Venice Biennale 2023: 700,000 Visitors Experience ‘Foreigners Everywhere’

Around 700,000 visitors attended the Venice Biennale, which closed recently after a seven-month run. The organizers reported that 699,304 people, averaging 3,321 visitors daily, attended the 60th International Art Exhibition titled Stranieri Ovunque-Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. In comparison, the 2022 edition, curated by Cecilia Alemani and titled The Milk of Dreams, attracted 800,000 visitors.

Thirty percent of the visitors, or 190,000 people, were under 26 years old. Fifty-nine percent of attendees traveled from abroad, while 41% were from Italy. The number of visitors from underrepresented groups, such as people with disabilities, rose by 67%. Over 1,800 school groups visited, and 27,966 attended press and VIP previews.

The Biennale organizers increased social media activity this year. Posts on the @la_Biennale X page received around 16.6 million views and 498,000 interactions. Content on the @labiennale Instagram page achieved 61.5 million views, compared to 38.5 million in 2022.

Pedrosa expressed mixed feelings about the exhibition ending, stating, “It is always melancholic to see an exhibition of this magnitude come to an end, yet in some ways the journey continues.” He looks forward to the impact of Foreigners Everywhere, particularly on the visibility of artists from the Global South, indigenous artists, queer artists, self-taught artists, and 20th-century figures from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The curator for the 2026 Venice Biennale has not yet been announced. Last year, Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, appointed Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, a right-wing journalist and author, as the next president of the Venice Biennale.