They don’t call the Venice Biennale the art-world olympics for nothing. Even making it to half of the pavilions and collateral exhibitions is a serious feat of endurance and every art lover leaves La Serenissima regretting the many headliners and hidden gems that they somehow missed.
But there is one show that everyone pays attention to. The Biennale’s main exhibition sets the agenda in the art world, and this year’s curator Adriano Pedrosa didn’t disappoint with his mammoth selection of 331 artists from across the globe under the conversation-starting theme of “Foreigners Everywhere.”
The Venice Biennale’s first Latin American curator, Pedrosa clearly stated that his aim was to spotlight historical and living artists who have been unfairly marginalized and treated as outsiders, with a particular emphasis on queer artists and those from the Global South.
“I thought about the Biennale quite strategically,” he told Artnet Newsahead of the show’s opening. “What I’m trying to do is almost a speculative curatorial exercise. It hasn’t really been done. It’s a draft, it’s an essay, it’s a provocation.”
Now that it has come to a close, a few artists have emerged as this year’s breakout stars. Here are seven names we expect to hear a lot more frequently over the coming years.
Pacita Abad
Two decades after death in 2004 at the age of 58, there has never been more belated attention paid to Filipino-American artist Pacita Abad, one of Pedrosa’s historical heroes who he sought to bring to light with “Foreigners Everywhere.” During her lifetime, Abad was frequently exhibited at major museums in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and this trend carried on after her death until 2020, when she was exhibited at Spike Island in Bristol, England, Tate Liverpool, and at the 11th Berlin Biennale.
This international debut introduced the world to Abad’s trapunto paintings, often described as quilted canvases, that are filled with lively figurative compositions in kaleidoscopic color. It was followed by shows at Haus der Kunst in Munich and Jameel Arts Center in Dubai in 2021, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis and SFMoMA in 2023, and MoMA PS1 in 2024, coinciding with the Biennale. The Walker Arts Center retrospective also travelled to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where it remains on view until January 19, 2025.
“She’d be jumping out of her grave to see paintings [of hers] being sold to museums, and at big prices,” her widower, Jack Garrity, told Vogue.“She wanted lots of people to see her work. That’s one of the reasons I think that she painted so big—because they were meant for institutions”
—Jo Lawson-Tancred
