Venice Biennale Names 332 Artists in ‘Foreigners Everywhere’

Artists from countries without national pavilions, including New Zealand's Mataaho Collective, are among those invited to participate.

There are 332 artists participating in this year's Venice Biennale's International Exhibition, which takes place from 20 April to 24 November. That number is up sharply up from 221 artists in 2022.

Among the biggest names are Lauren Halsey, Yinka Shonibare, Salman Toor, and WangShui.

Those taking part posthumously include Frida Kahlo, Pacita Abad, Etel Adnan, and Wilfredo Lam.

The exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere, is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, director of MASP, the São Paulo Museum of Art. It will focus on outsiders, complementing the biennale's state-backed national pavilions.

New Zealand, for instance, which nixed its national pavilion this year—ostensibly due to a lack of resources—will be well represented in Venice by the Mataaho Collective, Sandy Adsett, Brett Graham, Fred Graham, and Selwyn Wilson, who died in 2002.

The Mataaho Collective will present a large-scale installation in the exhibition's first room.

'Being invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale is a huge honour,' they said over email. 'Not only has it been meaningful to be recognised by our art world colleagues, but the Venice Biennale is familiar to a lot of our friends and whānau as well, and they're very excited for us. It gives us a chance to experience contemporary art responses to current local and global realities, to meet artists and reconnect with creatives who we've spent time with in the past.'

Mataaho were leading candidates to present a New Zealand pavilion at Venice this year, but were philosophical about having missed out.

'Last time New Zealand was absent as a pavilion, Brett Graham and Rachel Rakena presented their influential work Āniwaniwa as a part of the 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale Di Venezia,' they said. 'To be in the Māori contingent alongside Brett this time around is a huge honour. It's been heartening to have Creative New Zealand support us to travel to Venice to install; we couldn't have done it without them.'

Artists from contested territories are also participating in the exhibition, including: Dana Awartani, a Palestinian artist born in Saudi Arabia; Samia Halaby, who was born in Palestine and now lives in New York; and Isaac Chong Wai, who works between Hong Kong and Berlin. —[O]