
EXHIBITIONS AND DISPLAYS
A LOOK BACK AT THE 60TH VENICE BIENNALE: THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, AND THIS LAND IS MY LAND
JENS HOFFMANN
November 24, 2024
In writing this review of the 60th International Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” I inhabit a peculiar position of both insider and outsider. How do we remain objective in the face of an intense sense of familiarity?
The curator of the 60th Venice Biennial, Adriano Pedrosa, has been a collaborator of mine for more than twenty-five years, and the exhibition’s title, borrowed from an artwork by the collective Claire Fontaine, resonates with many projects I have undertaken with the latter over the last two decades. Frankly, both Pedrosa and Claire Fontaine have profoundly shaped how I view art, and, dare I say, much beyond. So here I stand, rooted in deep closeness yet aspiring to be at least a somewhat impartial critic.
This is no ordinary biennial, but I won’t indulge in ultimately meaningless clichés like “brilliant” or “unprecedented.” Nor will I lean into the opposite and label it “out of touch” or a “missed opportunity.” None of these would even be accurate. It’s neither brilliant nor a misstep at all. It’s beautiful, and thoughtful, and in left field compared to the usual biennial exhibitions we see around the globe every other month now. Strange, peculiar and—most of all—surprising. For someone who has followed Pedrosa’s career through the winding roads of the international art world, well before our co-curation of the 2nd San Juan Triennial (with Julieta González) in 2009 and the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), this exhibition managed to feel—well, foreign, even to me.
I have been privileged to attend every Venice Biennale since 1997, Germano Celant’s edition. Over the years, I’ve experienced the somewhat fascinating but also curatorially burned-out iterations by Harald Szeemann (1999, 2001); Okwui Enwezor’s edition, which began to formulate a more political and global outlook for the Biennale (2015); the curatorial marvel that was Massimiliano Gioni’s The Encyclopedic Palace (2013); the highly poetic and precise exhibition by Cecilia Alemani (2023); and other, more lukewarm iterations. And while each has been distinct, Pedrosa’s exhibition seems to exist in an entirely foreign solar system.
An important detail worth mentioning is that I didn’t attend the opening in April, as I usually do, but visited in late August, after having already read numerous reviews, received feedback from friends and colleagues, and even gotten a few text messages from the curator himself during installation. Yet despite all this preparation (however unintentional and haphazard), I still felt like I was stepping into largely unfamiliar territory. Reviews, after all, can only capture a fraction of the full experience, and encountering an artwork in person is always profoundly different from reading someone else’s opinion of it.
Because so much is already out there, this text won’t dwell lengthily on the conceptual framework of the show—its exploration of global identities, migration, and belonging, and its prioritization of ethnic minorities, the so-called Global South, female artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists expanding postcolonial narratives. Instead, I will make a few personal observations of the curatorial concept and then delve more deeply into an exploration of what to me are the most memorable artists, artworks, and juxtapositions.

