What To Look Forward To: A Venice Biennale Special

It's fair to say geopolitical relations have nose-dived into a gutter of despair in the past year. Whether it be Russia continuing to wage war on former Soviet territory Ukraine, Gaza's population shrinking by the hour, or America preparing itself to welcome back Donald Duck into power as the White House looks to advance into a retirement home, the world is not a comforting place for anyone, anywhere; especially 'foreigners'. Alas, this year's La Biennale di Venezia, curated by artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art, Adriano Pedrosa, looks very promising. Especially in its encouragement of welcoming many countries, and their debut pavilions - including Ethiopia, Taiwan and even the Republic of Benin - under the befitting theme Foreigners Everywhere.

Despite the organisation of the world's biggest art exhibition grouped into two complementary venues (the Giardini and Arsenale) - both of which expand into a never-ending sprawl of national and international pavilions standing as representations of each participating country - there are also many 'Collateral Events' responding to the Biennale without the need of representing an individual country. In this art special of our What To Look Forward To series, we gift you our comprehensive and definitive guide of everything we're looking forward to at La Biennale di Venezia this year... ready, set, go!

THE PAVILIONS

British Pavilion

Sir John Akomfrah RA

Listening All Night To The Rain

Listening All Night To The Rain continues artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. With the help of Shane Akeroyd associate curator Tarini Malik, the exhibition is conceived as a single installation with eight multi-screen sound and time-based works, all of which help Akomfrah’s commission interpret and transform the British pavilion's space so that a necessary interrogation of relics and monuments of colonial histories can take place. Subversive in its act of encouraging returning visitors to engage with the space's inhabited 19th-century neoclassical building differently than in previous years, the exhibition looks to reposition the role of art in its ability to write history in unexpected ways as poetic connections between different geographies and periods are made. 'I sense that one can know the world - that you can find a name, an identity and a sense of belonging - via the sonic' - John Akomfrah.

Ethiopian Pavilion

Tesfaye Urgessa

Prejudice and Belonging

In keeping with this year's grand exhibition theme Foreigner's Everywhere, the Saatchi Yates-represented Addis Ababa-based artist Tesfaye Urgessa will present a series of paintings curated by Lemn Sissay OBE FRSL at the Ethiopian pavilion, forming the exhibition Prejudice and Belonging. Questions posed by Urgessa's German expressionist-style works don't just tap into the 'foreigner'-focused Biennale theme, they are the theme, or at least stand at the centre of it by asking questions like: "How long does it take for a foreigner to achieve a sense of belonging?" and "Does the term "foreigner" hold the same weight for everyone?". Pulsing with life and love through the mirrored thematic lens of race, migration, displacement and identity politics, Urgessa isn't just a painter, he's a statement-maker. To read our feature on the artist and find out more about the Ethiopian pavilion, click here.

Icelandic Pavilion

Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir

That’s a Very Large Number - A Commerzbau

Representing Iceland's pavilion is the Reykjavík-based contemporary artist Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, whose exhibition - comprising new material sculpture and installation works - continues the artist's dedication in her search for mass-produced disposable objects to repurpose and make anew. Curated by Dan Byers, That’s a Very Large Number - A Commerzbau takes after the chaotic collages of German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, of which he used to refer to as 'Merz' (the use of this description for Schwitters came after discovering a frag­ment of newspaper printed with the end of the word ‘Commerz’). Birgisdóttir reintroduces the ‘com’ here, creating her ‘commerzbau’ from commercial fabrications and the castaways of commerce, all tailored to the architecture of the pavilion.

'The unfortunate produce of consumerism is my material, and human systems are my tools', noted the Icelandic artist in the press release, a statement which - although not obvious at first - bodes undeniably well with this year's grand exhibition theme. 'My art is shaped by the specific experience of having been brought up on a tiny island in the Atlantic, where we have seen extreme changes in only a few generations. Capitalism essentially came to us overnight, compared with its gradual develop­ment in other parts of the world. Because we are such a tiny society and capitalism arrived suddenly, it makes an ideal petri-dish to really examine this system; this com­mer­cialism, capital and value. Some parts of these systems don’t really work in such a small society, and aspects of capitalism are just so new that this “new” way of global commercial living produces a stark contrast to the way we used to live.'

