We spoke to Adriano Pedrosa, who is curating the 60th Venice Biennale – to be held from April 20 to November 24, under the title Foreigners Everywhere – and which proclaims itself to be a cut-up of countless “creative differences”.

Foreigners Everywhere will make Venice Biennale history as the most inclusive and representative exhibition to embrace minority groups – indigenous, queer, diasporic artists -, making them clear major players in the 2024 edition.

Adriano Pedrosa’s curatorial approach also follows this path: the director of São Paulo’s MASP Museum is, as a matter of fact, the first curator from the Global South to be called upon to organise the oldest of the world’s biennales. “We wanted to give the International Art Exhibition a new outlook, just as we did with the 2023 Architecture Biennale, curated for the first time by a professional from Africa, Lesley Lokko,” said Roberto Cicutto, the Biennale’s departing president, on the sidelines of the launch of Foreigners Everywhere.

“In the most varying circumstances, artists have always been travelling, moving between countries and continents: this phenomenon has continued to grow since the end of the twentieth century, albeit with ever more pronounced limitations,” Pedrosa declares.

To theoretically build his Biennale, the curator took the interesting etymology of the word “foreigner” as a starting point. The common root in several Latin languages is tied to the term “strange” – strano, extraño, étrange: the uncommon, the eccentric, the unusual has always been paired with the notion of an outsider; indeed, one of the earliest definitions of the English term queer was actually strange. From this point forward, a mestizo – and shifting – perspective on visual art will emerge, also delving into the Modernisms of the southern hemisphere which, while not playing a major role in Euro-American culture, their artists were key to building contemporary culture, intertwining the world’s north and south.

For their part, on this subject, the diasporic Italians who played a major role in the arts in South America over the last century will feature prominently in Pedrosa’s exhibition, such as Lina Bo Bardi, an architect who became one of Brazil’s most influential designers, having created MASP, Teatro Oficina and SESC Pompeia in São Paulo, as well as the outstanding Solar do Unhão – Museum of Modern Art in Bahia, Salvador; Anna Maria Maiolino, awarded the Golden Lion for her career, who has never yet been invited to a Venice Biennale; and Gino Severini and Filippo De Pisis, alongside other historic artists who have chosen Paris as their adopted city to live and work in.

Split into two sections – one Historical and one Contemporary – the International Exhibition will feature a total of 332 artists: a seemingly huge figure, but one that Adriano Pedrosa argues is “visually smaller” than many exhibitions that have taken place in previous biennales: “Despite featuring the highest number of historical artists, each of them will only have one work, and all will fit in one room! Contemporary art will be the main force, on display with breadth and in many large format works,” the curator explained to us after the press conference.

Pedrosa also promises the largest-ever presence of Asian and African artists, as well as indigenous ones: “The MAHKU collective (from Brazil) will be painting the entire façade of the Central Pavilion in the Giardini, and the New Zealand group Mataaho will take over the first room of the Arsenale: two monumental projects. And there will be massive new productions: Isaac Chong Wai is working on something that will fill a 20 by 20-metre hall; Mariana Telleria will be doing another large-scale affair; Sol Calero will be building a real outdoor pavilion. This edition will even feature two large installations in the green areas at the end of the Giardini, next to the Brazilian pavilion,” Pedrosa adds.

On the subject of Brazil, its national pavilion will change its name this year to Hãhãwpuá, the indigenous expression by which the natives used to call the land before colonisation. The project, entitled Ka’a Pûera: Nós somos pássaros que andam will focus on the strength and resistance of native peoples, based on the homonymous work by artist Glicéria Tupinambá, in the same year that one of the eleven Tupinambá mantles spread across museums around the world will be returning to Brazil.

Speaking about the nature of the Historical Nucleus behind the scenes, the curator told us: “It’s an entirely speculative undertaking, as we can no longer accept ‘definitive’, ‘firm’ projects; actually, I have no interest in doing that, I prefer the contradictory, the processes. Obviously, to build a Historical Nucleus, I always assert that I would have needed a ten-person team and five years’ time. The project I’m proposing in Venice is definitely a cut-up”.

A cut-up that will also include a special appearance by Frida Kahlo. Yes, as the “Queen of Mexico” has never been to a Venice Biennale, even though her husband Diego Rivera has been exhibited there several times.

All in all, this is yet another biennale to “hack the apocalypse” of what is deemed “reputable” history.