Art of resistance: Venice Biennale, 2024

At the 60th edition, works on politics, war, sexuality, identity, and anticolonial defiance converge to make a grand statement against oppression.

The Spanish Pavillion at the 60th Venice Biennale. May 1, 2024, in Venice, Italy. | Photo Credit: VITTORIO ZUNINO CELOTTO/ /Getty Images

With its storied history dating back to 1895 and a scenic setting for the thought-provoking art it showcases (although La Serenissima has been overrun by selfie-seekers lately), the Venice Biennale is a gift that keeps giving. This year’s landmark 60th edition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere” (April 20-November 24, 2024), curated by Adriano Pedrosa, sets out to disrupt the Eurocentric gaze. It compels us to see the world through the eyes of the previously marginalised. True to its powerful theme, it throws the spotlight on contributions from indigenous groups, queer and LGBTQIA+ achievers, historical outcasts, and self-taught artists, not only turning the overlooked fringe into the mainstream but also underscoring the surprisingly different and often contradictory meanings that the term “foreigner” holds within itself. In our increasingly globalised world, that word carries a political and social sting, but as the well-meaning Pedrosa implies, it also strangely defines us all.

Pedrosa, currently the artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil, is the first South American and the first openly queer curator in the history of the “Biennale Arte”, as the Italians like to refer to the art convention that draws a horde of art lovers, artists, gallerists, and global cultural enthusiasts every other year to the historic but increasingly fragile lagoon city of Venice. The biennale’s main exhibition is clustered between the Giardini—a Napoleon-era garden complex that has served as the hub of the biennale since its first edition in 1895—and the adjacent Arsenale, home to a former shipyard whose decrepit beauty continues to act as a powerful reminder of Venetian maritime power in the 13th century.

A general view of the Central Pavillion at Venice Biennale, 2024. May 1, 2024, in Venice, Italy. | Photo Credit: VITTORIO ZUNINO CELOTTO/ Getty Images

Step inside the Giardini and your eyes are immediately dazzled by a vibrant explosion of colour. A monumental mural, created by MAHKU (the Huni Kuin Artists Movement), an indigenous collective from the Amazon region in Brazil, adorns the central pavilion’s facade, paying homage to the stories, hymns, and allegories from the artists’ native Huni Kuin community. After spotting endless rows of hardbacks of Nil Yalter’s Exile is a Hard Job at the Biennale’s bookshop, an encounter with the Turkish-French feminist artist’s iconic work at the central pavilion turns out to be a deeply authentic and moving experience.

At first glance, Exile is a Hard Job (inspired by the words of the poet Nâzim Hikmet) looks like a mosaic of images, weaving together micro-narratives of Turkish refugees in Paris. But these seemingly disparate stories coalesce to paint an evocative picture of the broader experience of exile—a subject that Yalter is intensely familiar with, having herself journeyed from Cairo to Istanbul and ultimately settling down and making her name in Paris. Exile is a Hard Job is accompanied by a Bektik yurt/tent model, which the artist calls Topak Ev. The work is filled with rich symbolism, this time dealing with gender politics among the Bektik nomadic community of central Anatolia. The 86-year-old legend was honoured with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in this year’s Biennale.

Tales of colonisation

In the central pavilion, one of the figures who stands out is Andrés Curruchich, a Guatemalan master of Maya Kaqchikel ancestry, whose naive frolics betray a much more conflicted history: the bloody advent of Christianity in Latin America and how it wiped out the continent’s indigenous culture and identity. Curruchich’s granddaughter, Rosa Elena Curruchich, is also represented at the Biennale, her bite-sized canvases offering glimpses into her country’s chequered past.

The Museum of the Old Colony, 2024, by Pablo Delano. | Photo Credit: Matteo de Mayda/ La Biennale di Venezia

A similar tale of colonisation hangs ominously over Pablo Delano’s photographic prints. Delano, a native of Puerto Rico, was born and raised in what remains the oldest colony in the world. This territory, initially under Spanish rule and later under the US, has endured over five centuries of colonisation. Delano’s endeavour testifies to the challenges faced by his community. By imbuing his space with an aura reminiscent of a museum, he also questions the fundamental concept of cultural institutions and their relevance in contemporary conversation.

Nowadays, the best part about biennales is the videos that sit gracefully at the intersections of art, cinema, ethnography, and anthropology, often armed with big ideas and displayed in such a way that visitors can walk in and out freely. Pedrosa has his ear to the ground when it comes to trends in video art. Making his maiden appearance at the Biennale, the Italian artist-researcher Alessandra Ferrini bitterly critiques the Italian occupation of Libya with a terrific video installation. Unveiled in three acts, Gaddafi in Rome: Anatomy of a Friendship incorporates visuals, news clips, and historical documents to simulate a rendezvous between Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi (based on their real-life meeting in 2008), in yet another example of showcasing anticolonialist resistance this year.

The boldest statement against rising xenophobia and reactionary politics in Denmark and other EU countries comes from Superflex, the Danish art collective whose provocative posters bear the message: “Foreigners please don’t leave us alone with the Danes!” I spy plenty of visitors picking up the flyers as a memento and walking out with them. It is a testament either to the anarchic relevance of Superflex’s political protest or, perhaps, they are just design savants lifting the famous posters to decorate their bathrooms.

Perilous journeys

Over at Arsenale’s Corderie, once a rope-making factory, the Italian art theorist Marco Scotini’s videos exude a compelling “call to action” sense of urgency. Since 2005, Scotini’s Disobedience Archive has championed video art as a powerful tool for activism in the digital age. Through his collection of political events (the ever-evolving project remains a work in progress, documenting new movements as they unfold), Scotini seems to argue that cinema can be a disruptive force for social change.

