Biennale de Venise — 2024 — Foreigners Everywhere — Jardins de la Biennale de Venise — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Ends in 7 months: April 20 → November 24, 2024

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 collective Claire Fontaine. 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 who fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s.

«The expression Stranieri Ovunque has several meanings. First of all, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.

«The Italian straniero, the Portuguese estrangeiro, the French étranger, and the Spanish extranjero, are all etymologically connected to the strano, the estranho, the étrange, the extraño, respectively, which is precisely the stranger. Sigmund Freud’s Das Unheimliche comes to mind—The Uncanny in English, which in Portuguese has indeed been translated as “o estranho”– the strange that is also familiar, within, deep down side. According to the American Heritage and the Oxford Dictionaries, the first meaning of the word “queer” is precisely “strange”, and thus the Exhibition unfolds and focuses on the production of other related subjects: the queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self-taught artist, the folk artist and the artista popular; the indigenous artist, frequently treated as a foreigner in his or her own land. The productions of these four subjects are the interest of this Biennale, constituting the Nucleo Contemporaneo.»

«Indigenous artists have an emblematic presence and their work greets the public in the Central Pavilion, where the Mahku collective from Brazil will paint a monumental mural on the building’s façade, and in the Corderie, where the Maataho collective from Aotearoa/New Zealand will present a large-scale installation in the first room. Queer artists appear throughout the exhibition, and are also the subject of a large section in the Corderie, and one devoted to queer abstraction in the Central Pavilion.»
«The Nucleo Contemporaneo will feature a special section in the Corderie devoted to the Disobedience Archive, a project by Marco Scotini, which since 2005 has been developing a video archive focusing on the relationships between artistic practices and activism. In the Exhibition, the presentation of the Disobedience Archive is designed by Juliana Ziebell, who also worked in the exhibition architecture of the entire International Exhibition. This section is divided into two main parts especially conceived for our framework: Diaspora activism and Gender Disobedience. The Disobedience Archive will include works by 39 artists and collectives made between 1975 and 2023.»

«The Nucleo Storico gathering works from 20th century Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Much has been written about global modernisms and modernisms in the Global South, and a number of rooms will feature works from these territories, much like an essay, a draft, a speculative curatorial exercise that seeks to question the boundaries and definitions of modernism. We are all too familiar with the histories of modernism in Euroamerica, yet the modernisms in the Global South remain largely unknown. […]. European modernism itself travelled far beyond Europe throughout the 20th century, often intertwined with colonialism, and many artists in the Global South traveled to Europe to be exposed to it […].»
In the Central Pavilion three rooms are planned for the Nucleo Storico: one room is titled Portraits, one Abstractions and the third one is devoted to the the worldwide Italian artistic diaspora in the 20th century.
«The double-room named Portraits, includes works from 112 artists, mostly paintings but also works on paper and sculpture, spanning the years of 1905 and 1990. […] The theme of the human figure has been explored in countless different ways by artists in the Global South, reflecting on the crisis of representation around the that very figure that marked much of the art in 20th century art. In the Global South, many artists were in touch with European modernism, through travels, studies or books, yet they bring in their own highly personal and powerful reflections and contributions to their works […]. The room devoted to Abstractions includes 37 artists: most of them are being exhibited together for the first time, and we will learn from these unforeseen
juxtapositions in the flesh, which will then hopefully point towards new connections, associations, and parallels much beyond the rather straightforward categories that I have proposed. […]»

Adriano Pedrosa

Participating artists in national pavillions :

ALBANIA
Love as a glass of water — Iva Lulashi

ARGENTINA
Ojala se derrumben las puertas — Luciana Lamothe

ARMENIA (REPUBLIC OF)
Echo — Nina Khemchyan

AUSTRALIA
Archie Moore

AUSTRIA
SWAN LAKE — Anna Jermolaewa

AZERBAIJAN (REPUBLIC OF)
From Caspian to Pink Planet: I Am Here — Vusala Agharaziyeva, Rashad Alakbarov, Irina Eldarova

BANGLADESH (PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF)
The Contact — Abdur Rab, Syeda Mahbuba Karim, Shahjahan Ahmed Bikash, Shahid Kbir, Claudia De Leonardis, Anna Carla De Leonardis, Roberto Saglietto, Natalia Revoniuk, Patrizia Casagranda, DoJoong Jo, Jiyoon Oh, Franco Marrocco

BELGIUM
Petticoat Government — Denicolai & Provoost, Antoinette Jattiot, Nord and Speculoos

BENIN (REPUBLIC OF) Everything Precious Is Fragile — Chloé Quenum, Moufouli Bello, Ishola Akpo e Romuald Hazoume

BOLIVIA (PLURINATIONAL STATE OF)
ABYA YALA Desde la Patria Grande — Alexandra Bravo, Inés Fontenla, Ronald Moran,Lorgio Vaca, Humberto Velez and many others latinoamerican artists

BOSNIA — HERZEGOVINA
The Measure of the Sea — Stjepan Skoko

BRAZIL
Ka’a Pûera: we are walking birds — Glicéria Tupinambá with the Tupinamba Community of Serra do Padeiro and Olivença, in Bahia, Olinda Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó

