60th Venice Biennale | Three Austrians in the main exhibition of the 2024 Art Biennale

There are three names from Austria on the list of artists for the main exhibition of the 60th Art Biennale presented today in Venice by curator Adriano Pedrosa. 332 posts called “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere”. Also participating in the exhibition are the artists Greta Schodel, who was born in Hollabrunn in 1929 and lives in Bologna, and Leopold Strobl, who was born in Mistelbach in 1960. The works of Susanne Wenger, who was born in Graz and died in Nigeria in 2009, are also on display.

“The phrase 'Stranieri Ovunque' has several meanings. First, no matter where you go and wherever you are, you will always meet foreigners – they/we are everywhere. Second, no matter where you are, you are always real and deep inside a person “Stranger,” explained Pedrosa, the title of the exhibition that will be held in the central pavilion of the Giardini and the Arsenale and is divided into two parts: “ Nucleo Contemporaneo and Nucleo Storico. The first focuses on the works of artists in which the foreign is manifested in several ways: gay artists, strangers on the margins of the art world, self-taught artists and popular artists. She added that “Nucleo Storico” collects works from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia from the twentieth century, and is also dedicated to Italian artists in the global diaspora of the twentieth century.

Leopold Strobel has been active as an artist since his childhood and has been working in a gugging studio since 2002, “while creating his works at his residences in Poysdorf and Kritzendorf (Lower Austria) since 2019,” the gugging gallery announced today. Which Strobel created in 2016 and presented to the public for the first time in the “Locomotives Under a Green Sky” exhibition. “No one could have imagined at the time that within a few years Strobel would not only be purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for the collection, but that he would now also be a guest at the anniversary Biennale in Venice.” On view from March 3 in the exhibition “Gugging.! Classic and Contemporary Update,” a room featuring 45 artworks by Leopold Strobel. Strobel's works also appear in the show “Wonderful Places! Walla|Stroup|Vundal|Fink” which can be seen from September 12. On May 5 (3 p.m.) Gisela Steinlechner, author of Strobel's essay in the Biennale catalogue, will be a guest in the “Talk at the Museum” series of events.

Greta Schodel studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Vienna, where she graduated in 1953. In 1959 she moved to Italy, and after a break for family reasons, she resumed her artistic activity in the mid-1960s. The 94-year-old, who has been rediscovered in recent years, has already been represented at the Venice Biennale once: in 1978 in the Italian Pavilion.

Susan Wenger came to Yoruba in Nigeria in the early 1950s, where she became a “white priestess” and tried to create a connection between art and ritual. Her extraordinary life was, among other things, the subject of Claudia Wilkes' documentary Life with the Gods.