THE PATH OF MEMORIES – MEXICO AT THE BIENNALE

Why highlight stories that often remain on the periphery of artistic discourse? Adriano Pedrosa justifies his curatorial decision with works by 331 artists -mostly from the global south- that open the way to powerful narratives. Finally, we see the axis being twisted. It is difficult to escape the white gaze, more so to move authentically through a Eurocentric space. Given this, the communicative reach of figuration serves to challenge the symbolic order of domination and destabilize the colonial project. The stories that are made explicit and the narratives of magic and everyday life help to recognize without revictimizing. 

The voices of Latin American artists emerge strongly in this 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale. Claudia Alarcón, Julia Isídrez and Juana Marta Rodas, Ana Segovia, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger and Claudia Andújar lead viewers on a profound journey through their cultural heritage and unique artistic practices.

It takes an Island to Feel this Good is Darja Bajagić’s exhibition for the Montenegro pavilion at Venice Biennale 2024. Curated by Ana Simona Zelenović and organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro at the initiative of commissioner Vladislav Šćepanović, the exhibition will present a critical consideration of the culture of collective memory and the relationship to shared historical heritage.

The monumental commission by British artist John Akomfrah RA for the 2024 Venice Biennale is a multi-layered exhibition which encourages visitors to experience the British Pavilion’s 19th century neoclassical building in a new way.

The title of the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Biennale di Venezia, "Stranieri Ovunque", refers, in part, to foreignness as the inherent nature of the subject. Understood in this way, the national pavilions of Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom exhibit artistic proposals that develop the theme of colonialism and reconstruct histories, remedy ties between identity and territory, and explore the dramatic plurality of this potent historical axis. That said, this review does not intend to unveil or unpack the most unjust transcendental truths, but merely to reflect on the musings of others.

Engaging with the theme of Adriano Pedrosa’s main exhibition for the Venice Biennale, Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere, Vlatka Horvat’s project for the Croatian Pavilion by the Means at Hand, curated by Antonia Majaca, exists as an accumulative exhibition of artworks by a wide-ranging group of international artists living as “foreigners,” reflecting on questions and urgencies of the diasporic experience.

Disobedience Archive is a video archive project in constant transformation, linking artistic practices and political action. At the Venice Biennale exhibition, it takes the form of The Zoentrope, a pre-cinematographic machine that gives life to a space that generates new perspectives.

Crisis Galería announced the recent acquisition of the painting Cosmovisión Huitoto (2022) by the outstanding indigenous artist Santiago Yahuarcani by the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA). This extraordinary large format work, made with natural dyes and acrylic paint on llanchama, is one of the largest produced by the artist with more than two meters high and four meters wide.

PAV Parco Arte Vivente presented the first solo exhibition in Italy by the Ecuadorian artist Adrián Balseca (1989) curated by Marco Scotini. The exhibition is an investigation into the role of the human being as an actor within the ecosystem, focussing on the relationships between the economy, ecology and memory as well as on the dynamics of power linked to the extractivism and exploitation of nature.  

The first half of the year concluded on a low note, and as the art market gets ready to gear up for the last semester, a clearer picture of the challenges faced is emerging.