Louis Fratino, Wine, 2024, oil on canvas.
Louis Fratino has been selected to participate in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, entitled Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere. The exhibition is presented in the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and in the Arsenale, in two sections: the Nucleo Contemporaneo and the Nucleo Storico. Fratino’s work is on view in the Central Pavilion, as part of the Nucleo Contemporaneo.
Exhibition curator Adriano Pedroso explains several interpretations of the expression Stranieri Ovunque. Firstly, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners—they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.
The Italian straniero, the Portuguese estrangeiro, the French étranger, and the Spanish extranjero, are all etymologically connected to the strano, the estranho, the étrange, the extraño, respectively, which is precisely the stranger. According to the American Heritage and the Oxford Dictionaries, the first meaning of the word “queer” is precisely “strange”, and thus the Exhibition unfolds and focuses on the production of other related subjects: the queer artist, who has moved within different sexualities and genders, often being persecuted or outlawed; the outsider artist, who is located at the margins of the art world, much like the self-taught artist, the folk artist and the artista popular; the indigenous artist, frequently treated as a foreigner in his or her own land. The productions of these four subjects are the interest of this Biennale, constituting the Nucleo Contemporaneo.
Fratino’s paintings and drawings of the male body and domestic spaces capture the intimacy and tenderness found within everyday queer life. For this exhibition, Fratino presents new paintings that explore the ways in which LGBTQ+ people are socialized to navigate the world as an “outsider.” This new body of work critiques the complexity of familial dynamics queer people face, beginning at childhood and continuing into adulthood. Drawing visual sources from the personal, Fratino juxtaposes the image of the family in contrast with visceral homoerotic imagery as a way to visually complicate the tensions between the two.
To learn more about Louis Fratino at The 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2024, click here.