CalArtians Selected for the Venice Biennale

Last week, the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) announced the 331 artists or collectives from around the world that will present work in Venice, Italy, from April 20 through Nov. 24. Three CalArts alums—Beatriz Cortez (Art MFA 15), Lauren Halsey (Art BFA 12), and Kang Seung Lee (Art MFA 15)—are included in the show titled, Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere.

The international exhibition was curated by CalArts alum Adriano Pedrosa (Art-Critical Studies MFA 95), artistic director of MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) in São Paulo, Brazil—and the first curator of the Biennale from South America. As a guiding principle, the 2024 edition focuses on artists who have never participated in the main exhibition (though some may have been featured in a National Pavilion or Collateral Event). 

“The expression Stranieri Ovunque has several meanings,” said Pedrosa in a statement. “First of all, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.” 

Cortez, a cultural and literary critic, a visual artist, and associate professor of Sculpture at the University of California, Davis, creates work that “explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities, and imaginaries of the future.” She has had solo exhibitions at Storm King Art Center, New York (2023); Williams College Museum of Art (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022); Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA (2022); Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Clockshop, Los Angeles (2018); Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles (2016); and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2016), among others.

Artist and activist Halsey, who recently created a site-specific installation on the rooftop garden of The Metropolitan Museum in New York, and founded Summaeverythang Community Center in 2020, is currently developing plans for a public monument in South Central Los Angeles, where she was born and raised. Her next solo exhibition is scheduled for October at Serpentine South Gallery, London.

Multidisciplinary artist Lee produces work that “frequently engages the legacy of transnational queer histories, particularly as they intersect with art history.” His art can be viewed in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, The Getty Research Institute (both in Los Angeles); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, among others. He has a forthcoming exhibition later this year at MASP.