The 60th Venice Biennale is an international contemporary art exhibition held between April and November 2024. The Venice Biennale takes place every two years in Venice, Italy, with some limited exceptions. Artistic director Adriano Pedrosa curated its central exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere, and 88 countries contributed national pavilions.

Background

The Venice Biennale is an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Often described as "the Olympics of the art world", participation in the Biennale is a prestigious event for contemporary artists. The festival has become a constellation of shows: a central exhibition curated by that year's artistic director, national pavilions hosted by individual nations, and independent exhibitions throughout Venice. The Biennale parent organization also hosts regular festivals in other arts: architecture, dance, film, music, and theater. The 60th Biennale runs from April 20 to November 24, 2024.^[1]

Central exhibition

Adriano Pedrosa, curator of the São Paulo Museum of Art, served as the 60th Venice Biennale's artistic director.^[2] The central exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere, is based on outsider and marginalized figures.^[3] Pedrosa was the Biennale's first Latin American curator.^[1]

National pavilions

Outside of the central, international exhibition, individual nations produce their own shows, known as pavilions, as their national representation. Nations that own their pavilion buildings, such as the 30 housed on the Giardini, are responsible for their own upkeep and construction costs as well.^[1] Nations without dedicated buildings create pavilions in the Venice Arsenale and palazzos throughout the city.^[4] Each country selects artists to show at their pavilion, ostensibly with an eye to the Biennale's theme.^[1]

There were 88 national pavilions at the 2024 Biennale,^[5] down from the high of 90 in 2019.^[6] Countries began to announce their national representatives soon after the previous exhibition closed in 2022.^[7] First-time presenters at the Biennale included Benin, Ethiopia, Morocco, Senegal, and Tanzania.^[8][9] The Holy See had participated previously but 2024 marked the first papal Biennale visit.^[10] Scotland withdrew from this year's biennale.^[11] Russia had been disinvited from the previous Biennale for its invasion of Ukraine and, with the war ongoing, did not participate in 2024 either. Russia loaned its pavilion to Bolivia.^[12]

The Israeli pavilion declined to open. As the Biennale began, the pavilion's artist and curators announced that they would stay closed until there was a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war and all Hamas-abducted hostages were returned.^[13] During the Biennale's preview week, protesting artists demanded the boycott of the Israeli pavilion with leaflets and a flashmob.^[14][15] Two months earlier, Biennale organizers had rebuffed calls to exclude Israel and Iran, including an open letter with thousands of signatures.^[16]

Highlight pavilions from the exhibition included Japan,^{[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]} Egypt,^{[24][18][25][26][27][21][28][29][30]} the United Kingdom,^{[24][19][20][21][5][28][29]} Nigeria,^{[17][24][19][22][28][29]} Germany,^{[17][18][19][31][30]} Australia,^{[17][24][18][31][30]} the United States,^{[24][25][32][22]} Bulgaria,^{[33][32][21][22]} France,^{[17][24][34][28]} and Poland.^{[18][19][25][30]}