BULGARIA
The Neighbours — Krasimira Butseva, Julian Chehirian, Lilia Topouzova

CAMEROON (REPUBBLICA DEL)
Nemo propheta in patria — Jean Michel Dissake, Hako Hankson, Kendji & Ollo Arts, Patrick-Joël Tatcheda Yonkeu, Guy Wouete, Angelo Accardi, Julia Bornefeld, Cesare Catania, Adélaïde Laurent-Bellue, Franco Mazzucchelli, Rex and Edna Volcan, Giorgio Tentolini, Liu Youju

CANADA
Trinket — Kapwani Kiwanga

CHILE
Cosmonación — Valeria Montti Colque

CHINA (PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF)
Atlas: Harmony in Diversity — Che Jianquan, Jiao Xingtao, Shi Hui, Qiu Zhenzhong, Wang Shaoqiang, Wang Zhenghong, Zhu Jinshi, project team of A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings

CONGO (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE)
RUMB’ART — André lufwa Mauridi, Wuma Mbambila Ndombasi, Alfred Liyolo, Freddy Tsimba, Franck Dikisongele, Freddy Lokole, Cedric Sungo, Steve Bondoma

CROATIA
By the Means at Hand — Vlatka Horvat

CUBA
Curtain — Wilfredo Prieto Garcia

CYPRUS (REPUBLIC OF) On a wildflower-lined gravel track off a quiet thoroughfare… — FOREVER INFORMED: Peter Eramian (LLC — Lower Levant Company), Emiddio Vasquez (LLC — Lower Levant Company), Andreas Andronikou (Endrosia), Marina Ashioti (Endrosia), Niki Charalambous (Endrosia), Doris Mari Demetriadou (Endrosia), Irini Khenkin (Endrosia), Rafailia Tsiridou (Endrosia), Alexandros Xenophontos (Endrosia), Haig Aivazian

CZECH (REPUBLIC)
The heart of a giraffe in captivity is twelve kilos lighter — Eva Kotatkova & Himali Singh Soin, David Tappeser, Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures and children’s and older people’s collectives

DENMARK
Rise of the Sunken Sun — Inuuteq Storch

EGYPT
Dramma — Wael Shawky

ESTONIA
Edith Karlson

ETHIOPIA
Prejudice and belonging — Tesfaye Urgessa

FINLAND (AALTO)
The pleasures we choose — Pia Lindman, Vidha Saumya, Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen

FRANCE
Julien Creuzet

GEORGIA
The Art of Seeing, States of Astronomy — Nikoloz Koplatadze, Grigol Nodia, Juliette George, Rodrigue de Ferluc; Iliazd, Max Ernst, Ernst Wilhelm Tempel

GERMANY
Thresholds — Yael Bartana, Ersan Mondtag, Michael Akstaller, Nicole L’Huillier, Robert Lippok und Jan St. Werner

GRAND DUCHY OF LUXEMBOURG
A Comparative Dialogue Act — Andrea Mancini and Every Island; Venue: Arsenale

GREAT BRITAIN
Listening all Night to the Rain — John Akomfrah

GREECE
DRYLAND — Thanassis Deligiannis, Elia Kalogianni, Giorgos Kyvernitis, Giannis Michalopoulos, Fotis Sagonas

GRENADA
No Man is an Island — Frederika Adam, Breakfast, Jason deCaires Taylor, Antonello Diodato Guardigli, Alma Fakhre, Suelin Low Chew Tung, Gabriele Maquignaz, Lorenzo Marini, Benaiah Matheson, The Perceptive Group, Nello Petrucci

HOLY SEE
With my eyes — Curators: Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine

HUNGARY
Techno Zen — Márton Nemes

ICELAND
That’s a Very Large Number, A Com-Merz-Bau — Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir

IRAN (ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF)
“Of One Essence is the Human Race” — Jafar Vahedi

IRELAND
ROMANTIC IRELAND — Eimear Walshe

ISRAEL
Motherland — Ruth Patir

ITALY
DUE QUI / TO HEAR — Massimo Bartolini

IVORY COAST
The Blue Note — Jems Koko Bi,François Xavier Gbré,Sadikou Oukpedjo, Franck Abd-Bakar Fanny, Marie Claire Messouma

JAPAN
Yuko Mohri

KAZAKHSTAN (REPUBLIC OF)
Jeru iyq — Kamil Mulashev, Saken Narynov, Yerbolat Tolepbay, Sergey Maslov, Anvar Musrepov, The2vvo

KENYA
Roots of Return — (TMMSAC) Elkana Ong’esa, Gerald Oroo Motondi,Robin Okeyo Mbera, John Tabule Abuya Ogao, Peter Kenyanya Oendo, Charles Duke Kombo

KOREA (REPUBLIC OF)
ODORAMA CITIES — Koo Jeong A

KOSOVO (REPUBLIC OF)
The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin — Doruntina Kastrati

LATVIA
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange… and therefore as a stranger give it welcome — Amanda Ziemele