Venice itself holds a deep historical connection to the theme of foreignness. For centuries it was a hub of international trade, influencing and being influenced by cultures from around the globe. Until the eleventh century, Venice was the only European city with an Arabic name, al-Bunduqiya, highlighting its role as a bridge between East and West. This history makes the concept of “foreigners everywhere” particularly relevant, and now that I have occasion to think about it, it’s baffling that Venice’s status as an early center of global interconnectedness—economic and otherwise—has never been a prominent theme in previous iterations of the Biennale. This year’s exhibition both celebrates and critiques globalism. It is broadly known that the city itself, living off fast tourism, is slowly being eroded by the very forces from which it profits. This dynamic is reflected in Stranieri Ovunque, an exhibition that critiques global power structures while itself being one of the most elite cultural events in the world.
Another observation relates to the political landscape surrounding the 60th Venice Biennale. During its preparation, Italy experienced a significant political shift with the election as prime minister of Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia party, whose anti-immigration and homophobic policies starkly contrast with the ideals presented by Pedrosa. The changed political climate casts a shadow over the event and the Venetian lagoon, highlighting the tension between the inclusive, global vision of Stranieri Ovunque and the ultraconservative leanings of the current Italian government.
Pedrosa’s concept for Stranieri Ovunque suggests that wherever you go, you will encounter foreigners, and in turn always be a foreigner. This could also imply that no one is truly native anywhere. This perspective recalls humanity’s common origins in East Africa, reminding us that almost all modern humans are, in some sense, displaced or descended from migrants. An alternative title for the exhibition might have been No Natives Anywhere. As such, it raises the uncomfortable question: Who gets to claim the title of “native”? As globalization continues to blur borders, this question feels increasingly urgent and simultaneously passé. Perhaps the show’s focus risks falling into a trap: By centering on foreignness in all its forms, does it inadvertently reinforce the very divisions it seeks to dissolve?
Pedrosa leans heavily on history, with many artists in the show already deceased (of the 331 participants, 181 are no longer among us). And while the selection brings overdue attention to numerous overlooked artists, the inclusion of so many unknowns necessarily risks detachment from contemporary debates. I would say, however, that this is not the case, apart from two or three specific moments that I will discuss. Ultimately, Pedrosa’s cross-generational approach is effective and interesting, and the complex web of young and old, past and present, unfolds smoothly. The youngest participant, Joyce Joumaa, a twenty-six-year-old Beirut-born, Montreal-based artist, and the oldest, Eliseu Visconti, born in Italy in 1866 and passing in Brazil in 1944, easily cohabitate.
One medium that recurs throughout the exhibition, albeit in varied forms, is painting. While some may argue that painting is the very embodiment of tradition and convention, and thus a surprising emphasis in this context, here it holds potential for a kind of “radical progressive traditionalism.” In Pedrosa’s bringing together of progressive agendas—emancipation, decolonization of the Global South, the de-marginalization of minorities, queer rights, Indigenous art, outsider art—it is striking how many of these artists focused on dismantling oppressive systems rely on a medium deeply rooted in Western, conservative tradition. That said, despite the prominence of painting, the exhibition doesn’t engage in a broader conversation about painting’s evolution or its current status, which may represent a missed opportunity, but there is already quite a lot going on.
Stranieri Ovunque is in fact not one exhibition but five, maybe six, or even more, with strong interconnections, yet each sufficiently independent that none loses its identity. This approach is something Pedrosa has taken in the past, and it works brilliantly in Venice, where chapter by chapter unfolds in the vast available corridors and galleries. There are three so-called Nucleos Storicos, an Italian term that translates to “historical nuclei” or “historical cores,” forming the backbone of the exhibition overall and the moments that offer the most surprises. Winding its way through these is the Nucleo Contemporaneo, presenting so-called contemporary art, even though this selection also features a lot of older or deceased artists. Ultimately, the sheer number of participants makes it nearly impossible to fully capture the vast scale and depth of the Biennale. So while I focus here on a few standout examples that resonated with me, there are undoubtedly countless others worthy of attention.
Nucleo Storico: Abstraction welcomes us as soon as we enter. Focusing on mid- to late-twentieth-century non-Western works, this chapter attempts to reframe the history of abstraction, moving away from the traditional European canon and highlighting the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America. The emphasis on organic, curvilinear shapes, vivid colors, and spiritual and cosmic themes distances the works from European Modernism, and offers a significant gesture of recentering global art history.

An important inclusion here is the pioneering Zubeida Agha (1922–1997) of Pakistan, often credited as the first female painter in that country to adopt Modernist techniques. She is known for her bold use of color and abstract forms. Her work fuses Western Modernism with Eastern artistic traditions, blending geometric abstraction with influences from Islamic art and Mughal miniatures. Agha explored themes of spirituality through nonrepresentational shapes and vivid contrasts, and over time, her work evolved toward ever-purer abstraction. She played a key role in shaping contemporary art in Pakistan, leaving a legacy for future generations, and is not much known outside her country of origin.

