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.
