Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners everywhere: this is the theme of the next 60th Venice International Art Exhibition chosen by the curator Adriano Pedrosa, from 20 April to 24 November 2024. The title is inspired by a series of works executed in 2004 by the Claire Fontaine collective, born in Paris and based in Palermo, which consists of coloured neon sculptures bearing the words “Foreigners Everywhere” in various languages.

Claire Fontaine, Foreigners Everywhere, 2004-2016

The Exhibition continues along the path created by the two previous editions, the one curated by Cecilia Alemani and entitled The Milk of Dreams and the Laboratory of the Future by Lesley Lokko (still ongoing), taking up the narrative of the revaluation of cultures, geographical areas and personalities up to then forget or set aside.

Director of the Museum of São Paulo in Brazil (Masp), Adriano Pedrosa’s point of view is totally new for the Biennale Arte, being the first curator from Latin America. It is precisely from this perspective that the theme of the “foreigner” will be addressed, in the broadest sense of the term: the definition contemplates all those artists who find themselves experiencing situations of disparity conditioned by race, sexuality, gender, wealth, social class, even within their own country.

The curator of Biennale 2024, Adriano Pedrosa
Courtesy Biennale di Venezia

The exhibition will be divided into two main blocks, a Nucleo Contemporaneo and a Nucleo Storico, where queer, outsider, folk and indigenous artists will alternate with 20th-century works from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Arab world. A special section of the Nucleo Storico will be dedicated to those “Italian artists who travelled and moved abroad developing their careers in Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as in the rest of Europe, becoming embedded in local culture,” said Pedrosa during the presentation press conference held yesterday, June 22nd.

Pedrosa’s curatorial contribution therefore presents itself as an interpreter of a world in continuous evolution, increasingly unstable and complex, through the stage of the Biennale which more than ever proves to be International.