Irish Pavilion

Eimear Walshe

Romantic Ireland

Through a practice that spans video, sculpture, publishing, sound, and performance, Irish artist Eimear Walshe’s work is rooted in everything Ireland and nothing but. While her Venice Biennale submission Comprises a multi-TV video installation, it also captures her country's most unexpected passion - opera - as seen in the pavilion's soundtrack: a five-voice opera describing the scene of an eviction, composed by Amanda Feery with a libretto by Walshe herself. Set on the site of an unfinished earth build, Walshe’s project for Venice explores the complex politics of collective building through the Irish tradition of the meitheal: a gang of workers, neighbours, kith and kin who come together to build, harvest and cooperate in mutual aid. We'll keep it brief here but believe us when we say this isn't one to saunter by. We urge you to stop, stare and listen for Walshe has refused to cow to the country’s ‘imaged mythologies’ and therefore, engaged with its own colonisation, revolution and partition.

Korean Pavilion

Koo Jeong A

ODORAMA CITIES

During the summer of 2023, Korean artist Koo Jeong A took to collecting scent memories for ODORAMA CITIES, intending to build a portrait of the entire Korean peninsula within three months. One year on and the project is headed for the Biennale, thanks to a public open call issued by Jeong A and the pavilion curatorial team (led by Seolhui Lee & Jacob Fabricius) asking “What is your scent memory of Korea?”. As responses by Koreans and non-natives poured in to recollect the country through the prism of scent (600 statements were made in total), the project grew exponentially. Now, these memories have been translated and categorised into 17 distinct scent experiences created specifically for the pavilion. 'On spring days when Korean rosebays are in bloom, I find myself missing my hometown even more. Here in South Korea, I smell the flowers, hoping to find the same scent as the ones back in North Korea. And indeed, they share the same scent'.

Luxembourg Pavilion

Andrea Mancini and Every Island

A Comparative Dialogue Act

How does collective creativity enhance the artistic process? Although not strictly set out to answer this question, the collaboration taking place between Andrea Mancini and Every Island at Luxembourg's Pavilion this year is underscored by this very premise. Curated by Joel Valabrega, the exhibition will look to the entrenched notion of 'individual artistic authorship' by presenting a collection of works where artists relinquish ego in favour of a profound exploration of collective creativity through the medium of sound. Throughout the exhibition's duration, four guest artists including Spanish musician and performer Bella Báguena, French transdisciplinary artist Célin Jiang, Ankara-born performance artist Selin Davasse and Swedish artist Stina Forswill, will produce and perform new sound performances in order to expand the definition of a collective artwork as the pavilion's spatial elements - floor, walls, ceilings et al - pivot into sound devices at the control of the contributing artists who will, in turn, all progressively shape an immersive experience. The resulting sequence of pieces will be published as a vinyl record, to be released at the end of the Biennale Arte 2024.

Spanish Pavillion

Sandra Gamarra Heshiki

Pinacoteca Migrante/ Migrant Art Gallery

Firsts can be celebrated for a myriad of reasons and so although 2024 may not mark the first, second or third time Spain has partaken in the Venice Biennale, the country's commissioning of migrant artist Sandra Gamarra Heshiki to represent the nation's pavilion is a huge milestone, one celebrated in the artist's exhibition Pinacoteca Migrante/ Migrant Art Gallery ( curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio) and yes, it is a first.

Transforming the pavilion into a 'historic gallery of Western art', Gamarra Heshiki's main aim here is to expose a series of historically silenced narratives by looking into the intertwinings of sociology, politics, art history and biology - asking not only why there has been an immense lack of de-colonial narratives in museums but how this can be corrected. The central open space of the Spanish Pavilion will be occupied by the Migrant Garden which will house 12 monuments remembering key characters from colonised communities and on the reverse side of each sculpture, you'll be able to read about the figures or cultures they refer to. Leading up to this space are five curated rooms each tackling themes made clear by their given titles; Virgin Land, Cabinet of Extinction, Cabinet of Illustrated Racism, Mestiza Masks and Altarpiece of Dying Nature. The colonial wound has never before been laid bare for all to see as explicitly as is being done now at the Biennale - another first achieved by this inexorable pavilion.

Taiwanese Pavilion

Yuan Goang-Ming

Everyday War

It would be unfair, even bigoted, to say some pavilions at this year's showcase are more important or relevant than others. After all, the pertinent theme of Foreigners Everywhere has never been more needed than now, particularly when you look at how many people have been displaced because of war in the past two years alone. At the time of writing, the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations report say there are over 110 million people forcibly displaced people worldwide due to conflict - and that's exactly why Taiwanese Yuan Goang-Ming's Everyday War exhibition is so haunting; because it's so real. Using film as his chosen medium to convey his message, the artist has created a space with an 'everyday domestic feel', that continues Yuan’s past audio-visual vocabulary to unflinchingly present the realities of life for many.

