Our Artists in Venice 2024

Peter Hujar

Portraits in Life and Death

Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà
Calle della Pietà
Castello 3703
(opens in a new window) www.peterhujarvenice.com

The Peter Hujar Foundation, New York, presents the first exhibition in Europe of Peter Hujar’s legendary Portraits in Life and Death, a collateral event of the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, 2024. Comprising the complete set of 41 photographs reproduced in the 1976 book, Portraits in Life and Death—the only publication Hujar produced during his lifetime, for which his friend, the critic Susan Sontag, penned the introduction—the exhibition will be curated by Grace Deveney, David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Associate Curator of Photography and Media at the Art Institute of Chicago. Hujar is renowned for photographing his subjects with penetrating sensitivity and psychological depth. Deeply embedded within the avant-garde milieu of artists, musicians, writers, and performers in downtown New York during the 1970s and early ‘80s, Hujar’s unflinching portraits captured his subjects with astonishing intimacy and vulnerability.

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Robert Indiana

The Sweet Mystery

Procuratie Vecchie
Corte Maruzzi 105
Piazza San Marco 1218/b
(opens in a new window) www.robertindianavenice2024.com

Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery marks one of the most significant presentations in Italy to date of the work of celebrated artist Robert Indiana (1928-2018), who first emerged as a key figure in the Pop art movement. Presented by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, with support from The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, this exhibition offers a revelatory perspective on Indiana’s work, focusing on the central themes of spirituality, identity, and the human condition that are key to understanding his creative evolution. Through a focused selection spanning more than fifty years of artistic output, The Sweet Mystery navigates Indiana’s use of self-referentiality to delve into profound metaphysical questions about the nature of life, and frames Indiana for new audiences. It offers a portal to contemplate his distinctive and transcendental Pop perspective as we confront our own pressing existential dilemmas in this century.
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Yoo Youngkuk

A Journey to the Infinite

Fondazione Querini Stampalia
Campo Santa Maria Formosa
Castello 5252
(opens in a new window) www.yooyoungkuk.org

Yoo Youngkuk Art Foundation presents a special exhibition of Yoo Youngkuk, a pioneer of Korean abstract art and a key figure of Korean avant-garde, A Journey to the Infinite, curated by Inhye Kim as a collateral event of the 60th Venice Biennale. This exhibition sheds light on the pivotal period of the 1960s and 1970s in Yoo's artistic journey, highlighting the transition from organic forms to geometric shapes and experimentation. Bold primary colors and subtle variations in warm and cool tones showcase the artist's endless exploration of pure abstraction. Held across three floors of the Palazzo Querini Stampalia, the exhibition features over 30 oil paintings, 14 prints, 8 drawings, and around 40 archival materials, providing a condensed and essential introduction to Yoo's life and art. A Journey to the Infinite is not only Yoo Youngkuk's second-ever exhibition in the Western art scene since his solo show at Pace Gallery in New York last year but also his first solo exhibition in Europe.

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Beatriz Milhazes

Applied Arts Pavilion
Arsenale, Sale d’Armi
Campo de la Tana
Sestiere Castello, 2169

Beatriz Milhazes is the subject of a special exhibition for the 60th edition of The International Art Exhibition, organised by Adriano Pedrosa, curator of La Biennale di Venezia. Together, the artist and Pedrosa developed a special project that occupies the Applied Arts Pavilion, part of the initiative between La Biennale and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

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Acaye Kerunen

WAN ACEL

Uganda National Pavilion
Bragora Gallery
Salizada Sant’Antonin
Castello 3496

Following her inclusion in the inaugural Uganda National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022, Acaye Kerunen has curated a group presentation for the country’s 2024 pavilion. Titled WAN ACEL, meaning 'We Are One' in the borderless languages of Luo, Oluganda, Runyakitara, and Nkore, the exhibition will reflect the geographic origins of the featured artists.

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Sonia Gomes

With My Eyes

The Holy See Pavilion
Casa di Reclusione Femminile
Calle de le Cape, 194
30133

The Holy See Pavilion presents a group exhibition for La Biennale di Venezia at the Women's Detention Centre in Venice-Giudecca, titled With My Eyes. Curated by Chiara Parisi and Bruno Racine, the show features a major work by Sonia Gomes, who will be participating in the pavilion alongside eight additional artists.

Live programming curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist—including workshops, installations, dance, cinema, performance—will enrich the project, intertwining voices and stories. Visits to the Pavilion, available by reservation and guided by detainee-guides, offers a journey that challenges prejudices and conventions, and reflecting on power structures in art and institutions.

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Lee Ufan

Janus

Berggruen Arts & Culture
Palazzo Diedo
Fondamenta Diedo
30121

Palazzo Diedo, the new Berggruen Arts & Culture exhibition space has launched with an inaugural exhibition, titled Janus, featuring site-specific commissions by 11 internationally acclaimed artists including Lee Ufan.

Taking its title from the Roman god of beginnings, often seen with two faces, one looking forward and the other backwards, Janus seeks to bridge dialogues between the past and present, East and West, with artistic interventions that respond to the space and history of the Palazzo Diedo.

Janus is curated by Mario Codognato, Director of Berggruen Arts & Culture and Adriana Rispoli, Curator of Berggruen Arts & Culture.

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118995.01 — Robert Frank, *Willem de Kooning*, 1961 © The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation

Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning e l'Italia

Gallerie dell'Accademia
Calle della Carità, 1050
30123

The exhibition is the first to explore the impact of De Kooning’s two stays in Italy, in 1959 and 1969, on his work. Curated by Gary Garrels and Mario Codognato, Willem de Kooning e l'Italia includes works dating from the late 1950s to the 1980s that have never before been thoroughly explored.

In 1959 the artist was in Rome, at Afro Basaldella’s studio, and painted experimental black-and-white works on paper, known as the Romes, and Met Alberto Burri and Cy Twombly. In 1969, he travelled to Spoleto and Rome where, at the latter, he modelled his first thirteen sculptures in clay at the foundry of sculptor and friend, Herzl Emanuel, who cast and editioned them in bronze.

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