The Venice Art Biennale looks south in its very political edition

Venice (Italy), April 17 (EFE).- The 60th edition of the Venice Art Biennale is warming up to open its doors this Saturday with an edition that looks south and will be very political, as its curator recognized this Wednesday, the Brazilian Adriano Pedrosa.

The Brazilian, the first Latin American to reach the position, considered today at the opening press conference of the Biennial that the political nature of the artistic event is normal since it is an event structured around national representations, as he explained .

"Politics is always in every artistic exhibition" and, especially, in the Venice Biennale "which is the last Biennale that works with the model of national representations," said Pedrosa.
The Venetian Biennale opens its doors today for the press and on Saturday for the general public.

Asked about the political position of a Biennale in which the artist Ruth Patir has decided not to inaugurate the Israeli pavilion until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and in which the Bolivian representation will occupy the space left by Russia, the commissioner did not want to comment. a detailed assessment.
"I am not responsible for the national representations, I do not feel comfortable commenting on this specific issue," Pedrosa said.

While in an introduction at the beginning of the press conference, the president of the Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, stated: "in times of war it is necessary and urgent that the wise men, the artists, the aristocracy of thought, confront the catastrophe meeting, talking..."

The political tone will clearly mark a Biennial in which 330 artists from 80 countries participate and which is divided into two sections: the 'Historical Core' and the 'Contemporary Core', which is the largest part of the exhibition.

Both parts are in different pavilions in the Giardini and Arsenale and in open areas in both areas, where most of the pavilions are located, although some, such as the Vatican, have chosen locations other than Venice, which in the case of the papal state is a former women's prison.

The 'Historical Core' will offer works made in the 20th century by artists from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, better known as the 'Global South', a concept that brings together all artistic production carried out outside the West.

The 'Contemporary Nucleus' that focuses on the production of four types of artists: the queer artist - a word linked to the LGTBI+ community that means stranger and is related to foreigner in Latin -, the outsider artist - "on the margins of the artistic world official" -, the popular artist and the indigenous artist.

"I feel connected to all these areas, I have been a foreigner living outside my country and I feel privileged for it, I am queer and I come from a country and a culture in which popular artists and indigenous people - both in Brazil and in Latin America - have an important role.

In the 'Historical Core' there are three subsections 'Portraits', 'Abstractions' and a third dedicated to the diaspora of Italian artists in the 20th century.

And as for the artists, there is a great representation from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, a selection very focused on the southern hemisphere, especially in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala or Iraq.

Pedrosa, artistic director of the Sao Paulo Assis Chateaubriand Museum of Art, is the first Latin American curator of the biennial. His work as director of the Brazilian museum has transformed the art center until it becomes an example of plurality. EFE