You should visit Venice at least once in your life. This unique city in the world, with its winding canals, historic bridges, and buildings emerging from the water, is a wonder to discover. Plan your trip to coincide with one of the most prestigious artistic events in the world: the Venice Biennale. Visiting Venice today means enjoying its timeless beauty and witnessing a cultural heritage that may be irreversibly altered in the future. The Venice Biennale 2024 promises to be a spectacular showcase of contemporary art, architecture, cinema, dance, music, and theatre. As a critical event in the international art calendar, the Biennale continues its tradition of pushing boundaries and fostering artistic innovation. Today, at BesTripTips, we will discover the events and exhibitions of the 2024 Venice Biennale. Hurry and book your trip to Venice!
Venice Biennale: A Lighthouse in the World of Art and Architecture
The Venice Biennale is a cultural institution born with the first international exhibition of figurative and applied arts in 1895. Becoming an independent body in 1930, the Biennale also launched poetry, music, cinema, and theatre events. Since 1980, architecture has been present autonomously with the International Architecture Exhibition. This event stands out for its ability to attract artists, curators, critics, and art enthusiasts worldwide. The Biennale is divided into two main sectors: art and architecture, alternating between the two every year. Odd years are dedicated to contemporary art, while even years are devoted to architecture. The history of the Venice Biennale is documented in the Historical Archives in the Marghera offices and in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini (Library). Since 1998, the Art Exhibition and the Architecture Exhibition have taken on a structure organized according to new guidelines. In recent years, La Biennale has promoted new educational activities, such as the college, conferences, and conventions at its headquarters in Ca’ Giustinian.
The Venice Biennale represents a unique opportunity to explore the latest trends in contemporary art and architecture. This year will be the year of the Art Venice Biennale. Emerging and established artists exhibit their works in various national pavilions around the city, mainly at the Giardini and the Arsenale. Each country presents its own pavilion, offering an overview of different international cultures and artistic movements. The Architecture Biennale is dedicated to innovation and experimentation in architecture and urban design. Architects from around the world present projects that address contemporary issues such as sustainability, urbanization, and the resilience of cities. This exhibition not only celebrates architectural aesthetics but also explores architecture’s social and environmental implications.
The Venice Biennale 2024: “Foreign Everywhere”
The 2024 Venice Biennale, which takes place from April 20 to November 24, is an extraordinary event. This year’s edition is entitled “Foreign Everywhere” and is curated by Adriano Pedrosa. It aims to explore the concept of international relations through Foreigners Everywhere is taken from a series of works created in 2004 by the collective Claire Fontaine, born in Paris and based in Palermo. These works consist of neon sculptures of various colors bearing the words “Foreigners Everywhere” in different languages. The expression was, in turn, taken from the name of a Turin collective of the same name, which fought against racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s. «The expression Foreigners Everywhere,” explained Adriano Pedrosa, has multiple meanings. First, it means that wherever you go and wherever you are, you will always encounter foreigners: they are/we are everywhere. Secondly, regardless of one’s location, deep down, one is always truly a foreigner.” The exhibition will be an opportunity to reflect on how art can be a bridge between different cultures, promoting dialogue and mutual understanding in an increasingly globalized and complex world. Since 2021, La Biennale has started revisiting all its activities according to consolidated and recognized principles of environmental sustainability. Also, for 2024, the objective is to obtain the “carbon neutrality” certification, achieved in 2023 for all the activities planned by the Biennale.
Locations of Venice Biennale 2024
The Gardens are home to the permanent national pavilions and the Central Pavilion, where some of the most significant exhibitions are located. The Arsenal, a vast complex of historic shipyards, offers unique exhibition spaces that allow large-scale installations. The exhibition will be divided between the Central Pavilion in the Giardini and the Arsenale into two distinct nuclei: Contemporary and Historical Nucleus. As a guiding principle, the Biennale Arte 2024 has favored artists who have never participated in the International Exhibition, even if some have already exhibited in a National Pavilion, in a Collateral Event, or in a past edition of the International Exhibition. Particular attention will be paid to outdoor projects at the Arsenal and in the Gardens, as well as a performance program.
