11 Must-See Venice Shows to Visit during the Biennale in 2024
Julie Mehretu, installation view of Your hands are like two shovels, digging in me (sphinx), 2021–22, in “Ensemble” Palazzo Grassi, Venezia, 2024. Photo by Marco Cappelletti. © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection. Courtesy of the artist and White Cube.
As April begins, anticipation is building for the 60th Venice Biennale, often considered the most important art event in the world. The international exhibition this year, titled “Foreigners Everywhere” and curated by Adriano Pedrosa, will feature 331 artists, focusing those that explore how humans exist across boundaries—national borders as well as intangible ones, such as sexuality and gender. Meanwhile, the Biennale’s national pavilions are readying a stellar lineup of artists, many of whom are representing their own crossed thresholds. Jeffrey Gibson, for instance, will be the first Indigenous artist to solely represent the U.S. at the event.
But the “art world Olympics,” as it’s frequently called, also brings along with it a wealth of shows, both collateral events and those at Venice’s institutions that coincide with the temperature-taking main exhibition. Between April and November, the city’s museums, as well as international art galleries and organizations, take advantage of the influx of artists, gallerists, and VIPs to show world-class exhibitions, from huge artist surveys to mammoth group shows and cutting-edge takes on what contemporary art means today.
Here, Artsy selects the best shows to see between the spritzes and cicchetti.
London-based gallery Unit presents a multigenerational group show assembling an impressive roster of 19 leading artists from the African diaspora, spanning contemporary talents like Stacey Gillian Abe, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Rachel Jones, and Hank Willis Thomas, to 20th-century icons such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Romare Bearden. The featured works, including several new commissions, articulate visions of the radical Black imagination. “In Praise of Black Errantry” is rooted in themes of freedom, resistance, and cultural production beyond borders, drawing inspiration from Édouard Glissant’s concept of errantry. Curated by Indie A. Choudhury of the Courtauld Institute and hosted in the historic Palazzo Pisani S. Marina, the show promises a thoughtful, striking presentation that complements the ideas of “Foreigners Everywhere,” spotlighting artists who defy national borders and traditions.
Shahzia Sikander, Segments of Desire Go Wandering Off, 1998. ©Shahzia Sikander. Courtesy of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, New York.
Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander is best known for reinvigorating the practice of miniature paintings, inflecting traditional Persian and South Asian techniques with contemporary ideas of feminism and post-colonialism. This mid-career survey of the multidisciplinary artist is a rare chance to see works from right at the beginning of her career, such as her breakthrough work The Scroll (1989–90), alongside new works that respond to the architecture of the Palazzo. Co-organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art (which will show complementary iterations of the exhibition in 2025) and supported by Sean Kelly Gallery, this will be the most extensive show of Sikander’s work to date.
Willem de Kooning, “Willem de Kooning and Italy”
Galleria dell’Accademia
Apr. 17–Sep. 15
Willem de Kooning, Villa Borghese, 1960. © 2024 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, SIAE. Courtesy of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Willem de Kooning, Pirate, 1981. © 2024 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, SIAE. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
With 75 works, “Willem de Kooning and Italy” marks the largest de Kooning show to date in Italy, delving into the artist’s relationship with Italy and the influential experiences he had in the country from 1959 to 1969. The show highlights how the Dutch American Abstract Expressionist was shaped by his time in Italy, especially in Rome, and the direct impact it had on his work. Works on view range from the “Black and White Rome” drawings from his first extensive trip to the city in 1959, to well-known pastoral landscapes that capture recollections of his travels, to small bronzes that would inspire a pivotal series of sculptures in the 1970s. This deep dive into a consequential moment of de Kooning’s career offers a compelling, lesser-known lens through which to understand the artist’s evolution.
Alex Katz, Ocean 8, 2022. © Alex Katz / 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo by Charles Duprat. Courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac.
“Claire, Grass and Water” offers a vivid glimpse into Alex Katz’s ability to capture the essence of his subjects with clarity and vibrancy—be it a roiling expanse of ocean at night, a lush patch of grass, or a sartorially inclined figure. Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and supported by Thaddaeus Ropac, the show is set against the scenic backdrop of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where the Fondazione Giorgio Cini is located. Featuring works from 2021 and 2022, it follows the artist’s blockbuster 2022–23 Guggenheim retrospective, yet offers a fresh view into his recent practice. As the title suggests, the show includes striking, large-scale interpretations of nature and figurative works featuring “Claire”—references to the fashion designer Claire McCardell. The latter paintings, splicing together different outfits by McCardell in an almost Cubist fashion, pay homage to the simple elegance of the early 20th-century designer, who is responsible for so much of what we now understand as “The American Look.”
Installation view, from left to right and front to back, of Nairy Baghramian, S’accrochant (crépuscule), 2022; Se levant (mauve), 2022; and S’accrochant (ventre de biche), 2022; Julie Mehretu, They departed for their own country another day, 2023; Ghosthymn (after the Raft), 2019–21; Nairy Baghramian, S’asseyant, 2022, in “Julie Mehretu. Ensemble,” at the Palazzo Grassi, Venezia, 2024. Photo by Marco Cappelletti. © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection. Courtesy of the artists; kurimanzutto, Mexico City, New York; and YAGEO Foundation Collection.
Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu’s exhibition at Palazzo Grassi spans 25 years of her work, presenting over 60 paintings and prints, including new works produced between 2021 and 2023. Curated by Caroline Bourgeois along with the artist herself, the show (Mehretu’s largest European show to date) is an exercise in collaboration, featuring contributions from close friends and influential figures such as Nairy Baghramian and Huma Bhabha. Spread across two floors, the show brings the artist’s own painting practice into conversation with poetry, sculpture, film, and music, and includes artists who, like Mehretu, have experienced displacement that has influenced their practice.
© Sarah Sze. Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro.
Portrait of Sarah Sze. © Deborah Feingold Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro.
In 2013, Sarah Sze represented the U.S. at the Venice Biennale with her sculpture Triple Point (Pendulum), a precariously balanced assemblage of everyday objects that evoked the anxiety of our contemporary lives. The artist, who was also included in 1999 and 2015 Biennale main shows, is making a triumphant return to Venice with her first show at Victoria Miro’s space in the city. Two installations take over the entire gallery space as well as an apartment opposite the gallery. In the latter location, Sze will present a group of bright, splattered canvases incorporating digital and historical techniques, against a facsimile backdrop of her New York studio space. “All of the work,” the artist said in a statement, “is about being captured in a continual state of transition.”
Berlinde De Bruyckere, Anderlecht, 2018, 2018. © Berlinde De Bruyckere. Photo by Mirjam Devriendt. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Evoking the ephemerality of the human body, Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere’s anatomically influenced work is often macabre and eerie. The artist’s exhibition “City of Refuge III” (named after a Nick Cave song) continues these themes, transforming the ancient spaces of a Venetian abbey into a meditation on sanctuary and rebirth in three distinctive groups of works. In the nave, ghostly sculptures emerge from clustered pedestals, their forms veiled and hybrid, reflecting a fusion of the earthly and the divine. A second installation, set against the backdrop of the Sacristy’s historical woodwork, presents wax-cast tree trunks on metal tables, suggesting a landscape of renewal from decay. Lastly, in the monastery’s gallery, De Bruyckere responds to historical woodcarvings with a series of wall vitrines, capturing motifs in a contemporary tableau that bridges past and present.
Peter Hujar, Fran Lebowitz, 1975. © The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy of Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà.
Peter Hujar, Palermo Catacomb #1, 1963. © The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Courtesy of Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà.
For the first time in Europe, the Peter Hujar Foundation is presenting the complete collection of 41 photographs from Portraits in Life and Death—the acclaimed photographer’s seminal 1976 book. A moving exploration of intimacy and mortality, this body of work includes portraits from 1974 and ’75 of famous New York writers and artists like Susan Sontag, Fran Lebowitz, and John Waters, alongside a series of photographs of mummified bodies from the Cappuccini catacombs in Palermo, Italy, taken in 1963. Curated by the Art Institute of Chicago’s Grace Deveney, the show highlights Hujar’s profound portrayals of existence and decay, inviting viewers to contemplate the human condition.
Elias Sime, detail of The Earth III, 2024. Photo by Izzy Leung. Courtesy of James Cohan, New York.
Elias Sime, detail of The Earth III, 2024. Photo by Izzy Leung. Courtesy of James Cohan, New York.
Elias Sime’s “Dichotomy ፊት አና ጀርባ” unveils 11 new artworks that explore the intricate relationship between humanity, technology, and nature. The show is exemplary of the Ethiopian artist’s expertise in repurposing technological detritus, transforming motherboards, wires, and other computer parts into mesmerizing sculptural installations that are woven and braided together. Highlights include a site-specific work that engages with Venice’s ancient infrastructure, and a continuation of the “Tightrope” series, which reflects on the extraction of minerals used in everyday technology, like smartphones. Co-curated by Meskerem Assegued and Felicity Korn, the exhibition also serves as a precursor to his upcoming retrospective at the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf. Sime’s approach to technology is not just visually striking, it delivers a powerful message on sustainability and the environmental ramifications of our digital age.
Thandiwe Muriu, CAMO 16, 2021. Courtesy of the artist and 193 Gallery.
April Bey, It’s Not a Headband You Stupid Bitch, I Can See Hella Shit You Can’t, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and 193 Gallery.
During the Biennale, tastemaking Paris-based 193 Gallery’s Venice space will host the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos to present a group show of five women artists of African descent. Curated by Paula Nascimento, Oyindamola Faithful, and Roger Niyigena Karera, the show, like many collateral exhibitions at the Biennale, takes its cue from the main show’s theme to explore cross-cultural identity, often through representations of the Black female body. From Thandiwe Muriu’s eye-popping photography of women of color camouflaged by vibrant patterns, to April Bey’s flamboyant and audaciously titled textile collages, the works included consider what it means to fit in and stand out in today’s world of borderless exchange.
François-Xavier Lalanne, Hippopotame I, 1998. Courtesy of Ben Brown Fine Arts, London.
The first major exhibition of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s work in Italy, “Planète Lalanne” features over 150 sculptures and functional pieces by the famed French designers. Beyond their well-known sheep sculptures, the exhibition offers a menagerie of their finely crafted creations that fuse nature with the fantastical. Presented by Ben Brown Fine Arts and curated by Jérôme Neutres, the show includes rare works such as Claude’s “Choupatte” sculptures, resembling heads of lettuce with chicken feet, and one of three existing “Sauterelle” bars, shaped like a giant grasshopper. Set within the Venetian ambiance of Palazzo Rota Ivancich, it’s a prime example of the Lalannes’ capacity to bring a sense of enchantment into the everyday.