One better-known artist in this section is Mohamed Chebâa (1935–2013), a Moroccan Modernist painter and sculptor who played a key role in developing the Casablanca School of Art. His work blends traditional Moroccan motifs with Modernist abstraction, often incorporating geometric patterns, bright colors, and design-like, calligraphic elements to explore themes of heritage and cultural transformation. Chebâa was also a key figure in integrating Islamic art into contemporary Moroccan aesthetics. His contributions greatly influenced the direction of Modern art in Morocco.

Nucleo Storico: Portraits is a compelling and extensive chapter, bringing together more than one hundred portraits from a wide range of global artists active in the last hundred years. The focus is once again on non-Western actors, with most of the works depicting non-white individuals. The display highlights how artists from vastly different regions have grappled with identity and self-representation, often confronting social, political, and personal challenges in their portrayals. These works are presented in groupings that reveal thematic connections, such as self-portraiture and depictions of laborers, although the artists themselves may have little biographical connection. At certain points, the salon-style hanging of the portraits begins to feel somewhat redundant, and this repetition detracts from the depth some works might otherwise have contributed, and the valuable questions regarding innovation, tradition, and their dialectical relationship that might have been provoked by a more concise selection.



One discovery for me was the astonishing work of Olga Costa (1913–1993), a German-born Mexican painter known for her vibrant depictions of Mexican culture, landscapes, and everyday life, from rural scenes and flowers to Indigenous figures. Her works often feature lush, colorful representations of nature, blending folk art influences with a Modernist sensibility. Costa was active in promoting the arts in Mexico, contributing significantly to the country’s artistic community. Her 1947 Self-Portrait presents the artist, confident in her studio, adorned in traditional Mexican attire. The commanding gaze radiating from her striking blue eyes is fixed intently on us, creating an intimate yet powerful connection between subject and audience.

Moving halfway across the world within the same section, we find Jaime Colson (1901–1975), a remarkable Dominican Modernist painter whose work blends Caribbean culture with European avant-garde modes like Cubism and Surrealism. His paintings often feature bold dynamic forms, and themes related to Dominican history, folklore, and Afro-Caribbean identity. The work explores movement and the human figure, especially dances and rituals. He was a leading figure in the Dominican Republic’s Modern art scene and one of the most important twentieth-century Dominican artists.

Another notable inclusion is Ezekiel Baroukh (1909–1984), a Greek Jewish Modernist painter who worked primarily in Egypt, blending European styles like Cubism and Surrealism with Middle Eastern influences. He was part of the Surrealist group Art and Liberty, founded in Cairo in 1938, whose mission was to promote freedom of expression and oppose fascism, colonialism, and traditionalism in both art and politics. His art features bright colors, geometric forms, and symbolic elements that reflect themes of identity and cultural hybridity. He made both abstract and figurative works, especially portraits, that explored emotional and psychological depths. Baroukh was an important figure in the Egyptian Modernist movement, contributing to its cross-cultural richness, and is presented in the exhibition with Baigneuse (1952), which he painted during his time in Paris and strongly references Pablo Picasso and perhaps also Salvador Dalí.

From Egypt we travel to South Africa and the work of self-taught artist Simon Lekgetho (1929–1985), who carefully and poignantly depicted township life and the everyday experiences of Black South Africans during apartheid. Lekgetho’s style blends realism with a folk-art aesthetic, capturing the spirit and struggles of his subjects. His work is celebrated for its emotional depth and sociopolitical commentary.
Another Egyptian-born artist, Ahmed Morsi (b. 1930), a poet and critic known for Surrealist paintings blending symbolism with personal and cultural narratives, offers a likewise compelling contribution. The dreamlike scenes featuring mystical figures and metaphysical landscapes evoke themes of memory and exile. Morsi’s art combines Egyptian mythology with Modernist influences, creating a rich visual language that explores the subconscious. His deep, muted colors and expressive forms give the work a haunting quality.
While still famous in his home country of Brazil, Candido Portinari (1903–1962) is today little known in the Global North. His powerful social realism, depicting the struggles and lives of Brazil’s working-class and Indigenous peoples, combines European Modernist techniques with Brazilian themes, often addressing poverty, labor, and national identity. Cabeça de Mulato (Head of a Mulatto, 1934) is one of his most notable portraits, reflecting his sensitivity to racial and social issues through expressive brushwork and a deeply emotional tone. Portinari’s monumental murals, such as those in the United Nations building, demonstrate his commitment to social justice.

