AppointmentDecember 22, 2022
Adriano Pedrosa Appointed Curator of the Venice Biennale Arte 2024
The Board of La Biennale di Venezia met on December 15th and, upon the recommendation of President Roberto Cicutto, appointed Adriano Pedrosa as Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with the specific task of curating the 60th International Art Exhibition to be held in 2024. The appointment will make him the first Latin American to curate the world’s biggest art biennale.
Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil) is the artistic director of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP.
“I am honored and humbled by this prestigious appointment, especially as the first Latin American to curate the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, and in fact the first one [curator] based in the Southern hemisphere,” Pedrosa says in a statement.
Before that, he was adjunct curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998), curator in charge of exhibitions and collections at Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2000-2003), co-curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), curator of InSite_05 (San Diego Museum of Art, Centro Cultural Tijuana, 2005), artistic director of the 2nd Trienal de San Juan (2009), curator of 31st Panorama da Arte Brasileira-Mamõyaguara opá mamõ pupé (Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 2009), co-curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, and curator of the São Paulo pavilion at the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012).
Roberto Cicutto, in a statement, mentioned that Pedrosa is recognized for “conceiving his exhibitions with a vision open to the contemporary.” He adds that he hopes the curator will “address contemporary art not to provide a catalog of the existing, but to give form to the contradictions, dialogues and kinships without which art would remain an enclave devoid of vital sap.”
At MASP, Pedrosa has curated many exhibitions, including solo shows dedicated to the work of Tarsila do Amaral, Anna Bella Geiger, Ione Saldanha, Maria Auxiliadora, Gertrudes Altschul, Beatriz Milhazes, Wanda Pimentel, and Hélio Oiticia. The ongoing series is devoted to different Histories that aim to rewrite and question Art History, succeeding in presenting queer, decolonial, and feminist perspectives: Histories of Childhood(2016), Histories of Sexuality (2017), Afro Atlantic Histories (2018), Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories (2019), Histories of Dance (2020), Brazilian Histories (2022).
He has recently been appointed the 2023 recipient of the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence, given by the Central for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.
Pedrosa has a Law degree from the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro and a master’s degree in Art and Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. He has published in Arte y Parte (Santander), Artforum (New York), Art Nexus (Bogotá), Bomb (New York), Exit (Madrid), Flash Art (Milan), Frieze (Londres), Lapiz (Madrid), Manifesta Journal (Amsterdam), Mousse (Milan), Parkett (Zurich), The Exhibitionist (Berlin), among others.
Adriano Pedrosa (Brazil) is the artistic director of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP.
“I am honored and humbled by this prestigious appointment, especially as the first Latin American to curate the International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, and in fact the first one [curator] based in the Southern hemisphere,” Pedrosa says in a statement.
Before that, he was adjunct curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998), curator in charge of exhibitions and collections at Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2000-2003), co-curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), curator of InSite_05 (San Diego Museum of Art, Centro Cultural Tijuana, 2005), artistic director of the 2nd Trienal de San Juan (2009), curator of 31st Panorama da Arte Brasileira-Mamõyaguara opá mamõ pupé (Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 2009), co-curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, and curator of the São Paulo pavilion at the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012).
Roberto Cicutto, in a statement, mentioned that Pedrosa is recognized for “conceiving his exhibitions with a vision open to the contemporary.” He adds that he hopes the curator will “address contemporary art not to provide a catalog of the existing, but to give form to the contradictions, dialogues and kinships without which art would remain an enclave devoid of vital sap.”
At MASP, Pedrosa has curated many exhibitions, including solo shows dedicated to the work of Tarsila do Amaral, Anna Bella Geiger, Ione Saldanha, Maria Auxiliadora, Gertrudes Altschul, Beatriz Milhazes, Wanda Pimentel, and Hélio Oiticia. The ongoing series is devoted to different Histories that aim to rewrite and question Art History, succeeding in presenting queer, decolonial, and feminist perspectives: Histories of Childhood(2016), Histories of Sexuality (2017), Afro Atlantic Histories (2018), Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories (2019), Histories of Dance (2020), Brazilian Histories (2022).
He has recently been appointed the 2023 recipient of the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence, given by the Central for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.
Pedrosa has a Law degree from the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro and a master’s degree in Art and Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. He has published in Arte y Parte (Santander), Artforum (New York), Art Nexus (Bogotá), Bomb (New York), Exit (Madrid), Flash Art (Milan), Frieze (Londres), Lapiz (Madrid), Manifesta Journal (Amsterdam), Mousse (Milan), Parkett (Zurich), The Exhibitionist (Berlin), among others.
