During the conference held on February 25, 2026, the curatorial team of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia presented the details and selected artists for the Biennale Arte 2026.
Unlike previous editions, the conference focused exclusively on the theme and the curatorial framework that led to the selection of the 111 artists featured in the Central Pavilions. The 99 National Pavilions and the 31 official Collateral Events were announced one week later.
After the premature passing of Koyo Kouoh in May 2025, with the full support of her family, La Biennale di Venezia decided to carry out her Exhibition, with the purpose of preserving, enhancing and widely disseminating her ideas and the work she pursued with such dedication to the very end. Koyo Kouoh, nominated as the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Department in November 2024, already developed the curatorial project, defining its theoretical framework, selecting the artists and the artworks, designating the authors of the catalogue, determining the graphic identity of the Exhibition and the architecture of the exhibition spaces, and establishing a dialogue with the artists invited to participate.
In Minor Keys is the title chosen by Koyo Kouoh for the 61st International Art Exhibition, as specified in the curatorial text, which was sent to the President of La Biennale on 8 April 2025. The Exhibition will be realised with the contribution of the team selected by Koyo: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira and Rasha Salti (advisors); Siddhartha Mitter (editor-in-chief); and Rory Tsapayi (research assistant).
The 61st edition of the Biennale Arte is grounded in a deep belief in artists as the vital interpreters of the social and psychic condition and catalysts of new relations and possibilities. The exhibition’s composition is formed by artistic practices that open portals, that refresh and nourish, that prompt relation and relationship, that advance concept and form through networks and schools – understood freely and informally.
The 111 invited participants of this exhibition – among them, individual artists, collaborative duos, collectives, and artist-led organisations – hail from many geographies and regions selected by Koyo with particular attention to resonances, affinity, and and possible convergences between practices, even when far apart.
Koyo saw several conceptual motifs guiding the exhibition. These were not abstractly determined but rather sifted from a reservoir of art that acts deeply on the soul and mind. They brought into focus a compositional method for the exhibition, which is not organised according to sections but rather in respect of undercurrent priorities. Among these are “Shrines” – in which prominence is given to the practices of two lodestar artists while exceeding a retrospective impulse; processional assemblies; enchantment in the face of cynicism about what art can do; spiritual and physical rest opened up by the oases – the keys or small islands of artists’ universes; and finally, Koyo’s commitment to artist-centred institution building or “Schools”, in which energy and resource is directed towards a social purpose.
During the curatorial work, many ideas resonated with the literary references shared by Koyo as sources of inspiration, among them, Beloved by Toni Morrison and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, texts that connect in their evocation of thresholds between lifeworlds and temporalities and by a magical realism which deepens rather than distracts from an emotional register.
The 61st International Art Exhibition – In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh – organised by La Biennale di Venezia, will be accompanied by 99 National Participations and 31 Collateral Events. Seven countries are participating in Biennale Arte for the first time: the Republic of Guinea, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Republic of Nauru, Qatar, the Republic of Sierra Leone, Federal Republic of Somalia, and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. El Salvador is participating for the first time with its own pavilion.
The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh, – which will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in various locations around Venice. The pre-opening will take place on May 6, 7, and 8, while the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on Saturday, May 9, 2026. The International Jury will be announced in April. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will not be awarded this year, as Koyo Kouoh was unable to finalize them.
Complete list of invited artists: www.labiennale.org
Complete list of National Pavilions and Collateral Events: www.labiennale.org
Parallel exhibitions in the city: www.thephotophore.com/venice-art-biennale-2026-parallel-exhibitions-guide