A surprising inclusion is Armando Reverón (1889–1954), a Venezuelan painter known for his atmospheric landscapes, often characterized by an ethereal use of light and texture. Reverón played an enormous role in twentieth-century Latin American art and is still often cited among younger artists in the region. His work explores light’s impact on perception, blending elements of Impressionism with a personal, almost mystical approach. Thus I should say: his presence in the exhibition was less surprising than the choice of work to show. Reverón is most famous for his beach scenes, especially his periodo blanco (white period), during which he used pale, muted tones to convey the intense light of the Venezuelan coast, and so Portrait of Alfredo Boulton (1934) is unusual for him, depicting as it does not a landscape but the influential Venezuelan intellectual and photographer. The portrait captures Boulton with a soft, almost ghostly appearance, highlighting Reverón’s fascination with light and atmosphere. This work is a testament to the artist’s ability to combine realism with a dreamlike quality, emphasizing psychological depth.

Nucleo Storico: Italiani Ovunque (Italians Everywhere) is dedicated to twentieth-century Italian artists who moved abroad or were/are of Italian descent but born abroad. It highlights how these artists developed their careers across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, embedding themselves within local cultures while making significant contributions to the global art scene. This chapter features works by approximately forty artists with Italian roots and uses the famous displays by the architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992), an Italian who moved to Brazil, in which the artworks are mounted on glass panels supported by concrete bases. The displays are famously used at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, where Pedrosa is the artistic director, and which houses the largest collection of European art in the Southern Hemisphere. This section serves to emphasize the global influence of Italian artists who were or are “foreigners” in the countries they adopted as their homes.

Not previously known to me was Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944), who was born in a small town in the province of Salerno and subsequently moved to Brazil. Visconti’s Italian heritage and European training deeply influenced his artistic approach. Known for introducing Impressionism and Art Nouveau to the Brazilian scene, he worked across a wide range of genres, including portrait, landscape, and the decorative arts, always with a refined use of color and light. The paintings often display a delicate balance between realism and decorative elements, with a strong focus on natural beauty and harmony. Visconti was also a prominent muralist, best known for his works in Rio de Janeiro’s Theatro Municipal.

Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato (1900–1995), another Brazilian painter of Italian descent, was known for everyday scenes of Brazilian life, including landscapes, urban environments, and rural settings, characterized by simplified forms and darker, earthy color palettes. Lorenzato used a unique technique of applying thick layers of paint with tools like combs and spatulas, creating tactile, almost sculptural surfaces. His art captures a deep sense of place and humanity, focusing on ordinary or overlooked aspects of life. Despite working in relative obscurity for much of his life, he is now recognized as an important figure in Brazilian art.

Nenne Sanguineti Poggi (1909–2012) was born in Savona and became well known for her contributions to Modernist painting in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where she is revered as a significant influence on twentieth-century art. She moved there in the mid-1950s and became part of the country’s vibrant art scene, blending European Modernism with local influences. Her work explores abstraction, color, and form, with a focus on geometric compositions.
The Nucleo Contemporaneo is a through line stretching across the entire exhibition. It showcases contemporary works, but the concept of “contemporary” is expanded to include the thought that even dead artists may have a strong impact on today’s art discourses. Among the most interesting new discoveries for me was Filippo De Pisis (1896–1956), an Italian painter with an expressive, atmospheric style blending elements of Impressionism and metaphysics. His works range from still lifes to cityscapes to homoerotic male nudes, all characterized by loose, gestural brushstrokes and a delicate use of color. De Pisis captured fleeting moments and moods, imbuing his subjects with poetic intimacy. His paintings, influenced by classical Italian art and Modernism, are marked by their lyrical quality and emotional depth.

