American artist Hernan Bas is set to debut a major new series of over 30 paintings titled "The Visitors" at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice. The immersive installation, created in part during a residency in the city, satirizes the absurdity of global mass tourism, from iconic clichés like the Mona Lisa to "dark tourism" sites such as Chernobyl. The works depict a procession of North American and European youths performing for cameras and navigating tourist traps with a mix of naiveté and arrogance.
The exhibition is a pointed critique of the overtourism currently straining Venice, a city that sees 30 million annual visitors compared to its 50,000 residents. By hosting this show in a city that has recently implemented a controversial tourist tax to manage crowds, the museum and Bas’s supporting galleries—Victoria Miro, Lehmann Maupin, and Perrotin—are positioning the work as a direct confrontation with the fragility of history and the commodification of culture.