Venice Biennale: Events
With 90 countries and 332 artists on display, plus 30 collateral events, this year’s edition puts “diversity” under the spotlight, examining the processes that lead to defining others as “foreigners.” The biennial, chaired by Roberto Cicutto, will be divided for the first time into two parts. The first, “Contemporary Core,” will develop between the “Central Pavilion” and the “Cordiere,” where it will be possible to appreciate the works dedicated to the different meanings of the term “foreigner,” etymologically associated with the word “strange.” This part of the exhibition will focus on the production of related subjects such as “queer artists,” “outsider artists,” and “indigenous artists.” A special section of this “Nucleus” will be dedicated to a project by Marco Scotini called “Disobedience Archive,” a video archive focused on the relationships between artistic practices and activism. The second part, called the “Historical Core,” composed of 20th-century works from different regions of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Arab world, will develop over three rooms of the “Central Pavilion” dedicated to “portraits,” the room devoted to “abstractions” and a third room dedicated to the “Italian artistic diaspora in the world.” As usual, some Collateral Events will be organized in numerous locations in the historic center of Venice. There are two Special Projects at this year’s biennial. The first will be in the Pavilion of Applied Arts, in the “Arsenale,” with seven paintings and collages by the Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes. The second instead, in the “Italian Pavilion,” at the “Tese delle Vergini,” also in the “Arsenale,” dedicated to the artist Massimo Bartolini, who will propose a project that includes contributions specifically conceived by musicians and writers called “To hear.”
Furthermore, in the “Polveriera Austriaca di Forte Marghera” in Mestre, you can admire around ten works by the Italian Nedda Guidi, ceramist, and sculptor fundamental to the evolution of contemporary ceramics. An event not to be missed will be held on April 20, during the inauguration ceremony, when the “Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement” will be awarded to the Italian-Brazilian Anna Maria Maiolino and the Turkish Nil Yalter.
Daniel Arsham in Venice Biennale
Among the events not to be missed in the Venice Biennale is the Daniel Arsham Exhibition in the church of Santa Caterina. Daniel Arsham is a multifaceted futurist artist who seeks to unite branches of the past with those of the future. It is no coincidence that his exhibition will be called Venice 3024. He juggles architecture, art, sculpture, drawing, and so on. In the case of the exhibition on display in Venice until September 15, which can be visited for free, Daniel will exhibit a series of sculptures inspired by ancient Greece but with a modern touch. The works were created in collaboration with the historic Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais (RMN), a French 3D printing atelier with 200 years of activity, where Arsham was able to use molds and scans of some of the most iconic works in the collections of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Acropolis Museum in Athens, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. In this exhibition, the artist introduced new techniques in his sculptural series “Fractured Idols.” Located in the apse of the Church of Santa Caterina, a large bronze and stainless-steel sculpture introduces us to the dichotomy between a divinity of the past and its contemporary actualization. On the walls, a corpus of works created with glass mosaic tiles, in collaboration with the Italian company Bisazza, in which the artist combines apparently recognizable characters coming from both anime, cartoons, and antiquity. And what better location than Venice to exhibit works representing mutability and the passage of time? After all, Venice is nothing more than the erosion of an old city.
Come and explore Venice Biennale 2024!
The Venice Biennale 2024 is an unmissable event for anyone passionate about art and culture. Plan your trip to Venice during this period to live a unique experience and combine the charm of a historic city with the best of contemporary art. Not only will you be able to admire works of art of global significance, but you will also be able to reflect on the future of a city that, although threatened by water, continues to shine as a beacon of beauty and creativity in the global cultural landscape. An exhibition that will leave you speechless, just like the beautiful, dear, and fickle Venice. What are you waiting for? Book your trip to Venice Biennale now!
