1936-2011) and Bertina Lopes (1924-2012).
Brazil will have its national pavilion with "Ka'a Pûera: We are walking birds", in a project curated by Arissana Pataxó, Denilson Baniwa and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana, with the participation of artists Glicéria Tupinambá and the Tupinambá Community of Serra do Padeiro and Olivença , from Bahia, Olinda Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó.
From Brazil, renowned artists and lesser-known artists will be represented in the general exhibition, such as Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973), Candido Portinari (1903-1962), Djanira da Motta e Silva (1914-1979), Emiliano di Cavalcanti (1897-1976 ), Cícero Dias (1907-2003) and Dalton Paula, born in 1982.
The general curator indicated, at the press conference, that the main focus of this edition will be "artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporics, emigrants, exiles or refugees - particularly those who have moved between the global south and the global north global", with "migration and decolonization being key themes".
The theme "Foreigners everywhere", announced by Adriano Pedrosa in June 2023, already highlighted that the 2024 edition would be "a celebration" of the 'outsider', and also of 'queer' expressions, "often persecuted or proscribed ", and artists "on the margins of the art world", such as indigenous people.