LEBANON
A Dance with her Myth — Mounira Al Solh

LITHUANIA
Inflammation — Pakui Hardware (Neringa Cerniauskaite & Ugnius Gelguda), Marija Terese Rozanskaite

MALTA
I WILL FOLLOW THE SHIP — Matthew Attard

MEXICO
As we marched away, we were always coming back — Erick Meyenberg

MONGOLIA Discovering the Present from the Future — Ochirbold Ayurzana

MONTENEGRO
It Takes an Island to Feel This Good — Darja Bajagic

NETHERLANDS The
The International Celebration of Blasphemy and The Sacred — Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) : Djonga Bismar, Alphonse Bukumba, Irène Kanga, Muyaka Kapasa, Matthieu Kasiama, Jean Kawata, Huguette Kilembi, Mbuku Kimpala, Athanas Kindendi, ⁠Felicien Kisiata, Charles Leba, Philomène Lembusa, Richard Leta, Jérémie Mabiala, Plamedi Makongote, Blaise Mandefu, Daniel Manenga, Mira Meya, Emery Muhamba, Tantine Mukundu, Olele Mulela, Daniel Muvunzi, René Ngongo, Alvers Tamasala, Ced’art Tamasala

NICARAGUA
Commissioner: Eddy Luz Telleria Lanuza

NIGERIA
Nigeria Imaginary — Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ndidi Dike, Onyeka Igwe, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Abraham Oghobase, Precious Okoyomon, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA and Fatimah Tuggar

NORTH MACEDONIA (REPUBLIC OF)
“Inter Spem et Metum — Slavica Janeslieva

NORDIC COUNTRIES (SWEDEN ,NORWAY,FINLAND)
The Altersea Opera — Lap-See Lam with Kholod Hawash & Tze Yeung Ho

OMAN (SULTANATE OF)
Malath, Haven — Alia al Farsi, Ali al Jabri, Essa al Mufarji, Adham al Farsi, Sarah al Olaqi

PANAMA (REPUBLIC OF)
Traces: on the body and the land — Brooke Alfaro, Isabel De Obaldía, Cisco Merel, Giana De Dier

PERU
Cosmic Traces — Roberto Huarcaya

PHILIPPINES
Sa kabila ng tabing lamang sa panahong ito / Waiting just behind the curtain of this age — Mark Salvatus
Venue: Arsenale

POLAND
Repeat after Me II — Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach and Anton Varga)
Venue: Giardini

PORTUGAL
GREENHOUSE — Monica de Miranda, Sonia Vaz Borges, Vania Gala

ROMANIA
WHAT WORK IS — serban Savu & Atelier Brenda

SAN MARINO (REPUBLIC OF)
Nomader — Eddie Martinez

SAUDI ARABIA
Shifting Sands: A Battle Song — Manal AlDowayan

SENEGAL
"Bokk — Bounds" — Alioune Diagne

SERBIA
Exposition Coloniale — Aleksandar Denic

SEYCHELLES (REPUBLIC OF)
Jude Ally, Ryan Chetty, Danielle Freakley, Juliette Zelime AKA JADEZ

SINGAPORE
Seeing Forest — Robert ZHAO Renhui

SLOVAK (REPUBLIC)
Floating Arboretum — Oto Hudec

SLOVENIA (REPUBLIC OF)
Garden Secret For You — Nika Span

SOUTH AFRICA (REPUBLIC OF)
Quiet Ground — MADEYOULOOK– Molemo Moiloa and Nare Mokgotho;

SPAIN
PINACOTECA MIGRANTE / MIGRANT ART GALLERY — Sandra Gamarra Heshiki

SWITZERLAND
Super Superior Civilizations — Guerreiro do Divino Amor

TANZANIA (THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF)
A Flight in Reverse Mirrors (The Discovery of Others) — Happy Robert, Naby, Haji Chilonga e Lutengano Mwakisopile

TIMOR-LESTE (the DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF)
Kiss and Don’t Tell — Maria Madeira

TÜRKİYE
Hollow and Broken: A State of the World — Gülsün Karamustafa

UGANDA
Wan Acel,-Alur for “We are one” — Artisan Weavers’ Collective, Sana Gateja, Taga Nuwagaba, Xenson Ssenkaba, Jose Hendo, Odur Ronald

UKRAINE
Net Making — Katya Buchatska, Andrii Dostliev, Lia Dostlieva, Daniil Revkovskyi, Andrii Rachynskyi, Oleksandr Burlaka

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Sites of Memory, Sites of Amnesia —  Abdullah Al Saadi

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
the space in which to place me — Jeffrey Gibson

URUGUAY
LATENT — Eduardo Cardozo

UZBEKISTAN (REPUBLIC OF)
Don’t miss the cue — Aziza Kadyri

VENEZUELA (BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF)
Participatory Experience. Juvenal Ravelo — Juvenal Ravelo

ZIMBABWE (REPUBLIC OF)
Undone — Gillian Rosselli, Kombo Chapfika, Moffat Takadiwa, Sekai Machache, Troy Makaza, Victor Nyakauru