Susanne Wenger
Main exhibition, 60th Biennale di Venezia
20 April – 24 November 2024
Curated by Adriano Pedrosa under the title Foreigners Everywhere, the main exhibition of the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, in 2024 explores the concept of the outsider. “Wherever you go, you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere," Pedrosa has explained. "No matter where you find yourself, you are always, truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.” The title is drawn from a series of works begun in 2004 by the artist collective Claire Fontaine that produced sculptures featuring the words “Foreigners Everywhere” in different languages. That phrase in turn references the work of a Turin-based collective titled Stranieri Ovunque who fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s.
Pedrosa travelled to Austria in July 2023 at the invitation of Phileas. As a result of his research, he selected a series of works by Susanne Wenger for the main exhibition of the Biennale.
Wenger studied painting under Herbert Boeckl at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and co-founded the Art-Club in 1947. She travelled to Rome, Sicily, and Zurich, where she exhibited alongside Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. In 1949 she moved to Paris, where she met her future husband, the linguist Ulli Beier. In 1950 the couple emigrated to Nigeria, where Susanne would found the art school New Sacred Art. She created a large body of drawings, paintings, batik hangings and large-scale outdoor sculptures, many of which remain in situ today. A meeting with a high priest of the Yoruba religion soon after her arrival led her to become a Yoruba priestess and imbue her artworks with spiritual meaning. While her artistic achievements did not go unrecognized, her remoteness and the unique nature of her work made any significant recognition difficult to achieve during her lifetime.
Her work has been exhibited at the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles; Künstlerhaus, Vienna; and Kunsthalle Krems, Austria. She was part of the legendary exhibition ‘The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa’, curated by Okwui Enwezor, which travelled to Munich, Berlin, Chicago and New York.
This marks the first collaboration between Phileas and the Susanne Wenger Foundation.