One work that compelled me to linger was a monumental drawing by Madge Gill (1882–1961), a British outsider artist known for her intricate, visionary drawings created under the influence of the spiritual realm. Her works, often produced in a trancelike state, feature dense, repetitive patterns and mysterious female figures. She is considered a key figure of British outsider art, and created more than one thousand works in her lifetime. Crucifixion of the Soul (1936), the piece on view at the Biennale, is a large-scale scroll filled with delicate, swirling lines and haunting imagery that reflects the artist’s deep connection to the spiritual world and penchant for obsessive detail and otherworldliness.

Another notable moment comes with the artists and brothers Philomé Obin (1892–1986) and Sénèque Obin (1893–1977), representatives of the Cap-Haitien school of painting. They are known for their distinct styles that blend history, spirituality, and daily life in Haiti with a folk-art aesthetic. Philomé was one of Haiti’s most renowned painters, famous for his detailed, narrative depictions of local history and political life. His works often portray historical events such as the Haitian Revolution and the lives of political figures in a style characterized by precise lines, flattened perspectives, and a vivid use of color. Sénèque, less widely known than his brother, nevertheless made significant contributions to the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince, which helped to formalize Haitian painting. He focused on everyday life, religious ceremonies, and local traditions. Like Philomé, he used bright colors and a folk art style, but he was more concerned with spiritual themes, often depicting Vodou ceremonies and other religious scenes. His art portrays the spiritual depth of Haitian culture, emphasizing ritual and community life.
An artist of a younger generation included in the exhibition is the Pakistani-born, New York–based Salman Toor (b. 1983), known for his intimate, narrative paintings that explore queerness and diaspora—specifically scenes of friendship and sociality, frequently in urban, domestic spaces. Even while working with a muted palette, his use of color is remarkable, as is his focus on the tension between public and private life, particularly for queer, brown bodies. His impactful work The Beating (2019) shows a violent scene in which a man is being beaten by another man with a stick outside a house at nighttime, with three witnesses who do not intervene.

Two areas of the exhibition that I personally could not relate to were Disobedience Archive and The Museum of the Old Colony. The former is a film and video project initiated in 2005 by the Italian curator Marco Scotini (b. 1964). It is an ongoing, evolving archive comprising videos, documents, films, and interviews that explore political disobedience and resistance through the lens of art and activism. The project examines how disobedience manifests across different political, social, and cultural contexts, and it has been exhibited in multiple locations before this, often adapting to include materials relevant to the locale. But its presentation in the center of the Corderie of the Arsenale feels somewhat misplaced. It’s less the content of the archive than the overly refined, labyrinthine wooden structure it inhabits. And while the archive undoubtedly serves as an enormously valuable educational tool, documenting global political and activist movements and their impact on contemporary society, I personally don’t see it as an artwork—at least not one that merits such a prominent spot in an exhibition as important as the Venice Biennale.

The Museum of the Old Colony by Pablo Delano (b. 1954) is an impactful installation that examines the lingering effects of colonialism, particularly through the lens of Puerto Rico, one of the oldest colonies in the Americas. Its mix of photographs and artifacts, some of which have been collected by Delano over many years, present various historical narratives imposed on Puerto Rico by its colonizers. By re-creating a “museum” that mimics traditional colonial exhibitions, Delano uses the format to question and critique how colonial history has been represented and mythologized. Similarly to Disobedience Archive, this project feels too hermetic, too isolated from the rest of the exhibition, and perhaps too self-serious. I must admit that I’m not overly fond of pseudo-documentary archive installations as artworks, such as the fictional Museum of American Art, which critiques the exhibition politics of New York’s MoMA during the 1960s, or other well-known examples like the Atlas Group archive or Simon Fujiwara’s The Incest Museum, to name a few. As a result, these sections simply didn’t resonate with me, but that is, of course, a matter of personal preference.

