Venice Biennale 2024 – Tickets please!

One title to beat them all – Foreigners Everywhere!

If you still haven’t bought your tickets to the Venice Biennale 2024, form an orderly queue please, because the doors are about to open.

Running from right now up until 24th November, this year sees the return of the international art pavilions to this most enigmatic and fabled City of Water.

2024 marks the 60th birthday of the art extravaganza, and is curated by Adriano Pedrosa. In case you’ve been lost in space for ten years, Adriano is the award-winning, Brazilian artistic director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (AKA the MASP), and is the 2023 recipient of the ultra-prestigious Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. 

This year’s Biennale title and theme – Foreigners Everywhere! – is as provocative as it is paradigm-shifting. And as far as Venice is concerned, this couldn’t be more apt. For centuries before the city hosted the tragic marriage of Othello to Desdemona, it was an international and cultural melting pot, overflowing with passion. Today, pretty much nothing’s changed.

For Adriano, however, the title holds a greater significance.

“Artists have always travelled and moved about, under various circumstances, through cities, countries and continents, something that has only accelerated since the late 20th century – ironically a period marked by increasing restrictions regarding the dislocation or displacement of people. The Biennale Arte 2024’s primary focus is thus artists who are themselves foreigners, immigrants, expatriates, diasporic, émigrés, exiled, or refugees.” 

The City of Water greets global creative genius

The Biennale features 88 National participants presenting their exhibits in three areas – the beating heart lies in the original location, the Giardini, which then branches out to the Arsenale and the city centre.

ArtReview has published its frequently updated, go-to list of pavilions, including an essential guide to the artists chosen to represent their countries in 2024.

Amongst this Who’s Who is the star in charge of the British Pavilion – and this time around it was in the creative hands of artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah RA. Standing at John’s side was Associate Curator of the British Pavilion Tarini Malik. The British Council also deserves a nod of respect for offering mid-career curators a very Venetian opportunity to work with this leading British artist on a global platform.

And the Golden Lion winners are…

The last need-to-know is that the awards ceremony and inauguration was held on 20 April. The big prizes went to New Zealand’s Mataaho Collective for the main curated exhibition, with First Nations artist Archie Moore nabbing the Golden Lion for Australia’s National Pavilion. The Mataaho Collective are four Māori women artists – Bridget Reweti, Erena Baker, Sarah Hudson, and Terri Te Tau, while Archie Moore hails from Queensland.

The Mataaho Collective’s exhibition is showing Takapau (2022), a dramatically lit installation featuring woven and latticed polyester hi-vis tie-downs. This large and dramatic work graces the Arsenale section of the Biennale serving as a passageway to the rest of the show.

As you’d expect from a Golden Lion winner, the Australia Pavilion is equally impressive. When Kamilaroi Bigambul artist Archie Moore created ‘kith and kin’, he started out by painting all the walls black. He then spent months chalking in the names of his family tree, by hand. We aren’t, however, talking about just a few Aunties and Uncles – Archie went back more than 2,400 generations. No further comment necessary.

The final mention goes to the recipients of the Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement. This year’s honourees were the Italian-born Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino, and Paris-based Turkish artist Nil Yalter.

A huge well done to winners, artists and curators alike, and we can’t wait to see it all in person.

In the meantime, mustard XP will be back in a few weeks with an in-depth report on John Akomrah’s British Pavilion.

Are you a potential Venice Biennale award winner?

Do you think you have what it takes to lead or work with a team on an exhibit as internationally significant as this? If so, we need to talk – mustard XP has a constant flow of brilliant opportunities within the exhibition and museum industries. In fact, we’re recruiting right now, so call us on 0117 929 6060 for the complete lowdown.