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Venice Biennale week got off to a heart warming start at a dinner co-hosted last night by the event’s artistic director, Adriano Pedrosa, at La Caravella—with patrons extraordinaire Pamela Joyner and Fred Giuffrida—for more than 100 of the artists showing in his Biennale exhibition Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere. Most of the intergenerational, global crew present—who included Barbara Sanchez-Kane, Gabrielle Goliath, Louis Fratino, Mataaho Collective, Leilah Babirye, MAHKU and Lydia Ourahmane—had not shown in Venice or met each other before, and the dinner offered a welcome chance for everyone to get together and enjoy some downtime and a square meal before the madness of the approaching week unfolds.The evening was further enhanced by a surprise emotional speech by Pedrosa’s old friend and fellow Cal Arts student Mark Bradford (one of the few artists present who is no stranger to Venice, having represented the US in 2017). Bradford fondly remembered his old pal from their college days as being “really, really fine and really, really serious; he was always in the library—and the gym!” He also paid tribute to Pedrosa’s “generosity and quiet power to change things” a comment that prompted whoops of approval from the crowd of Venice first-timers, many of whom are from the Global South. For his part, Pedrosa described the Biennale as “an intense marathon” and advised the newbies to “Wear comfortable sneakers”. Amen, and now let the Biennale begin…
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