27.02.2024

The 60th International Art Exhibition will take place from 20 April to 24 November 2024 (pre-opening on April 17, 18 and 19). This time the Biennale is curated by Adriano Pedrosa (the artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP; the 2023 recipient of the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence, that was presented to him by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York). The title of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia – Stranieri Ovunque (Foreigners Everywhere) – is drawn from a series of works started in 2004 by the Paris-born and Palermo-based Claire Fontaine collective. The phrase, in its turn, comes from the name of a Turin collective that fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s. The exhibition will spotlight artists from diverse backgrounds, giving space and visibility to previously marginalized groups, such as immigrants, expatriates, queer people, and indigenous individuals. "The expression Stranieri Ovunque has several meanings. First of all, wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners – they/we are everywhere. Secondly, no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner", explains Adriano Pedrosa. The Biennale Arte 2024 has favoured artists who have never participated in the International Exhibition, though a number of them may have been featured in a National Pavilion, a Collateral Event, or in a past edition of the International Exhibition. Special attention is being given to outdoor projects, both in the Arsenale and in the Giardini.
The Exhibition will also include 90 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city centre of Venice. 
The public organization Ukrainian Photography will represent Ukraine this year with the project “Weaving the Nets” (curated by Max Gorbatskyi and Viktoria Bavykina). 
The work refers to the metaphor of weaving a camouflage net as a joint action. The authors of the project are Ukrainian artists Katya Buchatska, Andrii Dostliev and Lia Dostlieva, Andriy Rachinskiy and Daniil Revkovskiy. Misha Buksha, Oleksandr Burlaka and Olena Kasperovych were engaged in the project. 

“It’s a joint action that helps people. However, the participants are free in this horizontal interaction. It seemed to us to be a good metaphor for what Ukrainians are experiencing now, and in general since the Revolution of Dignity. Ukrainians have a very increased need for collective action, it has become one of the conditions of our survival. But at the same time, this interaction does not diminish any participant, allowing everyone to be emancipated. Our project does not oppose the collective to the individual, but rather strengthens them", curators explained.
Ukrainian artists, including representatives of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, have participated in many editions of the International Art Exhibition in Venice. Thus, the year before last, immediately after the outbreak of a full-scale war, academician Pavlo Makov presented the artwork “Fountain of Exhaustion” at the Biennale; in 2019, the project “The Shadow of Dream (Mriya) Cast upon Giardini della Biennale” by Ukrainian artists from the Open Group was submitted at the 58th Biennale; and in 2017, Ukraine was represented at the 57th Venice Biennale by Honorary Academician of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine Boris Mikhailov with a series of works entitled “Parliament”. Victor Sydorenko, President of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, represented Ukraine at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 with the project Millstones of Time. He also co-curated the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 (together with Oleksandr Solovyov), and twice acted as a commissioner at the 54th and 55th Biennale in 2011 and 2013 respectively. (Information provided by the Deputy Head of the Department of International Scientific and Artistic Relations of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine Natalia Shpytkovska, Honorary Patron and Ambassador of the NAA of Ukraine Taisiya Savchuk-Polishchuk, and Yuliya Bukus) Learn more about the 60th Venice Biennale