FIVE LATIN AMERICAN ARTISTS EXHIBITING FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE VENICE BIENNALE
The voices of Latin American artists emerge strongly in this 2024 edition of the Venice Biennale. Claudia Alarcón, Julia Isídrez and Juana Marta Rodas, Ana Segovia, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger and Claudia Andújar lead viewers on a profound journey through their cultural heritage and unique artistic practices.
The overall exhibition at the Venice Biennale presents a vibrant platform, where the voices of Latin American women artists resonate with a particular strength. From Arte al Día, we highlight five projects by artists exhibiting for the first time in Venice.
Claudia Andujar - The visible and the invisible
The Brazilian photographer of Swiss-Hungarian origin follows the shadow - and also protects it - of the Yanomami, an indigenous group in the Amazon threatened by deforestation and exploitation of their lands. Andujar's documentation work was fundamental in the defense of the Yanomami territory and cosmovision. The artist composes dreamlike images that contrast shadow and light, but unite spirituality and materiality, humans and nature, rituals and routines, the visible with the invisible. The photographs create dreamlike atmospheres because it is precisely in dreams that portals open and opposites unite.
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Claudia Andujar. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Claudia Andujar. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Claudia Andujar. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Julia Isídrez and Juana Marta Rodas - A living narrative
From Paraguay, Julia Isídrez and her mother Juana Marta Rodas introduce us to the universe of Guarani ceramics, where the earth becomes alive through their hands. Heir to a rich tradition passed down from mother to daughter, Isídrez shapes her works with a deep connection to her cultural legacy, while exploring new forms and concepts. Her creations are not just objects, but carriers of stories that intertwine the mythical with the real.
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Julia Isídrez. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Julia Isídrez. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Julia Isídrez. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Ana Segovia - Ambiguity as provocation
The traditional image of the Mexican charro is subverted in Ana Segovia's work. It challenges established norms, inviting viewers to reconsider narratives about masculinity by combining elements of classic Mexican cinema with saturated colors and pop imagery. Theatricality is a key element in her work, with compositions that recall cinematic scenarios, where the characters seem to be playing new roles. Because ambiguity always provokes: it unsettles, generates new movements, overlaps.
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Ana Segovia. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Ana Segovia. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Ana Segovia. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger - Technology and tenderness
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger's installations combine painting, embroidery and three-dimensional elements, exploring how machines - a symbol of power - can be reinterpreted from a feminine and queer perspective. A heart among machines and red smoke, a futuristic space capsule with flowers in the center, a waving flag with still life. If the revolution of technology does not connect with tenderness, we will have no salvation. That seems to be the message.
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Frieda Toranzo Jager. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Frieda Toranzo Jager. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Frieda Toranzo Jager. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Claudia Alarcón and Silät - Textiles and their stories
The Silät collective, led by Claudia Alarcón, brings to life the stories of the Wichí community of Argentina through woven textiles. Traditional geometric patterns, reinterpreted in fluid forms, narrate the relationships that humans forge and break with their environment. Together with other women from the community, they work together to keep alive the traditional weaving practices inherited from their ancestors: the use of chaguar, a plant native to the Gran Chaco, which is collected, processed, spun and dyed. In this way dreams, stories and traditions are told.
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Claudia Alarcón y Silät. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Claudia Alarcón y Silät. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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Claudia Alarcón y Silät. 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere. Photo by: Marco Zorzanello. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
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