Topak Ev, 1973, by Nil Yalter. | Photo Credit: Matteo de Mayda/ La Biennale di Venezia

The French-Moroccan artist Bouchra Khalili collaborates with refugees and stateless citizens on The Mapping Journey Project. Her project consists of eight videos, each capturing a human hand tracing perilous journeys on the atlas with a permanent marker. The three-part “Nucleo Storico” section contains abstract pieces and portraiture from the Global South, presenting an alternative view of Modernism.

But it is the “Italians Everywhere” segment, with its conceptual coherence, radical display, and a continuous flow of visual surprises that bristles with originality. Pedrosa assembles 40 immigrant Italian artists in this room, where their paintings are encased using the architect Lina Bo Bardi’s celebrated glass easel contraption, revealing both the front and back of each piece, as if baring their very soul to the audience.

Indian presence

Amidst the opening-day frenzy of the Biennale, I catch sight of artists from the Bengaluru-based Aravani Art Project basking in the well-deserved recognition for their mural at the Arsenale. Their work deciphers and translates the experience of transgender and non-binary communities in India. Standing in front of their mural, I cannot help but notice a befitting detail: a caged bird soaring towards her freedom.

Diaspore, 2024, mural painting by Aravani Art Project. | Photo Credit: Andrea Avezzù/ La Biennale di Venezia 

This year’s Biennale features a select group of Indian artists, predominantly renowned masters like Amrita Sher-Gil, Ram Kumar, Jamini Roy, Francis Newton Souza, Sayed Haider Raza, and B. Prabha. But it is Bhupen Khakhar who resonates the most with the “Foreigners Everywhere” theme. His radical, homoerotic painting, Fishermen in Goa (1985), reminds us of his personalised approach to art and sexuality long before the arrival of the Aravani girls.

Highlights

• The Venice Biennale’s landmark 60th edition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere” (April 20-November 24, 2024), sets out to disrupt the Eurocentric gaze
• This year’s Biennale features a select group of Indian artists, predominantly renowned masters like Amrita Sher-Gil, Ram Kumar, Jamini Roy, Francis Newton Souza, Sayed Haider Raza, B. Prabha, Bhupen Khakhar, and M.F. Husain
• War, oppression, and political turmoil are major threads, reflecting universal human emotions amplified by the sombre narratives emerging from West Asia in recent years

My top pick among the dozens of collateral events dotted across Venice has to be the M.F. Husain immersive show titled The Rooted Nomad. The barefoot master of Indian art was a man of inexhaustible contradictions, one who had both a strong connection to his roots and a wandering spirit. The re-enacting of his fascinating life and art (call it Husain-verse) in a warehouse in Dorsoduro seems a fitting tribute to the artist who lived and died in exile while yearning for his homeland, the ultimate foreigner.

Sins of imperialism

On my second day, I decided to revisit the Giardini and the Arsenale. With a jaw-dropping 88 countries participating this year, trying to see everything can feel a bit overwhelming: it is like navigating through a Chinese supermarket to catch a glimpse of every item on display. There is a strong buzz around the German, French, and UK pavilions, with massive crowds gathered since morning, undeterred by the seasonal downpour. I wander into the Australian pavilion’s exhibition Kith and Kin, which riffs on the consequences of English imperialism, particularly on the island continent’s indigenous populations and aboriginal tribes. Archie Moore won the Golden Lion for this work, becoming the first Australian to receive the accolade. Similarly, the Spanish pavilion’s Migrant Art Gallery takes a sobering look at the Spanish conquests of the New World.

Fisherman in Goa (1985) by Bhupen Khakhar. | Photo Credit: Matteo de Mayda/ La Biennale di Venezia

As evening descends, lines outside the British pavilion begin to thin, and I am finally swept into the haunting world of John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night to the Rain. Arranged into cantos (under the influence of Ezra Pound, we are told), the multichannel video installations combine poetry, philosophy, activism, archival footage, sound art, and masterful acoustics to create a beautifully layered, meditative space that reflects on Britain’s colonial legacy. Akomfrah emphasises the importance of sound in his work; other artists want you to see, he urges you to listen. For Akomfrah, water carries memory, and it never forgets. And so, into this flowing river he immerses the sins of English imperialism.

The Czech Republic’s poetically titled “The Heart of a Giraffe in Captivity is Twelve Kilos Lighter” is by far one of the finest pavilions of the year. In telling the poignant story of the giraffe Lenka (much like Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar), who died in a Prague zoo, Eva Koťátková’s collaborative project implicates you for the crime of being human. A deep disquiet gnaws at your soul as you walk around the broken pieces of the giraffe’s heart.

Elsewhere, war, oppression, and political turmoil are major threads, reflecting universal human emotions tragically amplified by the sombre narratives emerging from West Asia in recent years. Increasingly a cultural outcast, Russia has ceded its prime biennale spot to Bolivia this time while Ukrainian artists get to share their traumatic memories of the Russian invasion at the Polish platform.

Pavilion of Great Britain: “Listening all Night to the Rain”. | Photo Credit: Matteo de Mayda/ La Biennale di Venezia

A bid for a Palestinian pavilion was rejected. Yet, the genocide in war-ravaged Gaza received the world’s attention—even Israeli artists declined to open their pavilion until a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas. In such grim times, can art help us grapple with the harsh realities of life? Somewhere, a pro-Palestinian poster provides an answer. It states: “Now is the time for art and poetry. For art that rejects the logic of prevailing power. Art is inherently political. It engages with society, assuming a role either in complicity or resistance.”

Tempted to dismiss this as mere hyperbole or idealism? Think again. In a world teetering on the edge, the power of art to challenge and inspire feels more urgent than ever.

Shaikh Ayaz is a Mumbai-based journalist who writes on art, films, and culture.