Adriano Pedrosa was appointed curator of the 60th Venice Biennial

Mon 13 Feb, 2023

Adriano Pedrosa is currently the artistic director of Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP. Prior to 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).

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, as well as the ongoing series devoted to different Histories: 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). In 2023, MASP will showcase Indigenous Histories.

He has recently been appointed 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 degree in Law from the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro and a masters’ 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 (Madri), Flash Art (Milan), Frieze (Londres), Lapiz (Madri), Manifesta Journal (Amsterdam), Mousse (Milan), Parkett (Zurich), The Exhibitionist (Berlin), among others.

“The choice of Adriano Pedrosa as curator of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is the result of a process that grew out of our experience of working with Cecilia Alemani. I believe it is essential to build on what emerged from the previous Exhibition (this was also the case with the appointment of Lesley Lokko, following the International Architecture Exhibition curated by Hashim Sarkis) to direct our next choice.
Pedrosa, an esteemed curator and the director of the important Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil (designed by Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi), is known for the competence and originality he has shown in conceiving his exhibitions with a vision open to the contemporary, working from an observation point of the world that cannot disregard the nature of its place of origin. Rather than restricting his vision, this has extended it to an indispensable debate so that now more than ever La Biennale might 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”, stated Roberto Cicutto, president of the Venice Biennale.