The new single-channel video piece presents before-and-after scans of a domestic space. Glass shatters loudly, then warplanes fly in one after another, destroying the objects in the room. Finally, the whole house is left a ruin in the aftermath of battle. The work's only consistency is the camera - which keeps panning back and forth in a straight, steady line, revealing whiling lights and shadows that gradually bathe the entire interior. It's not eerie because it ramps up the very definition of the word 'anxiety' to a new plane, it's chilling because it's real, and it's happening right now. It's a reality for 2 million Palestinians. It's a reality for eight million Sudanese. It's a reality for 3.7 million Ukrainians. And it could very well soon be a reality for you. 'This intertwining multitude of home, encompasses host and guest, private and public spheres, physical and virtual realms, the imagined and lived experiences', notes curator Abby Chen. 'It reflects an artist’s competing reality of living in Taiwan, where fear coexists with courage. In an era of great uncertainty and division, Yuan’s declaration of one’s own vulnerability is the very fortitude and truth that transforms into empathy and shared connectedness.'

COLLATERAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS

Breasts

Curated by Carolina Pasti

ACP Palazzo Franchetti, 18 April - 24 November

Not just objects to be desired, breasts are integral in the story of survival for young babies. However, there's a darker side to the givers of milk that's much less appealing, one laid out in countless medical journals, many of which are too keen to note that mammary glands 'soak up pollution like a pair of soft sponges'. When you consider this, It's no wonder statistics state one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every ten minutes. However, one new La Biennale di Venezia exhibition Breasts is here to change all that - or at least help promote awareness of the issue - via a presentation of artworks from everyone who is someone: Robert Mapplethorpe to Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois to Anna Weyant and Marcel Duchamp to even erotic furniture designer Allen Jones. Star prize goes to who can guess the subject of each artwork on show... we'll keep it simple here but if you want to find out more, you can read our interview with the show's curator Carolina Pasti.

Roman Road Exhibition

Channatip Chanvipava

The Sound of Many Waters

Dimora Ai Santi, Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina, 17 – 27 April 2024

Curated by Marisa Bellani, Channatip Chanvipava's The Sound of Many Waters by Roman Road gallery is another exhibition that takes the Biennale's Foreigners Everywhere theme in its stride. Staged in the grand setting of a 17th-century Venetian 'dimora' - that's mansion to you - the show features eight new works anchored in notions of 'fixed identities, belonging and subjective memory'.

Speaking of the interwoven thread between the 60th International Art Exhibition and Chanvipava's own experience as 'a self-taught, queer artist from the global south', the artist told SHOWstudio, 'In my own paintings, I reflect on my queer experiences, centring on non-linear notions of time. The Sound of Many Waters further explores water as a symbol of fluidity and reflection, using a visual language of abstraction with figurative elements to express queerness - in particular, my own - in subtle, non-explicit ways and so the show serves as a meditation on aspects of the Biennale’s theme around non-normativity and identity.'

Chanvipava's paintings are interesting not just because of the pertinent themes they uncover but the abundance of references they lay bare. From Edward Hopper to Edvard Munch, the Impressionistic pastels of Pierre Bonnard to the furious scrawl commonly associated with a a Lee Krasner piece, Chanvipava's work sings and dances with more inspirations than you can count and yet he still manages to make his style entirely his own.

Peter Hujar: Portraits in Life and Death

Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Venice
20 April - 24 November 2024

The Venice Biennale is an exciting time for all involved, no less chiefly felt by the New York-based Peter Hujar Foundation, with the 60th art exhibition also acting as the first time Hujar's legendary Portraits in Life and Death series will be presented in Europe. Noted for his sumptuously elegant and sensitively beautiful portfolio of photographs, this exhibition assembles all 41 images included in Hujar's Portraits in Life and Death, published in 1976. The series - which made up the only book Hujar produced in his lifetime - brings together an unbelievable cast including critic Susan Sontag, dramaturg Robert Wilson, writer Fran Lebowitz, and filmmaker John Waters. Get ready to stare history in the face, if it comes in the form of a Peter Hujar photograph, it'll stare right back.