Venice Biennale titled ‘Foreigners Everywhere’ LGBTQ+ platforms, foreign and indigenous artists

Venice, Italy — Outsider, queer and indigenous artists are getting an overdue platform at the 60th Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition, which opens on Saturday, curated for the first time by a Latin American.

The main exhibition by Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa, which follows 88 national pavilions for seven months, is strong in figurative painting, with fewer installations than recent editions. A preponderance of artists come from the Global South, long ignored by the main world art circuits. Many died – Frida Kahlo, for example, makes her first appearance at the Venice Biennale. Her 1949 painting, “Diego and I,” is next to one by her husband and fellow artist, Diego Rivera.

Despite the smaller number, the living artists have “a much stronger physical presence in the exhibition,” Pedrosa said, with each exhibiting a large-scale work or a collection of smaller works. The vast majority are making their debut at the Venice Biennale.

Visitors to the two main sites, the Giardini and the Arsenale, will be greeted by a neon sign by conceptual art cooperative Claire Fontaine with the exhibition title: “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere”. A total of 60 in different languages ​​are spread across the locations.

When taken in the context of global conflicts and stricter borders, the title seems like a provocation against intransigent governments – at the very least, an encouragement to consider our shared humanity. Through artists with underrepresented perspectives, the exhibition addresses themes of migration and the nature of the diaspora, as well as indigeneity and the role of crafts.

“For foreigners everywhere, the expression has many meanings,” said Pedrosa. “You could say that wherever you go, wherever you are, you are always surrounded by foreigners. …And then, on a more personal, perhaps subjective, psychoanalytic dimension, wherever you go, you are also a foreigner, deep down.

“The refugee, the foreigner, the queer, the outsider and the indigenous, these are the four themes of interest in the exhibition”, he stated.

Some highlights from the Venice Biennale, which runs until November 26th:

Facing the threat of protests, the Israel Pavilion remained closed after the artist and curators refused to open until there was a ceasefire in Gaza and Israeli hostages taken by Hamas were released.

Ukraine makes its second artistic appearance at the Biennale as a country under invasion; soft diplomacy designed to keep the world focused on war. Russia has not appeared at the Biennale since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, but this time its historic 110-year-old building in the Giardini has been loaned to Bolivia.

For a brief period during this week’s previews, a printed poster hanging on the Accademia Bridge labeled Iran a “murderous terrorist regime,” declaring that “the Iranian people want freedom & peace.” The site of the Iranian pavilion was nearby, but there was no sign of activity. The Biennale said it would open on Sunday – two days after Italy’s departure from the G7 foreign ministers, who warned Iran of sanctions over the escalation of violence against Israel.

As a queer artist born in South Korea and working in Los Angeles, Kang Seung Lee said he identified with Pedrosa’s “invitation to look at our lives as foreigners, but also as visitors to this world.”

His installation, “Untitled (Constellations)”, which considers the artists who died in the AIDS epidemic through a collection of objects, dialogues with works on canvas by the late British artist Romany Eveleigh, who passed away in 2020. “The works speak to each other , an intergenerational conversation, of course,” said Lee, 45, whose works have been shown in international exhibitions including Documenta 15. This is his first Venice Biennale.

Nearby, Brazilian transsexual artist Manauara Clandestina presented her video “Migranta”, which talks about her family’s migration story. “It’s so strong, because I can hear my dad’s voice,” she said. Manaus embraced Pedrosa during a press preview marking his Venice debut. She said she continues to work in Brazil, despite discrimination and violence against trans people.

The Giardini is home to 29 national pavilions representing some of the oldest participating nations, such as the United States, Germany, France and Great Britain. The most recent additions appear in the nearby Arsenale or choose a more distant location, as Nigeria did this year in the Dorsoduro district of Venice.

The Nigeria Pavilion, in a long-abandoned building with raw brick walls that exude potential, houses an exhibition that encompasses mediums – including figurative art, installation, sculpture, sound art, cinematic art and augmented reality – from artists living in the diaspora and in the homeland.

“These different relationships with the country allow for very unique and different perspectives of Nigeria,” said curator Aindrea Emelife. “I find it quite interesting to consider how leaving a space creates a nostalgia for what was not and allows the artist to imagine an alternative continuation of it. The exhibition is about nostalgia, but also about criticality.”

The eight-artist Biennale exhibition “Nigeria Imaginary” will travel to the West African Art Museum in Benin City, Nigeria, where Emelife is curator, which will give it “a new context and a new sense of relevance,” she said. she.

Ghanaian-born British artist John Akomfrah has created eight film and sound-based multimedia works for the British Pavilion that examine what it means to “live as a figure of difference” in Britain. The images of water are a connecting device, representing memory.

“Overall, I’m trying to figure out something about collective memory, the things that have informed a culture, British culture, let’s say, over the last 50 years,” Akomfrah told The Associated Press. “As you go further, you realize we are going further back. We ended up going to the 16th century. So it’s an interrogation of 500 years of British life.”

Considering the issue of equity in the art world, Akomfrah pointed to the adjacent French Pavilion – where French-Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet has created an immersive exhibition – and the Canadian Pavilion on the other side, featuring an exhibition that examines the historical importance of Kapwani beads Kiwanga, who is in Paris.

“I mean, this feels like a very significant moment for black artists,” said Akomfrah, who attended the Ghana Pavilion in 2019. “Because I’m in the British Pavilion. Next to me is the Frenchman, with an artist, Julien, who I love very much, of African origin. And next to me is a Canadian pavilion that has a biracial artist, again, with African heritage.

“So this has certainly not happened before, that three large pavilions have black artists inhabiting, busy, working in them. And this feels like progress,” he said.