Venice Biennale highlights: Our picks of the must-see pavilions and exhibitions

The 60th edition of the Venice Biennale is a bright, bold and boundary-breaking spectacle.

The international exhibition is renowned for distilling many of the major geopolitical issues of the moment, and this year is no exception.

Curator Adriano Pedrosa’s title "Foreigners Everywhere" is conveniently malleable, bringing under its wing topics like nationalism, displacement, marginalisation and colonialism.

Some pavilions and exhibitions explicitly confront these contemporary issues. The Dutch Pavilion did more than just reflect on the colonial art theft debate; it enacted change by persuading a US museum to return a wooden statue to the Congo for the duration of the exhibition.

The Australia pavilion’s installation is the work of First Nations artist Archie Moore and uses a gap-ridden genealogical chart to spotlight the dark, traumatic history of Indigenous Australians.

Others consider these topics more conceptually, evoking the experience of being a stranger or challenging the rigidity of borders.

The 60th edition of the event also turns the spotlight on the global south, historically de minimis in the upper echelons of international art. Pedrosa is the Biennale’s first Latin American curator and his emphasis on representation and visibility is palpable.

Here are the pavilions and collateral exhibitions you shouldn’t miss during a visit to the 2024 Venice Biennale.

There’s potent symbolism in the transformation of the normally white Central Pavilion in the Giardini (recalling the white cube that enshrines Western art) into a riot of colour. The mural is the work of a collective of painters from the Brazilian Amazon, MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin) which dispenses with Western art modifications.

“It renounces mimesis, perspective, the rules of proportion, and canonical technique, to commit itself solely to the forces of miração, the visionary experiences stimulated by the ingestion of ayahuasca during nixi pae rituals,” according to the group.

The intricate, eye-popping paintings draw on mythical narratives and ancestral stories woven into a tessellated, graphic flatlay cladding the architectural elements of the exhibition hall facade.

Inside, you find