Venice Biennale 2024: Photography Review
The Venice Biennale 2024 is centred around the theme Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. It is an interesting theme, as the idea behind it is to showcase artists and their works based on media that they practise in, and not necessarily the country or race they belong to — focusing on how all of us are foreigners in our homelands and elsewhere.
The photography section of the Venice Biennale 2024 focuses on many interesting narrative, some of the remarkable ones are listed below:
Peter Hujar’s ‘Portraits in Life and Death’
Curated by Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Peter Hujar Foundation presents the complete works of Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life and Death series. It consists of 41 photographs that Hujar clicked in his lifetime.
Image courtesy: The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Image courtesy The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Pablo Delano’s ‘The Museum of the Old Colony’
The Museum of the Old Colony comprises an archival installation that showcases the US’s exploitation of Puerto Rico. On view are black and white images depicting the torture inflicted by the American military and the destruction caused to the socio-economic fabric of Puerto Rican culture.
Image courtesy: The Museum of Old Colony
The ‘South West Bank’
South West Bank is a standalone biennale exhibition featuring artists from Palestine (and allies). It consists of video and photo installations that emphasise rootedness of Palestinians to their land. Artist Adam Broomberg and activist Rafael González showcase four life-size photographs of ancient olive trees that serve as the metaphor for resistance and change.
Image courtesy: Arts & Allies
River Claure’s ‘Warawar Wawa’
Bolivian photographer River Claure creates an alternative vision of his country’s identity through his photographs, one that is not stereotypical and takes into account the evolution of his home country into the modern world. The show is about Andean mining groups and their heterogeneous identity. It embraces the mark of the West on their culture, but also shows how they have been conscious of their Bolivian roots.
Image courtesy: River Claure
Elmear Walshe’s ‘Romantic Ireland’
Elmear’s work looks at the politics existing amongst building community or the meitheal that includes gangs of workers, neighbours, friends and family who work together. It highlights the traditional manner of labour-intensive constructional activities.
Image courtesy: Faolán Carey
Robert Zhao Renhui’s ‘Seeing Forest’
Robert Zhao Renhui’s exhibition is a representation of Singapore at the Venice Biennale. The display comprises a mystifying forest existing somewhere between reality and imagination and spans areas between urban and wild areas.
Image courtesy: Singapore Art Museum
Text by Shalini Passi
Image Courtesy: The Peter Hujar Archive/Artists Rights Society (ARS), The Museum of Old Colony, Arts & Allies, River Claure, Faolán Carey, Singapore Art Museum
