Sikkema Jenkins & Co. is pleased to announce the participation of Louis Fratino in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. The International Exhibition, entitled Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, will be on view April 20 through November 24, 2024. To learn more about Biennale Arte 2024, click here.

The exhibition title Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere is drawn from a series of works started in 2004 by the Paris-born and Palermo-based collective Claire Fontaine. The works consist of neon sculptures in different colors that render in a growing number of languages the words “Foreigners Everywhere.” The phrase comes, in turn, from the name of a collective from Turin which fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s. Curator Adriano Pedrosa explains, "The expression Stranieri Ovunque has several meanings. First of all, 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."

Louis Fratino (b. 1993, Annapolis, MD) received his BFA in Painting with concentration in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2015). His solo exhibition In bed and abroad was presented at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in October 2023. Fratino is a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Painting, Berlin (2015-16) and a Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship, Norfolk, CT in 2014. His work is included in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Fratino lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.