An instance of contemporary art that does not fit neatly into the overall project is, paradoxically, the work of Claire Fontaine. None of the collective’s members are queer, outsiders, marginalized, or under-represented, nor do they come from the Global South—they are Italian and British nationals—and they employ a style reminiscent of Minimal art, a movement mostly associated with North America. Furthermore, their aesthetic and radical message doesn’t really resonate with any of the other works on display. While Claire Fontaine’s work should perhaps have been a focal point of the Biennale—having created the piece that gives the entire exhibition its title—it felt somewhat lost within the broader display. Furthermore, the central installation of their colorful neon pieces (aside from some individual works scattered throughout the exhibition) spelling out the phrase Foreigners Everywhere in fifty languages has them reflecting in the Venetian waters of the Arsenale, overly aestheticizes, even romanticizes, a work intended to be anything but.

Another example is Yinka Shonibare (b. 1962), an African artist who has lived in London for decades and is deeply invested in the theme of globalization. His work now feels to this author a bit outmoded, given how many similar pieces he has produced over the years. His method of creating sculptures in brightly colored wax-print fabrics as a symbol of globalization has been seen previously in Venice, and all around the world for that matter. These wax prints, commonly associated with West Africa, have an intriguing history that traces back to Indonesia. European textile manufacturers, particularly in the Netherlands and Britain, developed industrial methods to imitate handmade Indonesian batik, producing the wax prints now recognized as West African, particularly in the coastal regions of present-day Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire. Shonibare seems to perfectly fit within the criteria Pedrosa set out for his exhibition, yet he also belongs to a group of artists (here I am thinking of Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Chris Ofili, or David Hammons) concerned with themes such as the slave trade, race, and Black identity during the 1990s and early 2000s who could, with the help of big galleries, produce work that aesthetically does not fit in with the humbleness and low-key style of most of Stranieri Ovunque.
Another artist that made me wonder a bit about her place in the exhibition was Frieda Toranzo Jaeger (b. 1988). She focuses on queer narratives, decolonial themes, and non-Western art history, and thus forefronts important conversations that mirror the overall ideas of the exhibition, but despite these intentions, her aesthetics and discourse feel too closely aligned with the socially conscious art seen in the Global North. The work also feels allied with what we see in more mainstream galleries and art fairs—engaging with political themes but not always delivering the depth or impact that such subjects deserve, and as most other works in this show do brilliantly.
Lastly, the inclusion of the Danish collective Superflex feels somewhat gratuitous, with their poster work FOREIGNERS, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US ALONE WITH THE DANES! seeming almost an afterthought. The poster was originally conceived in 2002 and plastered around the streets of Copenhagen as a sharp critique of Denmark’s increasingly reactionary immigration policies at that time. In the context of this Biennale, however, it comes across as overly simplistic and lacking the potency it once carried, leaving the impression of a work that has not fully evolved to meet the complexities of the present moment. Its placement—tucked away in a corner where it goes largely unnoticed by visitors—doesn’t help the work, either.
In many ways, the 60th Venice Biennale feels like a calculated act of resistance against the Western/Northern-dominated art canon, a defiant rejection of the art establishment and art’s “good old boys.” To call it an intentional sabotage of the world’s most prestigious art exhibition and the expectations of mainstream audiences might be taking it a bit too far, but I personally can’t resist that thought. I’m certain it isn’t just foreign in the sense of being surprising to me; it’s probably alienating to many who haven’t been closely following the discourses surrounding Pedrosa’s curatorial premise or his work overall. There is much more to Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere than what is immediately apparent, and time will tell how this remarkable exhibition will shift the trajectory of La Biennale di Venezia.
Jens Hoffmann is a foreigner everywhere.
Cover image: Claire and Fontaine
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