Venice Artwork Biennale 2026 declares its theme
At Biennale Di Venezia formally declares the theme 61st Worldwide Artwork ExhibitionWithin the minor keys, which can open on Might 9 and is held till November 22, 2026. The announcement, was transmitted at a press convention on Might 27, 2025, to the Historian of the Delle Colonne Sala in CA ‘Giustinian, Venice, marks a deep emotional and important second for the establishment. Just some weeks earlier than, the artwork world was shaken by the sudden passage of authorised. With the complete help of her household and in collaboration together with her primary staff, La Bienala will advance with the exhibition of 2026 solely below Kouoh’s conceptual framework, preserving and amplifying the imaginative and prescient that she meticulously modeled within the months that led to her loss of life.
The curatorial proposal of Kouoh, offered on April eight, 2025, laid the philosophical and creative foundations of In Minor Keys, a mission that he developed intensely from his appointment on the finish of 2024. This included the theoretical texts, the picks of artists, the area design, the visible id and the catalog catalog contributions exposition. With a deep conviction, on the Bienala states that the version will happen precisely as she supposed. Her legacy now lives by means of a collective effort earlier than 5 skilled figures she personally selected to accompany this curatorial journey: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter and the help Rory Tsapayi, who offered the exhibition inside the press collectively. The presence of the staff emphasised Kouoh’s collaborative ethos and their dedication to transmit their voice and intentions of their most devoted kind.
Whereas anticipation is constructed for the 2026 version, check out the 2025 architectural biennials in progress of 2025 Venice Structure accessible Right here and the final 2024 Artwork Biennale, accessible Right here.
The gardens of the central pavilion | Francesco Galli picture, Venice Biennial Curtain
Within the minor keys it takes place as a collective rating
In Keys Minor it attracts its identify and inspiration from a musical construction typically related to melancholy, improvisation and intimacy, however, within the context of the Venic 2026 artwork, it’s remodeled into the next metaphor. Kouoh thought-about a constellation of creative practices that resonate in additional quiet registers, dwelling in fugitive and fragmentary and which causes dominant narratives, however by poetic persistence. In her phrases, the exhibition is “A polyphonic gathering of artwork … Conviction and communication in a convivial group, which relies on the void of alienation and cracks.” Believed in a deep religion within the artist as an important interpreter of the social and psychological situation, the biennial proposes not a didactic touch upon world crises, however a sensory, relational and transformative expertise.
Primarily based on the references within the improvisation of jazz, the poetic of the Caribbean and the metaphor of the Creole backyard, the exhibition presents the creative apply each as a refuge and as a radical sentence. The “minor keys” seem as sonic, social and spatial metaphors for the islands of resistance, for oases, for magnificence frequencies, regardless of the tragedy. Kouoh describes a biennial during which time is recovered from acceleration, the place artwork is neither exhausted nor exhausting, however as an alternative nourishing, fortified and vital. As she wrote, “It’s no selection however to grant as Jazzman to those crucial mutations.”
Portrait of Kouuh | Pint Chluka, Coursyy of La Biinna to Venzia
This version honors the deep lack of its curator, Koyo Kouah
Initially named in December 2024, Kouoh (1967 – 2025) was the primary African girl to be referred to as curator of the Venice Biennale. It has been acknowledged globally for mental rigor and unwavering dedication to modern artwork as a political and cultural grievance web site. As the chief director and head of Zeitz Mocaa in Cape City and the founding creative director of the Dakar uncooked materials firm, he has formed platforms that amplify the ignored narratives and have re -enhanced the modern artwork infrastructure within the Southern International.
The earlier exhibitions of Kouoh, equivalent to Nonetheless (The) Barbarians (Eire Bienal, 2016) and Dig The place You Stand (Carnegie Worldwide, 2018), had been famous for his or her incisive colonial residues, diaspora and the potential for therapeutic by means of collective reminiscence. Its appointment to Venice was greeted as a defining second, buttafuoco describing her imaginative and prescient as aligned with “probably the most refined, younger and disturbing intelligence”. Though her loss of life has modified the Approach of the Biennale, her presence continues to resonate within the questions she’s going to ask in 2026 – and within the curatorial sensitivity wanted now to take her earlier than.
The gardens of the central pavilion | Picture by Andrea Avezzu, kindness of the Venice Biennial
Gaggiandre | Picture by Andrea Avezzu, kindness of the Venice Biennial
Arsenal supervised | Picture by Andrea Avezzu, kindness of the Venice Biennial
Venture data:
identify: The Venice Artwork Biennial 2026 | @Labiennale
Curator: Koyo Kouhan | @madamekoyo (Referred to as December 2024, Might 2025 died)
President: Pietrangelo Buttafuoco
Knowledge: Might 9 – November 22, 2026